#160 - inspiration

i guess i tend to think of myself as a guy with a plan. my days are usually planned out either according to a weekly routine (e.g. yoga tues/thurs, gym mon/wed, tennis on sun, etc.) or by my work schedule. but lately that routine has grown weary, and for the past two or three months i've found myself weary as well. a little more tired than i used to be, a little more sore than i used to be, a little more disinterested than i used to be. so this summer, instead of conforming so strictly to a weekly routine, i've decided to let inspiration take a more prominent role in my life. allow myself to be lead more feverently by my gut (after all, the nervous system located around your intestines could actually be considered a "second brain," because it performs functions that some researchers argue could be just as complex as the brain in your head... that expression "follow your gut?" it has justifiable reasoning behind it, the nervous system in your "gut" can actually make decisions that do not incorporate the nerouns in your cerebral cortex, therefore, obeying the decisions of your "gut" may be just as credible as the decisions you make with your head, sometimes even more so because those "gut" decisions are using different sensory input than the ones used by your "head decisions"). this goes a long way toward maintaining the mindset that i talked about in my previous post about expectations. instead of relying so heavily on my routines and self-established rules for living my life, allow life to flow freely and seek inspiration for daily activities in what's going on around me in the present. skip the gym and go surfing when the weather's sunny and the waves are rolling. don't spend hours trying to decide what's for dinner or whether or not i should cook or buy. take a nap when you want to. don't feel bad for enjoying a lazy day.

anyway, all this brings me to last weekend. it was the 4th of july and according to my plan, i should have gotten one day of bbq, two days of workouts and a lot of time spent outdoors at the beach in order to take full advantage of the 3-day weekend. well, i did have a fun bbq, but the next day i was feeling a bit hangover-ish so i decided to sleep until noon and skip the workout. normally that would be a big guilty problem, but the new me is taking that missed workout in stride. in fact, by taking a new view of my life and completely blanking out the day of it's original plans, i was able to welcome in inspiration. i went to home depot, bought a paint set, another gallon of paint, some painters tape and decided to make my home a reflection of my new viewpoint on life. well, okay, beginning the summer i had already wanted to finish the paint job on my place (the first one was kinda rushed, and some colors didn't come out quite how i had wanted). but i was waiting for that flash of inspiration and motivation to drive me toward finally picking a color and actually doing it.

for big projects like this, i have always waited patiently for inspiration to hit me (it seems that i just can't work up to these projects slowly) and once it hits i'm gone, man. i spent all day saturday (well, after 12 noon) taping, removing outlets, laying drop cloths, and painting until 1 am. i started by finishing off the living room. i only had one wall painted (like an accent wall), but after living with that for about 7 months i decided i wanted to paint the other walls as well, so i did that in the same color "sage gray," in some lights it looks more gray, sometimes it looks green, and sometimes it looks kinda blue:

so i thought that was pretty good and i was gonna live well with that. but darn it as soon as i woke up the next morning the inspiration bug hit me again and i wanted to completely redo the color in my bedroom. it was "green tea," but i wasn't liking it in the bedroom so i changed the entire room to "shortgrass prairie." i was afraid that it might turn out looking like poo, but i think it's not bad huh?:

i also picked out a darker green color to paint the 2nd bedroom, but i dunno, i think i'm good with the original color in that room now that the other two rooms are darker... so i think i'll put that one on hold, at least until inspiration stikes again.