A Magic Dinosaur

We've been inundated with busyness the last few weeks.  It's overwhelming to me at times to try to balance a graduate internship, mommy duties, house work, while getting even a tiny bit of time for myself and to do art.  My husband's different worlds have also recently shifted into full gear, and so we both struggle to find moments of peace and silence together or with our son to just be together with no agenda or tasks needing to be completed.  Is it just this time of year?  My internship is a part time position as a Family Counselor with families with at risk youth, and it has almost completely taken over my world right now.  Kids are getting restless and acting out more at school, which in turn fills up my client load to the hilt.  I've been doing this since the beginning of the semester and am still learning to let go of my expectations for myself in my other parts of life.  My son goes to less play dates at parks and more play times in the backyard, dishes arent done everyday, laundry will pile up until I can get to it on the weekend, I have neglected my friendships, and my paints... well they sit still and beg me to ignore everything else and just spend time alone with them.   I know that this season of fullness will pass and space and time to stretch and breathe will come soon, but sometimes I just want to walk away and say "who needs a graduate degree to be an artist anyway?"  But sometimes, little windows of joy peek through the overbooked schedule and magic happens.  Like what happened last Wednesday when I was home with my son for the morning and he held up a pencil and asked if I could make a dinosaur picture for him.  "Oh yes!" I said, "and we can do better than just a silly old pencil."  I pulled out lots of art supplies and piled them onto his old plastic picnic table, and we covered our arms, hands, (a bit of our faces) with paint as we created together.

How do you get your art fix during your busy schedule?