Category: Procrastination

#1303 theoldmortuary ponders

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Procrastination, Scrag End of SummerLeave a comment

My feet, and the rest of me woke up at a normalish time 6:00 and needed a light on.  Wind and rain outside, but not quite visible.  Sunrise was at 6:24 today.  Another sure sign that the ‘scrag end of summer’ is fully established in these parts. At this time of day I am accustomed to considering an early dog walk to avoid the heat of the day. Today the consideration is rain avoidance. Hurricane Erin is the cause of our disturbed weather, she is heading to our shores in a less powerful but still disruptive way.

Among my many youthful plans, being a weather forecaster was one potential career path, as was Agony Aunt. Both could easily be revived as interests in semi-retirement.I also wanted to be a window-dresser at Selfridges on Oxford Street, maybe less transferable to the dabbling level of interest that I currently operate on for the other two. One can casually offer advice to others and comment on the weather. Not always at the same time of course.But rearranging a shops window display is not something that can be dabbled at without both causing alarm and probably setting off  an actual alarm.

It must have been at this time of year, a year ago that I considered getting a little App operated weather station for our yard. Maybe I should do something about that.

Semi-retirement is like that, so much to do, so little time to do it with all that other dabbling and procrastination going on… Not to mention the weather, because here it comes.

©Kernow Weather Team

And this my friends is what procrastination looks like on the dog walk.

#1270 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Procrastination, Serendipity2 Comments

A big but belated event is occuring today. Very late into the project to create art that is inspired by the JMW Turner 250 celebrations, a book, How to Paint like Turner, will arrive.

Coupled with the discovery that my pastel store has only deliciously soft colours  lurking in its dusty drawers. Apart from the new, vibrant, kids on the block, who are not actually as fabulous as their much older colleagues. I want to paint flowers.

Is there any jeopardy to this book arriving? Of course there is! I am the woman who always wanted to study anything but the thing I should be studying.  So creatively there is now an annoying little worm in my head that is telling me to paint flowers. Mr JMW Turner did not paint flowers.

This worm is an old associate. When I should have been reading this many years ago.

He told me to leave my books and go to the Tate and study the works of Mr JMW Turner. Which I did.

Now I actually need to study Mr JMW Turner the worm calls my mind elsewhere. This morning I am thrilled to look at this physics book as if it is an old friend. The words, essential at the time, beguiling me because they are part forgotten or so embedded in me that I no longer notice them.

Of course the worm is actually procrastination. Something I am particularly adept at, and curiously good at concentrating on. Happy Sunday.

#1239 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Footling About, Procrastination1 Comment
Figs in Space.

There has been some footling about this week.

In my hierarchy of work needs there are 3 stages. Procrastination, diligent effort and footling about.

Procrastination delays essential diligence and footling fills the gaps when the diligence cannot be undertaken.

Figs in Space is the product of footling at the end of the day. I had had a really busy day of admin and meetings. I also need to get ready for an exhibition which starts next week. My diligence in framing and mounting artwork had come to a stop because,unusually for this modern era the mounting kits I had ordered had been delayed in the delivery chain.

I was footling about with many pictures of figs.

The title Figs in Space came to me because my three-year-old son used to shout or use those words constantly after watching the Muppets. Figs in Space was a war cry, the equivalent of adult swearing and sometimes just used as words of exasperation when his three-year-old world was not going in the direction he needed.

Pigs in Space https://g.co/kgs/wM6iY3x

In truth I was using the last of my creative energy on figs because the admin tasks of the day had drained me. Although the meeting was very positive and possibly the cause of my late spike of diligence which had finished me off.

The parcel of mounts arrived just as the sun set. It remains on the floor unopened. Figs in Space was my last work of the day. Even if it was just footling about.

#1229 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Procrastination, Serendipity1 Comment

My phone is my on-the-go note book. Photographs and screenshots remind me of all sorts of thoughts that need to be followed up. I try to clear up my archive on a regular basis, trying really hard not to delete any gems. I have also been having a radical digital Spring Clean of the images stored on my phone. Only time will tell if I have been too brutal.

Monday started bright and early with a swim with the bobbers.

A new bobber joined us, the first in a long time to commit to regular bobbing after her first dip in Firestone Bay. She is wearing the green hat. Brave to join us when the water is almost at its coldest of the year. Brave to agree to join the  Bobbers WhatsApp group which carries eclectic messages, only 50% of them stick to the topic of cold water swimming.

I took photos for stereotactic image making later in the day.

The exhibition season is nipping at my procrastinating ankles.

My evening was spent making images as above. Walking my dogs and finding the most beautiful Magnolias and watching TV and finding a friend on screen.

The rest of the undocumented day passed off without need for notes or photographs. Happily all dull tasks and domestic admin were achieved with a sense of a list well achieved.

#1197 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn pondering, Procrastination1 Comment

Monday’s blogs are either early or late. Not because I am sleeping on the job like this sloth. Mondays we do childcare and choose not to be on our phones when she is around.  So a blog is written early or late.

This is the late variety while our small person sleeps. I love this picture from a friend’s recent holiday in Costa Rica.

I am very fond of sloths and envious of their lifestyle under normal circumstances.

But dozing like a sloth in a tree and proper pondering is not for me today.

Normal service tomorrow.

#1161 theoldmortuary ponders.

On By theoldmortuary.designIn Procrastination, Serendipity, Words2 Comments

Bring on the Winter lights.

Life is what happens whilst we are making plans.

Life rather joyfully overtook the plans for a De-Christmas of our house.

Significantly I remembered that I had also Christmassed up the Tennis Club Clubhouse. She who puts it up inevitably has to take it down, so my morning was spent removing twinkle and baubles from a community space. This led to many lovely conversations with people, both familiar and unfamiliar, around the club. 

What I did not achieve was any sort of real Christmas progress at home.

But I did remove one set of lights from a live tree and reposition them in old turquoise coloured glasses to give our whale some greenish winter lights for his shelf unit.

The live tree needed to be settled into the yard . Which required more footling about, which took time .

Then planned friends came round ,and still the actual Christmas Tree stands resplendent in baubles and red lights until 4pm arrived and we had to go out.

Definitely a day when procrastination and circumstance won. I have decided that De-Christmasing is actually a whole weekend project.

Less footling more action.