Choices

Sometimes I find it’s all about choices. I have been known to tell my kids – Life is a sum of your choices. Yes, even my six year old hears that. Can’t start ‘um too young.

Choices have been harder lately – I haven’t been able to fit it all in. That happens around here from time to time, when the schedule just gets TOO packed. Choices need to be made. What are the priorities?… What HAS to be done?… What can wait??

We’re adding guest accommodations to our gallery, beginning this summer. And we want it to be nice – real nice. That means I’ve been testing shower heads and mattresses (very important things to overnight guests!), hunting for great antiques, purchasing furnishings, etc. It takes time.

A corner of the Gallery Bath.

The Gallery with some new furnishings for our guests.

Both John and I have been invited into the Clymer Museum of Art exhibition, in Washington, this spring. They need images of our work that we’ll be submitting soon. It’s a fabulous show and we want to submit our best work. That takes time.

We’re creating lots of wonderful lighting pieces, from sconces and table lamps to pendants and chandeliers, for a client on Lake Champlain in Vermont. We want it to be gorgeous for their new home. Time, more time.

I paint at the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center weekly –  I carve time out of the schedule for an appointment every week.  A combination of Yellowstone history and painting too – how lucky I am to have that available to me. Can’t miss it! So I set aside some time.

My current project at the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center....

Bear #264 - A very famous grizzly bear in Yellowstone history - in the collection of the Yellowstone Heritage and Research Center.

Bear #264 study - 9" x 12" Oil
by Shirl Ireland

Click here for more info on grizzlies in Yellowstone with a section devoted to Bear #264

If I want to be the best painter I can be, time must be devoted to practice. Not only studio time, but plein air painting needs to get squeezed in from time to time too. Yes, even in the winter - keeps me on my ‘painting toes’. Plein air painting is like eating your vegetables - it’s good for the painter. Must be done.

And, of course, there are those short people who run around here – HIGH PRIORITY. They take LOTS of time. Had one home sick yesterday… that takes even MORE time.

New puppy in the house – VERY cute. But does need some training and attention. Takes time.

And to keep any semblance of an organized house and happy, well fed family, that takes a bit of time too – so you see what I’m getting at. My blogging may be a little sporadic through this spring. It’s just been tricky to fit it all in lately and we have a lot of upcoming deadlines...among other things! I’ll certainly be trying to keep up the posting – but if you don’t see anything for a week or so, you’ll know what’s going on around here -- Time starved. Juggling those choices of where my time must to be spent.

If nothing else, I hope it inspires you to think about, and make good choices, of where YOUR time needs to be spent. After all is said and done; Life is a sum of our choices….Choose well.

And as a reminder to fit in some ‘play time’ too – three otters swam by this morning….

Our Yellowstone Zoo -

photos out our windows....