Are you like me and love the summer, but in fact function better during the school year?
Nuts, I know. We are told to spin, twirl, laugh and dance with dogs and butterflies once schedules are lifted from our days. Freedom is sweet, don’t get me wrong. Those rigid retail hours were a reason I closed my Magazine Street store in 2011. However routine is entirely different.
I happen to really need routines and systems.
Take working out, for example. I walk my dog almost everyday on St. Charles Avenue here in New Orleans. I prefer the streetcar tracks because it’s easier on my back and joints. But, once the mercury won't budge below 80 degrees, 24/7, those of us who exercise outdoors must turn into vampires. I get up super early in the summer to be able to walk before it's dangerously hot.
So. My alarm goes off everyday at 6 AM.
If you think I then throw on my running shoes and fly out the door, you grossly over-estimate the ease of this 6 AM business.
Are you a morning person? Not me. But I need to be in order to do the things that get my day off to the right start.
I have a routine to help me keep my chickens from losing their heads and ducks in their rows. In other words, some of us need assistance getting our days launched in the the right direction. Mine requires this:
1. Make coffee (Community Coffee), stop the noise coming from the cats which means feed them and then fetch the Times-Picayune from outside.
2. Head straight to my balcony and let the day begin….
- Read my horoscope (BTW did you see my recent press in TP's Inside/Out?)
- Read the day’s Artist’s Way Daily by Julia Cameron.
- Check out an chapter my new book by Haemin Sunim: The Things You Can Only See Clearly When You Slow Down
- Write my morning pages (I was written up in Redbook Magazine years ago about this).
3. Then it's time to get moving. But first, one must marinate in sunscreen. It is in fact, my signature scent.
Now, are you ready for the heat blast?
Go ahead. Open your NOLA front door. My llasa apso Birdie (she's almost celebrating her One Year Gotcha Anniversary from Zeus' Place), at this point is unable to cross her legs any tighter and will drag me out the door.
I listen to everything and anything when I walk, but I especially love brass band music.
My favorite track for WakeTF Up and kick-ass the day is The Soul Rebels (Start It Off Right – No Place Like Home: Live in New Orleans. Be sure to get ready to shake your booty when you click on this link.
Lately, I've been that crazy lady dancing down St. Charles picking up anything shiny or sparkly. Read about my Mardi Gras Magpie Collages here.
This take-my-sweet-time-waking-up thing has become kinda essential as I plow further along in my adventure called Making A Living As An Artist. Keeping a positive attitude so the creative juices keep flowing is a priority!
The walk is key. The morning pages are profoundly effective. Horoscope - whatever. Coffee - definitely.
I’m super lucky to be able to shape my mornings the way I want them to be. I am bow-down grateful for the gumption it took to close my store years ago and dive even deeper into my non-negotiable self-employed life. Here's more about that whole blah-blah-blah.
Any-hoo...it all seems to be working because I now have a brand new creative outlet: a collection of over forty Magpie collages from all the Mardi Gras throw remnants I've picked up during my walks. I am super-psyched about them. I will be selling prints of the collages very soon. They are fun, bright, colorful and all sorts of nutty. I hope you love them as much as I do.
Be sure you subscribe to my VIP List to get first heads up when they go live here on my site. Just click the link you see in the lower left hand corner of this page.
Love,
