Meet My Friend: Procrastination

Is that you, Procrastination?
Angela Lansbury in Murder She Wrote

Most days for me revolve around my computer and involve working through reports, finding information on databases and interpreting guidelines on top of my normal management duties. Exciting stuff I hear you say. Well, believe it or not, there’s not a great deal of creativity involved in any of these pursuits. Rather than throwing a kicking, screaming tantrum and pulling my hair out about this, which frankly would only cause my colleagues to think “we need to do something about this bald girl”, I have decided that I need to foster my creativity outside of work.

For the last three or four years I have been playing around with writing. My current focus, and I use that term loosely, is writing for children. Sometimes there is nothing better than sitting down to my laptop or notebook and playing puppeteer with my characters. Inventing places, people and things is thrilling. Being able to conjure up an idea in my head and put it into a story gives me an extraordinary sense of achievement. So what’s stopping me?

Well, let me introduce you to my good old friend, Procrastination. He’s the type of friend who will knock on your door at just the wrong time and say, “What are you doing that for? Come sit on the couch with me and watch Murder She Wrote.” He isn’t the type to stand behind you and support you, but he’ll always make you a cup of tea. Even ten if you want. He’s not a planner, more a spur-of-the-moment fellow. He’s not into fitness, or hobbies, or eating well. He prefers television, surfing the internet, and any mindless activity as long as it’s not too hard. Braiding a stray strand of hair for example. Or daydreaming. Peeling dried glue off his hands…

Procrastination stops me, and probably a lot of people, from doing things that I know make me happy. Instead of jumping in there and doing it, Procrastination tells me “it’s too windy to go for a run” or “you know, you’ll have to change your shoes if you want to go into the garden,” or “I think you need more stationery before you start that.”

So if this is a quest for happiness, it is time to put this happy sapper in a box. From now on I will endeavour to stop Procrastination in his tracks and keep doing the things that I know make me happy. He means well, I’m sure, but sometimes, with him, you just need to pretend you’re not home.

Soup for the Soul

Image from allaboutpumpkins.com

It’s getting cold. We are nearing the end of Autumn and my eternally icy hands and feet are fearing the colder days to come. I’m not sure what I’m complaining about because, in truth, the winters are fairly mild where I come from. Much to my disappointment, but to the delight of my extremities, we don’t have the opportunity to make snow angels or snowmen. I’m pretty sure if we did I’d be one of those people who would have to put the carrot somewhere other than the snowman’s face…

In truth, it’s just a tad chilly here and I spend most nights with my feet stuffed into giant socks and the covers up around my forehead. We tend to have a nightly debate about how far the covers should come up the bed to avoid giant ice caverns created by my other half. It’s a debate I generally lose, but unbeknown to him I win as I am a master of stealth, i.e. I pull the covers up when he’s out of the room. Sneaky huh?

As a lover of all things food, and particularly anything that can be cooked long and slow, this is a very exciting time of year for me. Soup season! There is nothing quite so soothing and satisfying as a pot of soup bubbling away on the stove. I think half of the satisfaction comes from knowing how many vegetables have been packed into each serving. I guess the other half comes from pulverising the whole thing with my stick mixer, although there is a soup and a place for doing this.

In light of my quest for contentment, I have decided that cooking is something that I will be doing more often, so I have decided to soup up my saucepan. And no, that doesn’t mean affixing a spoiler or go-faster-stripes to the side.

There is something very therapeutic about making soup, or any slow cooked meals for that matter. The act of preparing, stirring, simmering, and of course eating, is difficult to beat. So today I whipped up (literally, with my stick mixer of course) a batch of the old faithful pumpkin soup. I add a little twist to mine with some spices which gives a healthy zing to the taste buds. The end result was a glorious, golden pot of deliciousness which I have to say tasted marvelous, in fact if I was still ten years old I would have been saying “yum, yum, pigs bum”. The best part was not only did my soul get a big, soupy cuddle, my hands got to forget, albeit only for a moment, that winter is on its way.

The quest begins!

It seems to be the hot topic of the moment: blogging. I would love to meet the person who came up with the term used by professionals, foodies, mums and CEOs alike and, quite frankly, makes me think of great muddy holes or things that live up my nose. Perhaps that was the point…

Whoever they were, I have to admire their ability to have people from all walks of life repeating this ridiculous word. Imagine if they had called them snozgrubbles. Can you imagine a table full of executives debating the content of the next snozgrubble? I like to think the creators

fun (Photo credit: hodgers)

of blogging had a bit of a laugh when coming up with the term.

I’ve always believed in not taking yourself too seriously. In fact, it is something I have always struggled to do which doesn’t always compute working in a business environment. I’ve never exactly been a class clown, but for me being serious has it’s limits and I’m all for lightening the mood at any possible opportunity. Give me puns over presentations any time.

Unfortunately, despite my best efforts, life has a tendency to draw me into the droll and dreary beast that is the rat race but it is time to rebel! Instead of bills I want thrills and instead of responsibilities I want more possibilities!

So here goes. I am on a quest to make my otherwise mundane life just a little more exciting. To find ways of squeezing some fun into the familiar. I am on a quest. Come join me!