Phew. Today the dogs I’m taking care of this weekend woke me up at five-thirty. In the morning. After I let them out and fed them breakfast (and stepped in a piece of shit), I promptly went back to bed. An hour later, one of them woke me up whining, panting, and shaking–because it was thundering outside. “She’s a real drama queen,” her owner said later. And whereas I’m glad that’s her standard operating procedure, it still kept me from resting. Thankfully, the storms eventually stopped, she stopped, and I was able to go back to bed. Until one of the dogs started whining again, of course. We’ll see how tonight goes.

Fingers crossed.

Today itself has been all–what’s the word–choppy. Like, it’s happened in small segments of time. This afternoon I had a lunch with a friend of mine (lovely), then painted for two hours. Then I came back to where I’m staying to let the dogs out (they’re on a very tight schedule), then I went back to where I’m painting, then I came back to where I’m staying to let the dogs out AGAIN.

If anyone ever asks, “Who let the dogs out?” it was me.

This evening I went to dinner with my friends Aaron and Kate and their son, and afterwards we went back to their place to watch High School Musical 2. The best part? Zac Efron–and I swear we didn’t plan this–ended up in our group photo at the end of the night. Check it out above, y’all. He’s standing RIGHT beside me. Zac Efron and I got our picture together!

But I digress.

Now it’s almost midnight, and I know that, thanks to these precious puppies, every minute I spend blogging will be a minute I don’t spend sleeping. So I’m promising myself I’m going to keep this short. Earlier today I wondered if it was even worth it to paint for two hours, or, later, one-and-a-half hours. But it was. I got almost the entire second coat rolled on. Because I want things to be “finished,” I so often want to spend hours and hours working on a project–painting, writing, reading–and yet everything gets done eventually if I just keep showing up–a little bit here, a little bit there. Hell, therapy has absolutely turned my life around, and that’s happened in fifty-minute blocks. So I know a lot can happen in an hour. This is my encouragement for the night. Even if it’s for just fifteen minutes, consistently show up for your project. Consistently show up for yourself.