All day the challenge loomed.

Today’s make something assignment was to finger paint.

How would I make time for something so out of the ordinary? So juvenile? So messy?

Finally it was 9:00 pm. I walked in from my son’s gymnastics meet and knew I had time only for action. “Jon Stewart comes on in an hour,” I thought, “and I am not missing The Daily Show.”

Fortunately, our home is rich in art supplies. Without pausing to consider alternatives or excuses, I:

• Marched to a basement cupboard and found the plastic bin of tempera, watercolor, and finger paints
• Selected four squeeze bottles of gooey, washable paint
• Trotted up to the kitchen, where I tore off a piece of parchment paper and sticky-tacked it to the countertop
• Squeezed two dollops of finger paint onto the paper—first red, then blue
• Thrust the four fingers of my right hand into both dollops at once
• Swirled the colors around and together in figure eights until most of the paper was covered in variegated hues of red, blue, and violet
• Wrote the first word that came to mind

By 9:15, my hands were clean, the paints were capped, and the artwork was a wad in the waste can. And now, just 15 minutes later, this post is complete … with 30 minutes to spare before Jon Stewart appears on my screen.

Meanwhile, I have this digital memento: