Structured Procrastination, Iced Tea and Tchotchkes

My daughter collects rubber ducks -- or she used to, anyway. As I sit at the dining room table on this beautiful, spring day, an I ♥︎ DC duck sits a few feet away, beak pointed toward the ceiling, looking every bit the optimist on this sunny Monday.

As for me, I'm feeling both optimistic and overwhelmed, and so I'm doing what I usually do when I feel overwhelmed.

I'm procrastinating.

To my credit, I'm at least engaging in what John Perry refers to as "structured procrastination." I've made three necessary appointments and I'm on my third load of laundry. Yesterday, I attacked my bedroom closet (part of an ongoing offensive on big, rectangular spaces). On Saturday, I finally filled the blank white wall over my desk and sorted paper piles so I could relocate my in-progress paperwork into a pretty container I reclaimed from my basement for just that purpose. On Friday night, I decorated the bulletin board that would grace that same wall.

A work in progress. I need to add photos to the
bulletin board and find a balance between
visually stimulating and way too much.

After I put so much effort in my office this weekend, you might wonder why I'm working at the dining room table, where I'm feeling a bit discombobulated and overwhelmed and managing to do everything but the tasks in front of me (this blog post notwithstanding).

I'm waiting for the carpet to dry.

No, I didn't go on a mad cleaning spree and shampoo the carpets. Last night, a little after 11:00, I reached for the desk lamp in my newly tidy office and christened my desk.

With a full glass of iced tea.

Sweetened, of course. Because why wouldn't I want a sticky beverage all over my clean workspace?

So today, I'm feeling discombobulated. One of the loads of laundry contains the towels I used to mop up the mess, along with my favorite slippers, which I suspect were not supposed to be washed. But then again, they weren't supposed to have iced tea dripping into them either.

In my dining room, not far from the DC duck, sits a small, decorative tchotchke that makes me smile. I'm not sure when I bought it -- shortly after I retired, I think -- but it reminds me that things like iced tea spills and sticky slippers aren't really that big a deal unless I make them so. As I was wandering around taking pictures for this post, I relocated it to my office.

Looking at the photo now, I can see that it looks a little off-balance, but that seems appropriate today. I'm sure I'll move it as I tinker with the room, but for now, I'll leave it right where it is, so that when I return to my office to work, I can keep the bigger picture in mind and not get bogged down in the small stuff. With perhaps one exception.

Full glasses of iced tea should have lids.