Sunday, January 10, 2010

The Art of Procrastination

"After"
Photos in incorrect order, showing "After"
before "Before"!

You may have noticed this (or maybe not) but I tend to post on my blog when I am putting off a job I don't want to do. The last time I posted I was putting off tackling the Christmas Decoration Removal Project (hereafter referred to as CDRP). I'm surprised I didn't post yesterday before we began the Clean the Entire House, Top to Bottom Project. (Otherwise known as CEHTBP). I guess I didn't have time to procrastinate on that job as I was joined by my children who were a great help in accomplishing CEHTBP but were only willing to work as long as the Commander in Chief House Cleaner (that's me!) was working along with them. I am happy to report that after a hard day's work yesterday, the house is cleaned and back in order again. Hurrah!


As an aside, I must publicly proclaim to those who mistakenly believe that my house is never out of order/messy/a disaster zone, bwahahaha! It's not true! Just because you don't see the pile of papers on my desk or the jumble of shoes and boots by the back door or the dust bunnies under my tea cart doesn't mean they don't exist. I'm glad my photos taken during CDRP (which really didn't show the entire scope of bedlam around here) helped to prove my point. ;)


So, now here I am, labeling books, or should I say avoiding labeling books? Our family uses the Tapestry of Grace curriculum for our history/worldview studies and we really enjoy it. I have opted to purchase most of the books required for Tapestry and it involves a lot of books. To maintain order, I have a labelling and storing system that I use on the books. Tapestry uses a four year history rotation. We are on Year four. Next year we will cycle back around to Year one. Each year gets its own color dot. Year one is red, year two is yellow, year three is green and year four is blue. I've labelled all the books so far but have Year four unit two and three to do, hence the large pile of books on our school table waiting for their labels. Problem is, by procrastinating like I did, we have read most of the unit two books and they are now scattered about the house. If I had done it promptly when they arrived before we read them, I would have them all handy and it would be so much easier. I have to hunt down Homer Price, Usborne Guide to WWII, Mr. Poppers Penguins and probably about ten more elusive tomes...


I am anticipating next year and all the following years when the books will be here, on the shelves (yes, I am an incurable optimist) waiting for us. No huge (read: expensive) Amazon shipments, no labeling, no deciding if we need the book or if we already own one that would be a suitable substitute. No arguing with an online secondhand bookseller about their faulty description of the condition of a book... Sigh... It will be wonderful.


But, back to my task at hand. We can't use the school table tomorrow unless I get off the computer and get back to work! Does this mean you won't hear from me until my next big project? I hope not. I will try not to procrastinate about anything, even blogging. Can an old dog learn new tricks? Ha. Ha. Ha. (Or should I say Woof. Woof. Woof!)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Com` on! you're the CAN Do MOM!
You can do it!

Katherine S. Cole said...

Your header is pretty! And I still don't think your house is ever messy. :D

Can do mom said...

Thanks for your encouragement! I'm breathing easy today because the job is finished. I put these jobs off but feel so satisfied when they're done.