I had fun with my daughter these last few days, but after a late night flight yesterday and working all day today, the best thing I can do to nurture my creativity is go to bed at a decent time. In her blog, The Happiness Project, Gretchen Rubin writes repeatedly about the importance of enough sleep.  One of her best posts is here, where she shares how a lack of sleep creates problems for her and tips for getting better sleep. There are multiple reasons I need to be careful about getting enough sleep.  It impacts my desire and patience with being creative, especially if I just don’t feel like doing it.  Getting enough sleep helps with other things as well:

• I’m in the middle of tax season right now, so I have to be on my best game at work.  Many decisions, large and small, are getting made all day long.  These state income tax returns are more problematic than usual due to a large divestiture that my employer had in 2013 (which is public knowledge).

• Discouragement is usually a physical issue for me.  The days I’m the most discouragement and feeling defeated correlate directly to how tired I am.  Tuesdays are generally the worst day of the week for me too.  So when I’m talking particularly nasty to myself, feeling hopeless or overwhelmed, or not coping very well with stress, I need to stop and ask a) is it Tuesday today? and b) am I just tired?  By the way, when I ask if it’s Tuesday today, it might be Monday or Wednesday instead.  Sometimes my Tuesday comes a day early or later, but it helps if I can identify that Tuesday is happening on a day when I’m down.  So Tuesday, in this context, is a verb and not a proper noun.

• I’m happier and enjoy life much more.  I’m easier to be with, it takes less effort for me to spread cheer and kindness to others, and my little corner of the world is just better if I’m in a good mood.  And a happier “me” makes for a better blogger as well.

I haven’t downloaded pictures from the weekend yet.  I tried to get some baby bump pictures, which I will share.  But my daughter isn’t showing much yet!  She finds it amusing that my friends want to see what she looks like.  Of course, she’s 6″+ taller than I am, so I’m not surprised she looks pudgy instead of pregnant as she finishes her fifth month of pregnancy.

To see everything I’m doing with my 31 Days of Nurturing My Creativity, click here.

To see what others are doing with their 31 Days project, click here.

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