collage of Endlers

collage of Endlers, originally uploaded by creativeaquarist.

I keep going back to the Endlers different strains. They are just so varied and all beautiful in different coloration. For something that was found in such small pockets of out of the way places in the world they sure have come a long way. They are very hardy little fish and easy to keep and breed. The gestation period for the females is about 23 days so you could have a whole tank full in no time flat.

I'm about to set up an Endlers Experimentation tank and put in good colorful strong breeders of known strains with some of the wilder strains and some of the hybrid strains and then just let them do their thing and see what happens. I know I am going to get some really wild fish out of this experiment. This is what is so fascinating about breeding fish...I could actually be the first person to come up with a whole new strain that breeds true and is nothing like anything that already exists out there.

It's 2:15 am and most people are safe and snug, tucked into their warm beds and I'm up on the internet looking up fish... go figure, lol.
It is just so hard to get out of this 3rd shift work ethic...I automatically start gearing up and really waking up about 10 pm even if I've been up since 6 am with no sleep and then I have to force myself to stay awake during the day because my body thinks it's sleep time about 12 noon. That was pretty much my schedule when I worked 3rd shift for all those years.

I've been trying to work my way through Julia Cameron's book - The Artist's Way...A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity. It's a 12 week course and I seem to be stuck on week # 8. I don't understand why, I have the time to to do the short writing assignments...but for some reason I just haven't been doing them. I tell myself I need to do them and then I find other things to do. It's not making sense to me. The first 8 weeks unblocked so much artistry and creativity and I've been rewarded many times over for putting in the work...so it's not that I don't see any point in it...it's just a "stuck point". Maybe I just need to rest on week 8 for awhile and still take in everything I've learned about myself or maybe I just need to be like the Nike commercial and "Just Do It" whether I feel like it or not.

One of my favorite TV preachers...Joyce Meyer says and I'm paraphrasing horribly here..."screw your feelings" just do what you know you need to do, no matter how you feel about it....because you're "feelings" will trick you into doing nothing or just resting comfortably where you are. Just go out and do what you need to do even if you are tired, cranky, upset or your hip is bothering you somewhat. You'll still have those same "feelings" even if you sit on your butt on the couch all day and you won't have gotten one productive thing done because of your "feelings" that day.

I agree with that when negative or procrastinating feelings come up...but I've learned to listen to positive or encouraging or excitement feelings when they come up. I've found if I don't put them off or kill them off ...I've had some of the best creative, productive days ever. That's my goal for tomorrow....to get back into week 8 no matter how I "feel."