Tuesday Study Day {Master’s Chronicles}

As you know, I wear many hats. Sometimes (ahem…yesterday…cough) the hats fall off and I am no good for man nor beast. Yesterday culminated in me making a lovely bolognaise and adding a little water to the tomato puree jar, shaking it and belatedly finding out I hadn’t put the lid on properly. My lovely cream kitchen is now punctuated by red tomato smears. Any other day and I probably would have burst into tears. Yesterday, I’d already done that…twice. And yelled at myself (that was when the huge container containing all the vitamins, biotic tablets, oil of evening primrose fell off my shelf and onto my head. Yesterday was the day to end all days. Everything I attempted went wrong. Not slightly wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. I could not wait for the day to end. That said, it ended on a really nice note when my mother gifted me with four audible books! Four! Be still my beating heart 💓

Yesterday was small business day. Today is studying for master’s day. I enjoy these. Actually, I enjoy every day. Except yesterday. I did not enjoy yesterday.

Today, I thought I’d take you along for the ride and write about what I get up to on a Tuesday.

Early Morning

These days I wake at six. It’s a compromise. I prefer waking early but my poor old worn out body protests at five and I actually find I am less productive. So six it is. I spent the first half an hour or so praying for the family. I work my way through grandparents, our five children and their partners (the older three all have long term serious partners/husband). It’s the very best way to start the day.

Next I made myself a fresh latte. Oh my! I love my coffee machine. It’s so old it’s going a bit rusty! I refuse to get a new one. You will have to force it out of my cold dead hands. So there.

I headed back to bed and checked emails and I posted a post on instagram. Instagram is not something I’ve ever posted in before, but I’d heard it’s good for artists. I’m starting really simple with the goal of posting a simple element from one or other of my paintings for the next 100 days. A little unexciting but doable. Once I get into a good routine with that I’ll add short videos but I’m not really sure how to do this…something for another day.

If I’ve got any time before seven, I go to my YouTube feed and watch any videos posted over night.

At seven I went for a walk with Harvey. I used this time to pray for the twelve or so people God has placed on my heart to pray for and then listen to my current audio book. I’m re-listening to Therapeutic Parents because Christianity magazine has asked me to review it for them. Once home, I feed the menagerie of animals we have and make myself a second coffee for the day and head to my studio.

Between eight and nine, I make plans for the day using my favourite academic journal. It might be academic but I use it for every aspect of my life right now. I try to make a list that is doable and reasonable but in general I over estimate what I can get done in a day 😊

Morning

The first half hour was spent on a morning meeting with my younger girls. I read Mystery of History, a science book for Abs and an art book for Becs. Then I headed back to my studio to begin my study work.

Today I was starting unit five which is Working with Diversity. The morning was spent learning about African/Carribean young woman in the UK. This unit’s chapter covered all the research available on this very specific group of people. Honestly, it was one of the most interesting chapters so far.

I had to answer four or so questions on the chapter which I did before moving onto the video lesson about Multi-Cultural Family Base (MCFB). MCFB is a project in Leith, Edinburgh, which works with children and families who are experiencing difficulties, such as post-natal depression, relationship breakdown or health issues. Many of the families using the project are from black and minority ethnic communities, and some are recent immigrants to the country. I watched the video and answered the accompanying questions.

As I always like to do try to do more than one thing at a time #superclaire I printed out some greeting cards to boost my inventory. I am so blessed to have a desk (thank you, thank you Gary for my wonderful studio) which I can study and print out stuff at the same time. I filmed the cards being printed to go in next month’s studio vlog #threeinone

Lunchtime

By lunch time, I’d been sitting in my chair for waaaaay too long, so I took Harvey out for a quick walk around the block. It’s incredible what this does for my energy levels and I can listen to 10 minutes or so of my latest audio book, which is Hercule Poirot’s Christmas.

Afternoon

The afternoon was spent on my assignment which is critically analysing an article on neuroparenting. I’ve done the work for this assignment and now just need to get it into an essay and then start editing it down to 1500 words. For me this is the hardest part. You all know how verbose my writing is!

This afternoon I focused on creating a detailed outline so I’m ready for the writing next week. I also reread and annotated the final chapter of Macvarish’s book on Neuroparenting. I’ve already read it but wanted to annotate so I can use it for my assignment now and also possibly my final literature review which I may do on Neuroparenting.

Interspersed with all of this, I helped out my fairly independent children with their school. Abs is very independent but Becs still needs input throughout the day.

Towards the end of the afternoon, I checked on my list and crossed off everything that I’d managed to get done. Anything I missed I either put on for the next day or on the same day next week (kind of depends if it’s time intensive or not).

Evening

The house is pretty quiet on a Tuesday evening. Becs, Abs and Gary go up to choir together. The older ones often go out for bar and Bible at the local pub. Lil isn’t feeling very well tonight so may stay in. After choir, Abs goes to cadets which Gary takes her to straight after choir. Busy busy!

For me, though, I tend to go back to my planner. An evening on my own is too good an opportunity to get in some extra work on my small business. My next YouTube video is going to be about my teeny tiny studio. I want to film that soon to give myself a chance to upload, edit and to add a voice over. So tonight I’m going to do a bit of planning for that. I also want to print, fold and get ready for sale 20 or so cards of each design. Oh, and I need to add the stickers to my Etsy store which I should have done on Monday but I had a horrible horrible day so kind of gave up and spent some time with my husband ❤️

As I need to do photos for the stickers and it is now dark, I shall do that tomorrow and squeeze it in somehow. The last thing I’d like to do tonight is to finish my new journal page of two little mice having a little kiss under the mistletoe. I want to get this up and printed as it will become my second Christmas card.

Then it’s tv with Gary and bath then bed, as I listen to more Agatha Christie and drift off into a deep sleep (or far more likely…dream about everything I want to achieve the next day). I wanted to put a hashtag insomnia there but I think I’ve used enough hashtags in this post already. But I still slipped it in. Clever, no?

I hope you enjoyed coming along with me for my Tuesday study day. I’m off to print and draw. See you tomorrow!