Take a break and listen

Sometimes when I'm chatting with one of my friends on Facebook, I have to tell her, "Oops, sorry.  Kitty alarm."  She's heard it often enough to know that the "kitty alarm" is when the cat is walking on the keyboard.  It's when I need to stop and focus on something else for awhile.

The Kitty Alarm at Work

When I'm crafting, the kitty alarm is when there's suddenly a cat on my paper or a fluffy tail whisking collage elements off the table with one elegant swoosh.  I could get mad, but it's better to take a break.

The kitty alarm is fairly reliable in the evening, but less so during the day.  (She's too busy watching birds between intense bouts of napping.)  When she won't do it for me, I still need to remember to take breaks and to pay attention to what other things are telling me.

My take on Zendala Dare #9

On Tuesday, I worked on a Zendala from about 4 AM to 11 AM.  There were a few breaks in there, but by the end, my hands were cramping and my thumb was tingling with pain.  What was I thinking?  There's nothing zen about working on a Zentangle until it hurts!  I do find tangling to be very meditative, but I feel like I did myself a great disservice there.

I also wonder, as much as I liked the finished project, would I have liked it even more if I'd been more mindful in my pacing?  During one of my few breaks, my eyes fell upon an altered Rolodex card by Vanne Paris and it helped me figure out how I wanted to draw one of the tangles.  What other inspiration did I miss?

Inspiration to make the Pais tangles more like cords

(Tangle info: Used the full-sized template from Zendala Dare #9 - at The Bright Owl.  Tangles used: Cruffle, C-scape, Featherfall, Floatfest, and Pais.)