November was busy too. The short days seem to leave me with little time to do any of the things I'd like to. "I'm going to make all my Christmas presents this year!" I boasted to my colleagues over lunch. "Wow!" they said. I should eat lunch alone, under my desk. To prove that I was serious about it, or at least more serious about it than I was about knitting a scarf for Andrew last Christmas (I got ten rows done, one plain, one purl, one plain, then I forgot overnight how to do purl...) I bought 10 kilos of wax and a spool of wick and two teacups with saucers. I bought 6 yards of floral fabrics and some fat quarters, I borrowed my mother's sewing machine and I spent an hour collecting pine cones (in the pitch dark) on my way home from work one evening. I've been collecting jam jars since the summer. I have more of them than you'd think.
Any of you on my Christmas list should lower your expectations accordingly.
I said that I am left with little time to do any of the things I'd like to, but that's not strictly true. I have little time to do the things I aspire to. I seem to have found enough time in November to read 3 novels, a book of short stories and the whole of the internet. I found the time to watch countless hours of television; countless only because I tell myself that it doesn't count if I only watch programmes that I've recorded. Documentaries. Subtitled crime thrillers. The Big Bang Theory.
I haven't found the time to write anything.
"Can I refurbish that old computer and take it home?" I asked my boss on another lunchbreak. "I want to write a novel." Sure, she said, just don't write it about us. I took it home and set it up in our converted attic, where it keeps the sewing machine company. I visit them both occasionally, when I'm hanging up the washing. "As soon as I have a bit of time to myself" I whisper to it, and the half-hemmed skirt on sewing table heaves an exaggerated sigh.
Any of you on my Christmas list should lower your expectations accordingly.
I said that I am left with little time to do any of the things I'd like to, but that's not strictly true. I have little time to do the things I aspire to. I seem to have found enough time in November to read 3 novels, a book of short stories and the whole of the internet. I found the time to watch countless hours of television; countless only because I tell myself that it doesn't count if I only watch programmes that I've recorded. Documentaries. Subtitled crime thrillers. The Big Bang Theory.
I haven't found the time to write anything.
"Can I refurbish that old computer and take it home?" I asked my boss on another lunchbreak. "I want to write a novel." Sure, she said, just don't write it about us. I took it home and set it up in our converted attic, where it keeps the sewing machine company. I visit them both occasionally, when I'm hanging up the washing. "As soon as I have a bit of time to myself" I whisper to it, and the half-hemmed skirt on sewing table heaves an exaggerated sigh.
8 comments:
Ohh, you are not alone. Not, not, not alone at all.
Next thing on my list: soap making.
Even when I have oodles of time, I always find myself reading a book or dinking around on the internet instead of tackling some grand (or tiny) project. What's worse is books and the internet are full of people DOING things. Making stuff. Being productive. And there I sit, reading about it.
Do write a novel, though! That's one book I'd very much like to read while putting off my list of projects.
Like, like, like!!
Cant't be arsed to write more.
How very familiar. The abandoned glue gun, jewelry tool kit, John Lewis sewing machine, 20 knitting needles, 4 metres of yellow neon lace, and 350 earring hooks all find this familiar as well.
I purchased a large amount of Barbie dolls at one stage to make awards for your "Ugly Blog Ball" awards ceremony (also abandoned.)Do you remember that? Maybe I should make you an award and post it to you. I feel like at least one project should be finished. Email me your address! (I promise I wont turn up outside your house.)
If time doesn't stop whizzing by so fast, I will scream. Stop this year; I want to get off. Honestly, I feel like October and November didn't happen at all. I have unfinished homemade Christmas gifts from last year still laying about. I've no time, no time at all, and yet all the time in the world to dick about on the internets. Sigh.
If/when kids come along, you will look back upon these days as a golden era of almost limitless free-time and wonder what on earth it was that stopped you from writing that novel when you had the chance... Good luck with it.
since writing that post i have managed to acquire:
12 more china teacups (with saucers)
gold spraypaint
3 rolls of tissue paper (assorted colours)
3 rolls of wrapping paper
4 spools of ribbon and two of coloured string
a new office chair on which to perch my lazy hole WHILE I WRITE MY NOVEL.
watch this space.
Dublinista, i am mortified to think that not only have i neglected my own creative ambitions, i've also cruelly bludgeoned yours. i would dearly love you to send me a mutilated Barbie in the post which i could then display proudly on my mantelpiece and explain with some difficulty to visitors. email me!
Gold guilt spraypaint... we'll all take a hit of that, and put this dodgy year behind us.
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