cranking up the machine

"I am the master of my fate I am the captain of my soul"

4:30 am and it's Tanzanian Peaberry Coffee time. I've checked all my emails and answered them in a timely manner. I see an appointment with a gallery scheduled for next week. A request for a phone interview. A potential commission through my Etsy site and my next two graphic design deadlines laid out well ahead of time so I can prepare. Thank you Tuesday for being so organized.

My house however looks like a hurricane hit it.

Imagine if you will a sleepy artist who has been working a whole week nonstop tearing through the house looking for calculators, photo books, business cards, display easels, tape, adaptors, buttons, prints, a hammer, a shovel (dont ask), red ribbon, pencils.....madly stacking paintings into the car, playing tetris with a 6.5 foot tall totem that didn't quite fit in the vehicle, credit card reader needed to be found...I think you get the idea. Needless to say before anything gets done today everything gets unpacked, put back where it supposedly belongs and cleaned and tidied. THEN and only then can I work on my customers commission pieces.

It's a good thing I took a break yesterday. I did NOTHING. I only dressed to go have lunch and pick up a chocolate babka before returning to pj's, my bed and some bad television. Threes Company was watched, that's how bad.

Today it's back to business as usual. My back feels slightly more human so I'll take some extra care to keep it mending. NO LIFTING HEAVY ANYTHING.

It is starting to feel like this is the starting point of the mad holiday season. Usually I am super busy around the holidays, people request holiday gift commissions and the like. So I guess I better prepare for anything. I'm going to try in the chaos today to upload my photos from the festival.

I have never felt more in control of my ship as I do right now and so far have managed to steer it through crazy storms and calm waters and stay upright. Being your own boss is one of the hardest things you could take on but definitely the most rewarding. Time to crank up the machine again...

Have a great Tuesday!

line from "Invictus" by William Ernest Hensley

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

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