06Today’s artwork: a gluebook page in my great big book. I realized today that pretty much every book I’m working in right now—gluebook, art journal, or altered book—is big. Like, much bigger than most people like to use. I like working big. The way things are going, pretty soon, I’ll be doing my artwork on the walls.

Anyway, I made myself do this set of pages last night, because I’ll I’ve been doing lately is work stuff, and that’s not good. I have piles of projects I want to do just for me, to grow, or to learn—and, as usual, I’m not finding time to do them. I was thinking yesterday that perhaps I struggle so much with finding time for personal artwork because there is no real separation of work time and play time for me now. When I used to go to an office every day to do work, and then come home and not work, it was easier to find that play time. Office=work. Home=play. Since I work at home, and often work odd hours, there is no real defined work time, or play time. I’ve tried fixing that by making a schedule, but, of course, the moment I say that I’m going to work from 9AM to 5PM, I don’t feel like working at all that day, and then get inspired to do work things after 5PM. It’s a problem.

So, if you’re wondering what the deal is with the title of today’s post, we’re having our annual blast of winter today. On Wednesday, it was almost 80 degrees here, and sunny. I was running around in shorts and sandals. Yesterday, the temperature had dropped 40 degrees, and late in the day, the freezing rain started. It rained and sleeted all night. I woke up to this:

backyard

Looks like pretty white snow, right? Nah. It’s hard as a rock, and nothing but ice. My dog walked all over it, and didn’t even leave footprints. Today, the entire Metroplex is closed, and TXDOT is telling people to just stay home, because all the roads are covered in a couple of inches of hard ice. Since we only really get winter weather for one or two days a year, we don’t have a ton of trucks out on the road to sand and de-ice. Mostly, the few trucks they have do the bridges and overpasses, and maybe the major roads. Neighborhoods like mine just have to wait until the ice thaws, which probably isn’t going to happen until Sunday afternoon. So, I’m locked in with my little dog, waiting it out, and hoping that the tree branches that are bent down to the ground with the weight of all that ice hold out for the thaw, and don’t snap, and that the power doesn’t go out.

Fun times.