Procrastination

“I like work: it fascinates me. I can sit and look at it for hours.”~Jerome K. Jerome (Three Men in a Boat, 1889).“Procrastination is the art of keeping up with yesterday.” ~Don Marquis “There are a million ways to lose a work day, but not even a single way to get one back.” ~Tom DeMarco and Timothy Lister “The two rules of procrastination: 1) Do it today. 2) Tomorrow will be today tomorrow.” ~Author Unknown “One of the greatest labor-saving inventions of today is tomorrow.” ~Vincent T. Foss

Procrastination…. I thought about what that word meant— well a couple of months ago—and got the idea to create this blog post.  So last week I sat down to write it out and decided that I first needed to break the work down.  With “pro” obviously being a prefix, I thought I’d look up the word “crastinate.”  I finally got to it a couple of days later and found out that crastinate was not a word ( I had my doubts).  After some searching on the internet I found out that the root word is actually crastinus and it is a Latin word which means:  of tomorrow.  So Pro means FOR and crastinus means OF TOMORROW so if you procrastinate it means that you are for of tomorrow!  Well how simple!  Why didn’t somebody tell me that before… Oh… I bet the person who is planning on telling me is procrastinating.

“Someday is not a day of the week.” ~Author Unknown “Procrastination is opportunity’s natural assassin.” ~Victor Kiam “Procrastination is something best put off until tomorrow.” ~Gerald Vaughan “I do my work at the same time each day – the last minute.” ~Author Unknown “Tomorrow is often the busiest day of the week.” ~Spanish Proverb

After finding out this information yesterday I decided that I would sit down and write this blog entry… you got it… didn’t get to it until today.  Even when I sat down to write the blog entry this morning I put it off until I  could gather some clever quotes about procrastination.  And, of course, you have to have a cute picture or two for eye candy, right?  Well either the internet was being extremely slow or Google was procrastinating and taking its sweet time in returning my results.  To think most of  searches are returned between .03 and .06 seconds and I had to wait .21 seconds for my Google search results to display.  I probably grew two or three grey hairs in that time… Well, I’m sure I thought about growing them, but they can certainly wait.   I was almost so disgusted that I contemplated putting off writing this post until tomorrow– AGAIN!

“Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.” ~Mark Twain “How soon “not now” becomes “never”.” ~Martin Luther King Jr. “Procrastination is the bad habit of putting off until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.” ~Napoleon Hill “Procrastination is suicide on the installment plan.” ~unknown author “If and When were planted, and Nothing grew.” ~Proverb

But now I have spiffy quotes and a couple of snazzy graphics so I guess I should make the post.  Of course they say wine gets better with aging… I wonder if the same goes for blog posts.  So… are vineyard owners natural procrastinators?  Wow, what a job!  Well I’ll think about it and perhaps do an experiment sometime in the future.  No, really!  You don’t believe me?  Well you just wait until tomorrow and I’ll get right on that thought process.

“Even if you’re on the right track-you’ll get run over if you just sit there.” ~Will Rogers “Procrastination is like a credit card: it’s a lot fun until you get the bill.” ~ Christopher Parker “I’m going to stop putting things off, starting tomorrow!” ~Sam Levenson. “Do or do not do. There is no try.” ~ Master Yoda “If it weren’t for the last minute, I wouldn’t get anything done.” ~Author Unknown

There are literally thousands of quotes out there dealing with this topic… I’ll have to create another blog post  dedicated just to the quotes. Next week. But, for now, I think that I’ll get to the work that I should have already started before I took my break.

…some days you’re the bug!

Have you ever had one of those days where things just don’t seem to be going your way?  Well EVERY Monday seems to be like that for me, and even moreso with the way my work responsibilities have multiplied lately– but, as I tell others, “hey!  at least I have a job!”  After days like today it often reminds me of, what has become, one of my favorite and most used sayings…  “Some days you’re the Windshield and some days you’re the bug!”  You can obviously tell which day is a better one for you in that scenario.  So Mondays have just become “bug days” for me. 

In searching the internet I have also found some variatons on this theme.  Some of them are pretty good and others are just good at getting the point across.  I am sure that there are many other scenarios that can be used/applied here but the ones that I have found are:

• Some days you’re the pigeon, and some days you’re the statue! (another personal fav).
  
• Some days you’re the hammer and some days you’re the nail.
• Some days you’re the dog and some days you’re the hydrant.
• Some days you’re the deer and some days you’re the B-mer.

So how’s your day going  today?  Are you having a Windshield” kinda day or are you having a “Bug ” kinda day?

 

My Son’s Lipstick

My 11 year old and my 13 year old were in a Northern Virginia Players Performance of Aladdin.  Their slightly scaled down version was called Aladdin, Jr. (Directed by Ann Eul and Kate Wittig).  High quality performances and very well done.  OK, so I’m a little biased, but that’s OK because this is a “Proud Poppa” report.

I attended three out the four showings and enjoyed every one of them.  You got to see a little bit of variety because there were two casts for the major character parts.  Each cast did a dynamite job.  I don’t have express permission to post any photos but you can see some on their website if you click here or on the link above.  The stage looked kind-sorta normal but when the lights went down, it was a Whole New World ( I knew I could work that one in there somehow).

One of the recurring themes that I kept hearing from the mothers was “Did my son put on his lipstick?”  Of course I would come back with the same response when they realized that they had just made this comment in front of another guy: “Don’t worry, I won’t tell.”  Of course I didn’t know who any of their sons were until one actually pointed it out.  I had one mother actually take the time to give a long drawn out explanations about how her son has absolutely no lips and they really can’t be seen if he does not have any lipstick on.  Being the (ahem!) logical person that I am, I immediately had the thought… well, if he has no lips, then what are they going to put the lipstick on?  This, of course was one of those thoughts that, although it entered my mind, did not necessarily have to make it to my lips.  I was successful in keeping this one in.

There was a lot of hustle and bustle and a lot had to be done, but they pulled off every performance with style.  If you’re in the area then you should try to make a performance sometime.  The next show will be in the spring, but I have no idea what it will be…. I just know it will likely be called Something, Jr.  If you are not in the area, we are reachable by Car, Bus, Train and Plane.  So, no excuses!   Don’t say I didn’t inform you.  You now have all of the information that you need because you can even buy your tickets online when they become available.  Not many folks would do all of that for you, but You Ain’t Never Had A Friend Like Me.  (Hee Hee, had to work that one in there too.).

To the entire company of actors and all who participated…. Job Well Done!

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,400 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.