And Then I Stepped in Gum . . .

Every Day a Little Death

I have a deadline in two weeks. You know how you can tell? By the way I'm working on everything but work. Another day, another more elaborate way to procrastinate. I'm sure when I was a kid, I procrastinated the typical ways -- TV, reading later than I should, sleeping, and so on. But those tried and true techniques get a little shopworn after a while. Decades later there was the computer -- solitaire, Minesweeper -- to change up the routine a litte. Then the Internet -- gotta check the e-mail, check the websites. Now I've got ICQ and blogs to spend my procrastination capital on (and there's still solitaire and Minesweeper -- and Spider Solitaire and Snood). But when my wrists get too tired to click and my eyes glaze over from staring at an LCD screen, you'd think I'd sit down and get cracking on the manuscript in my hands.

You don't know me very well, do you?

Two days ago, my brain -- all on its own, I'm sure -- composed what seemed like a simple plan and a solution to a couple of issues here in the Morgan household. You see, we just moved Ian to a toddler bed, and then discovered that while the crib sheet fits a toddler bed, he really needs a quilt or comforter of some sort. Knitted crib blankets aren't quite doing it for him now that they can fall out of the bed. And since the toddler bed is a cheap stopgap measure until we get him a real bedroom set in New York, I don't want to spend too much money on bedding for it.

Concurrently, I've been trying to fulfill Katie's sartorial wishes for dresses, dresses, and more dresses, and I'm just not seeing much at the stores that doesn't A) have "hoochie-mama-in-training" written all over it and 2) cost more than I'm willing to spend on a child who supposedly wears a uniform five days a week.

You see where this is going, don't you? (Ah, I see the crafty among you nodding your heads. The rest of you have that kind of glazed-over look Dave gets when I talk about these things.)

So of course, my brain decided that the solution to these two problems was that I could make bedding for Ian and dresses for Katie! A trip to JoAnn was all that was needed! It would be nothing to whip up a little quilt-y thing for Ian's bed! And Katie could have three dresses from the same pattern, and they'd be easy to do! And she'd be happy with them! And oh, the money I'd save!

My brain is very, very foolish sometimes. My brain conveniently forgets that these things take time, and sometimes in my life, my time is more valuable than money. Especially when there's that little matter of a deadline hanging over my head.

So the last two days have been spent "quilting" (two pieces of fabric with batting in between that are being quilted together) -- and teaching myself about quilting, because it's not as if I even really know how to do this -- and cutting and sewing a dress for Katie. And naturally there was the requisite 2-hour trip to JoAnn to get all the supplies for this.

And it wouldn't even be so bad if I didn't feel the need to jump into all of these projects simultaneously -- although that may be a benefit in disguise, given my tendency to lose essential tools in the middle of doing something. (My fabric marker, used to trace the designs onto the quilt, went missing for a good six hours today until Katie finally found in the one drawer of the apothecary table I hadn't searched. Darned 2-year-old!) But I do, and as a consequence I have a half-finished quilt, a half-finished dress, a barely begun summer sweater for me, and a half-finished knitted iPod holder sitting around the house, tempting me away from the computer. Along with the TV, books, and solitaire. I'm doomed.

Dave (hi, honey!) has done a fairly good job of concealing his exasperation with me as I hole myself up in the sewing room/playroom and sew stars on yellow fabric for seemingly no good reason. But I don't think that will last. And I do have to get to this project one of these days.

One chapter a day, that's all I ask. Better get started. Though I think I'll check my e-mail real quick first.

posted by Jennifer Morgan, at 8:36 PM