_     I've decided I need a dry erase board in the shower. I have some of my best ideas in there. What is it about the shower? Is it the water or the shower itself?
    I've got a great shower room, area, whatever you want to call it. My completely fabulous DIY husband took out our super small plastic shower cell as well as the plastic bath tub and replaced them with an enlarged shower area complete with floor to ceiling travertine and two shower heads. Oh yes. Be jealous! Two shower heads people! It's a beautiful thing.
    So the atmosphere is indeed conducive to allowing one's mind to wonder, but truth be told, I had some great ideas in my old shower too. That brings me back to the water although I'm not sold on that theory either.
    I've lounged on sun-soaked beaches with my toes dangling in the water yet my ideas then were never as good as the ones in the shower. Okay, maybe the adult beverage of choice had something to do with that, but the fact still remains that my best ideas have come while I'm in the shower.
    I'll go a step further and say that I have clarity of thought while I'm in the shower. I can completely make sense of my plans for the day, week, and even month while I'm in the shower. But the moment I step out, I'm blank. Why? Why, why, why?
    I don't know that I'll ever get the answer to that question, so I must move on to the next best thing which is to put up a dry erase board in my beautiful shower. I wonder if the super-DIY-husband can make it blend with a frame or something. It's either that or some kids bathroom markers. It'll be just my luck that the water will deflect and spray off one of my incredibly fabulous ideas, but even then, I'm ahead because at least I'll still have some notes scribbled across my shower. Then I can quickly dry off, pick up my notebook, and transfer my shower notes to a more permanent locale. Hmm, I may be onto something and I wasn't even in the shower.

_List-making is an attempt to organize chaos. I've always said I live in organized chaos, but even then I use that term loosely. I am not an organized person. To me, an organized person knows where the hidden things are. An organized person will remember there's a pack of frozen peas in the freezer. I need to see that package of peas every time I look into the freezer lest I forget it's there. In my closet, if I don't see my clothes hanging in front of me, I'm very likely to forget I have a particular garment until something triggers a memory or I find myself in need of soemthing similar and remember that I actually have that item.

Lists are for the compulsive or for inflicting pain on oneself. Why remind yourself of the things you aren't going to have time to get to? That's such a downer. I've tried the list route. I end up writing lists on top of lists or I continue adding to my list until the items left to do are three pages apart and I need to move items to a fresh list which brings me to the moment that I feel like I am spending more time staying organized than actually doing the things that need to get done. All this list-making builds and stacks on itself (quite literally) until there's an explosion and list after list floats down around me on the currents of chaos.

Rather than fretting about lost or unorganized lists, I just start over with a fresh list of things that need to be finished. I am well aware that some items may be dropped and never returned to the list, but I figure that is the universe's way of letting me know that a little bit of chaos is a good thing.

_    Laundry piles up, dishes go unwashed, dust collects on the picture frames, toilets need scrubbing, etc. A domestic goddess I am not, but I have a hard time moving into my creative place when all these things are out of sorts. One or two, even three messy items if they are well hidden, is all right. I can handle small doses of chaos.
    “Set yourself a schedule,” you may suggest. That seems like the best answer, doesn't it? Here's part of the problem. Schedules are very hard for me to keep. I don't mean forgetting a hair appointment or even a dental appointment. I mean an hour to hour type of schedule. A time management type of deal. When I finally get focused, I don't want to stop to fix a meal or let the kids out of their cages.
    Although I'm not one to wait for inspiration, a quiet mind is essential for me to easily enter my mental creative place, and that's a rare occasion. I usually have to work my way into creativity - butt in chair, etc. and when my entire world is tilted, I can't get my special door open. I can write and write and write and the rest of my world falls into disarray. Then it hits. The spheres of domestic chaos converge and I can't move back and forth between my creative plane and my everyday life; it becomes easy for me to get side-tracked and lose focus on the task at hand.
    At that point, I can't focus on the writing. I spend the next number of days doing the laundry which of course turns into needing to purge and organize shelves either in the laundry room or in a closet. Dirty dishes expose the need to wipe out cabinets and drawers. Or a quick dusting job throughout the house turns into washing floor boards and corners. Although for some reason, I don't feel the need to scrub any more than absolutely necessary on the toilets.
    But once things are clean again or “airy” as that is how it feels, I can take a deep breath and begin working on characters, plot, scene development, etc. I wish I were the type of person who could do a little each day and therefore be able to almost continuously work on my writing, but I guess that's not in my personality. So the best thing I can do at this point, is embrace my faults and somehow turn them into positives. Of course, the problem is putting that theory into action.