For once, lazing around on the couch is a GOOD THING.
Ever find that it is always just about the time you are really getting a portion of your house tidied up and lovely that you realize that the rest of the house has completely fallen apart while you were doing it?
Over the holidays, I was given the best gift from my dear hubby. All of the couches I have owned have been hand-me-downs from family or who-knows-who, and I’ve always laboured to keep them under wraps with a string of red couch covers, which eventually end up stained or shredded in one place or another from kids, cats, dogs, coffee, life. Two or three times a day, I mindlessly go to task tucking the corners back into their proper places, smoothing it out, getting it all “back to nice.”
One of the most exciting, grownup-y Christmas gifts of ever and ever was the opportunity to pick out my own couch. And I did! And it’s RED–for REAL.
So, we’ve had to do a bit of rearranging. And you know that little old-fashioned game where you move the number tiles all around to try to put them in the right order? And to get the 2 in the bottom left up to the top right you have to slide and scoot and push around a zillion other numbers to make a path? Yeah…well, that might be my house. Actually, that might be my whole life, haha!
That’s what we did last weekend. It still isn’t completely done, but we are on the right track! It’s a lot of work, but OH! The loads of stuff that we have carried off to the Goodwill, to friends, to recycle, and to the curb! Isn’t January such a wonderful time of being all inspired to organize, refresh, renew, and get back to basics? Gotta go with that energy while we have it.
Here’s the rub: Don’t go upstairs. Seriously. I took a moment to look around up there–one of those terrible “ah-ha” moments, except it wasn’t really “ah-ha” but more of “oh dear.” In our inspired fervor to make the downstairs into a vision of New Years’ reorganization, our second floor has become quite the orphan. A week of neglect compiled with “honey, just take that upstairs and we’ll figure out what to do with it when the downstairs is done” has taken it’s toll!
My work life seems to be following the same pattern. Post-holiday at the shop began with the fun of regrouping the wonderful items leftover from holiday gift purchasing. After a week or so of focusing on putting away the holiday merchandise and getting the displays all prettied up again, I had to grudgingly acknowledge the GINORMOUS task of post-holiday sales and inventory entries awaiting my attention.
Paperwork, my arch nemesis.
So guess what I did? I renewed my intentions to get my site up and running again, repair what was lost to the hackers, and dedicate myself to daily posts. I procrastinated–with great results! For a whole week.
But eventually, we have to go upstairs, don’t we?
So, this past week, I forced myself to sit in my home office every night and hack my way through that paperwork. Hours and hours and hours of data entry. I wanted to blog, to look at Pinterest, to find new artists for the shop–anything else except the endless mindless task before me. But I didn’t. I pushed through it, for five nights straight. And it’s almost done, which feels–well, when it IS done, it will feel amazing. I’m taking a little break tonight because it’s Friday, and I’m fried, and I’m rewarding myself.
I’m sitting on my pretty new red couch, and I’m back to blogging.
I’ll finish the beastly task this weekend–I have no doubt. The only thing is…There is certainly a mess that’s been piling up somewhere else!
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Good Thing 14-19/365: trudged through my least favorite task, with as happy a heart as I could muster!
Good For: My business, and my stress level! Getting nagging tasks off the to-do list will allow me the freedom to explore the parts of my business that I DO enjoy with a clear conscience and better focus!
Good Thing 20/365 : Back to posting!
Good For: Me. It’s nice to treat ourselves for thankless tasks.
