Are you a procrastinator? Do you start all sorts of projects and never finish them? I do.
Around the house at the moment are various bits of handiwork never completed. I've a hooked rug frame gathering dust in the basement, with the rug backing still on, partially finished.
I've the materials to make a completed rug, but I've forgotten after years just how to do this hooking; anyway, the special hooking tool is missing.
I've two skirts cut out, sitting in the drawer both are of heavy wool, but when does the sewing spirit move me? In summer, of course, so the skirts remain unfinished.
Right now I'm working on a needlepoint purse kit, one of those rather expensive numbers which contain all the ingredients for a really lovely pocketbook. Pop has a bet with me, though--a dollar says I won't finish it by Christmas.
Let's see, I started it last winter and still have several inches--more like a foot--to go. And I find I get a trifle cross-eyed if I do more than a couple of rows a day. That's my excuse, anyway, and looks like Pop has a sure thing in his bet. But I'll finish it, someday.
Now I'm all enthused when I purchase a particular bit of a new project to start on, to pick myself up. This I will do instead of watching TV so much, I tell myself. This paint-by-number kit will be just the thing for quieting my nerves and adding a touch of brightness to daughter's vacant room.
Home I trot with my prize, eager to begin. This last for a few violent days of nothing but brush painting, only to have the set end up on the closet shelf, ignored.
Did you ever get up in the morning fired with ambition? With breakfast out of the way you can hardly wait to start taking down curtains or cleaning drawers.
But usually, after that first spurt of ambitious adrenalin in my veins I fold up like a worn out sock about noon, with dresser drawers emptied on the bed in heaps and the living room windows curtainless.
What happened to all that wonderful ambition? Tasks which started out to be a pleasure to accomplish are suddenly boring chores. I want to visit a neighbor, make a phone call, fix my nails or bake a pie. Ambition I still have but it is rushing another direction.
I've discovered when I bite off more than I can chew, the secret is to just drop the whole business and go out for a walk around the block. Just getting a change of scene for a few minutes helps revive some of the desire to finish those half-done tasks.
After all, how many things would remain something to be done in the future without those sudden shots of enthusiasm for some project?
Now one day I can hardly wait to whip up a new sweater. I purchase needles, pattern and yarn, and get help from a friend. I get about half way through and stop--no interest, no more spark about knitting.
At least I have the needles if the knitting spirit ever moves me again.
Bored or saturated with something we do daily, we reach out for a new hobby, a change of pace. Knitting, sewing, rug making, ceramics will answer the need for awhile. Remember how you return to stamp collecting, coin gathering or that abandoned knitting from time to time.
So if you hang on to forgotten half-finished projects, chances are your interest and ambition will run full cycle and you'll complete that needlepoint or sewing, or those tasks you've ignored for awhile.
After all we all plan to finish those started projects some day. It's a matter of timing--someday.
Written November 12, 1964
One of the problems when transcribing Mom's articles from a newspaper is that sometimes parts of the article are left out, and without an original to reference, I have to reconstruct what she may have written. Such is the case with the line "Now I'm all enthused when I purchase a particular bit of..." the newspaper column ends and then the next column continues with "myself up" which makes little sense and obviously there is a line missing. So I have added this line there "a new project to start on, to pick" which, hopefully, is close to what she may have written.