I Can't Get No Satisfaction

Brief and belated again, I'm afraid. But I promise that soon, very soon, I will post not only pictures of the many things I am working on but also details on how I created them. (Not so much to impress you as to force you all to smack yourselves in the forehead and say, "That's so simple! I could totally do that!" To be quickly followed by: "Why I am reading this blog again?")

My job is still overwhelming and unrewarding (except for the financial rewards, obviously; I wish to remind the relevant deities that I am grateful to have a job in these troubled times), but it's settled down a little, enough so that my brain regularly wanders off to do other things while my hands and eyes muddle though the routine. But everything else seems to be piling up. Fall, which has arrived in calendar if not in temperature, is a season of birthdays and parties and holidays. And all the plans and undertakings that arrive with that.

It's a lot to do, but most of it is stuff I really enjoy - shopping for the perfect birthday gift, whipping up something delicious to contribute to a party, making an elaborate costume, etc. And, with the exception of internet research, none of it can be done at work. But that can't keep my brain from working on it in the background, and it's starting to drive me crazy, as I think through every detailed step of the creative things I need to be doing - then sit in my cubicle doing none of them. It's like running in place while hitting yourself in the head with an inflatable bat. It doesn't hurt, really, but it does annoy the #@$% out of you.

I make detailed lists when I think of things, of course, but there's only so much satisfaction in making lists (even for a neurotic like me) when you can't cross things off those lists. It's gotten to the point where I'm blocking out my free time by the hour on my Google calendar. Not that I really pay attention to that once I'm actually home - it's more to relieve frustration while at work, by imagining myself at home doing things I care about. For instance, I've just remembered that I was supposed to do laundry tonight. Too late now.

But I am making progress, slowly but surely. For instance, my Halloween costume is now... wait for it... FINISHED!!!!! Well, except for 4 belt loops, 4 hook-and-eye closures, and some hand-sewing to make trim lay a little bit flatter. But I could wear it tomorrow if I wanted to, and only I would know it was missing those things.

And all that's missing from one of my party-contribution dishes (recipe and photos to be posted later; it has to be a surprise at the party or it won't be as spectacular) is an auction I'm currently winning on eBay. Well, and the actual food part - clearly making it this far in advance wouldn't really work out well.

Also, just today I added two new projects to my list... wait, no, make that three. Pictures and tutorials (if they turn out really well) to follow, yadda yadda yadda...

But of course that's the danger. Given free rein at work, my brain has infinite time to come up with new and cool things to work on... and my hands have zero time to work on them. By the end of the month, I'll have twenty projects, all of them one-quarter done.

Or not. I might not have mentioned that I have something of a tendency to start things and not finish them. (This usually only applies to my own private projects; I procrastinate on other people's things, but I almost never let them down.) So I say this time, the list stops here! All projects for October are now on the list. Anything not yet listed will be politely turned down.

Let's see how long I stick to it.