Creation VS Consumption

One of the things about selling a house is that you want it to look as good as possible. So you go through and fix all the little paint scrapes and dings in the walls and all that, and your real estate agent comes in and takes pictures, and everything looks as good as it can.

But then people come to visit your house in person. And it has too look AT LEAST as good as the pictures. Which means that you have to keep it as clean and tidy as it looks in the pictures... while you're still living in it. So that means I'm on pretty much constant cleaning vigilance, and trying not to do anything that might make a mess. But to cover my butt, and because I have a dog that leaves hair everywhere, I've got a cleaning service to come in once a week and scrub the place down top to bottom while I try to get my house sold. And since they come in the morning, that means I can take advantage of that the night before by doing whatever needs doing that might make a bit of a mess.

So I was driving home and realized that I could make pizza for dinner. I make my own dough and the whole works, so it can get a little messy. But it takes about an hour and half between when I throw all the ingredients in the bread maker and when it's ready to be used. With nothing else going on for the evening, I thought I could make a quick run to the bookstore and pick something up to read while I was waiting.

BUT! It occurred to me that there was a new granola recipe I wanted to try. It's a little messy as well, so it would be an ideal time for it. Except that's really only maybe 15 minutes of mixing ingredients and then leaving it in the oven for an hour, so the idea of hitting the bookstore was still on the table.

BUT! It occurred to me that I could work on my next (as yet unannounced) book project! It's not NEARLY as long and complicated as my Blackstone book, so I think I can churn it out pretty quickly. I'd gotten all the art clean-up completed already, so it just needed to be laid out.

So I opted against the bookstore. I chose to be a creator instead of a consumer. My pizza slipped as I was putting it in the oven, so it got a bit lopsided and I didn't get all of the page layout work done that I wanted, but I still wound up spending the evening making things. It ended up being quite enjoyable, for a longer period of time, at considerably less cost.

As much as I love reading great, well-crafted comics, some days you just have to forgo them to make sure you exercise your own creativity!

Related Items craft