• It isn’t easy to stay positive when the skies are gray and overcast and the leaves are gone from the trees and my gardens are taking the winter off and Christmas is over and we’re into January. Yes, I know all about a positive attitude and, truth be told, I’m pretty positive most of the time. But some days are just harder. This is one of them. I’m also what I call ‘sinusey’ (so is Don) and that isn’t helping.

I have things to do, of course. The top priority is to work on Jane Eyre. And I’ll do that after I finish writing this post.

Anyway, enough of that. I’m sharing my current mood because a) it’s my blog and I talk about that sort of thing, and b) I know some of you suffer from the same winter blues and it might help you to know you’re not alone.

• Dove Cottage: A few days ago, I realized I was going to have to paint the window trim before I did any more of the stone work, otherwise it could get messy. I had a picture in my mind for a long time of a pale blue window trim, which I think I’ve seen in pictures of French stone houses. Never mind that this is an English cottage. I mixed up some light blue from the paints I had on hand and painted two coats on all the windows.

I hated it.

So I decided to paint over the blue and use the same color I used on the roof.

I’m not nearly a precise enough painter to keep the window trim from bleeding onto the stones, which is why I stopped and painted the trim before I add the next round of stones. You can see the pale blue in this photo. It just looked like it shouldn’t be there. Somehow, the combination of the dark gray, the stones, and the blue was too much.

I can’t wait until I get to the point where I can add the grout between the stones. I think it will make a huge difference. I have do some touch up to a few of the stones that were already next to the windows, as they have a bit of trim paint on them. Better a few than all  of them!

• I’m also working on updating my Filofax planner for the year. I sort of fell away from it in the last half of 2019 (probably because I didn’t have much coaching work) and I miss having a sense of order and structure to the day that a planner provides. Plus, it helps me to see that even though we both seem to be semiretired these days, I actually do quite a bit every day. Also, it’s a way to record the days I’ve worked on coaching jobs, the shows, when the contract started and when it ended. I also write purely personal stuff like what movie we watched, what book I’m reading, and my thoughts about them. I’ve been using planners for over 30 years and I got my first Filofax in 1990. I have an app on my phone and laptop called Wunderlist to remind me of certain things like when a bill is due, but as for planning, I function best when I have to write it down. If I don’t write it down, I often forget about it.

So I bought a 2020 calendar insert and I’m ready to roll. Don used to keep a calendar in order to remember what days he had to travel into the city for auditions, what the travel expenses were, and what days he worked. He hasn’t done that in a few years, probably because Margaritaville  took up most of his time. So he bought a planner the other day, though his is much simpler than mine. He likes a small planner that he can put in his pocket.

There’s a big ‘planner’ community out there and it’s fascinating to see how people individualize their planners. One could easily be distracted by all the photos and YouTube videos of them. Take it from someone who knows.

The Hill-Sparks household is determined to be organized in the coming year!

Happy Tuesday.