Finishing What You Start

My favorite distractions, reenacting "Little Bunny Foofoo."

Sometimes finishing what you started is hard.

For me, finishing something I've started is ALWAYS hard.  I spend the whole day doing laundry, and at the end I've got seven baskets of clean, folded laundry, and I don't put it away.

Why?

I have no clue.

And things build up.

And the thing is, I am motivated. But I think deep down inside somewhere, I'm afraid of being done. Afraid of actually finishing the task and being left with the question, "Now what?"

When I was a tween I had a poster on my wall. It was cheerful, bright yellow, with a little fluffy chick standing next to a broken egg. In plain black text it said, "What do I do now?"

I really felt for that chick.

Finishing something is gratifying, and terrifying. And it's not something I do often. It took me thirteen years to finish my BA. It I still haven't finished putting up curtains in my condo, and we've lived here for five years. I moved RH into the room she now shares with her sisters, and I never once wrote about her nursery... the most satisfying room I've ever put together.

And I'm a mommy blogger. Writing about nursery design is practically our bread and butter.

So right now I'm in a motivational slump. I'm half finished with the total house re-do (I've rearranged three whole rooms), but there are empty shelves and stacks of crap pretty much everywhere. I'm a third of the way through what I sincerely believe is the LAST re-write of my book- my motherfucking BOOK- and it sits open on my desktop 24/7, behind the iTunes window and a Skype contact list from which I'm always logged out.

And I have excuses.

The baby still has a funny marker in her blood work, and I need to take her back to the hospital for another traumatic blood draw. I over ate two days in a row and nearly re-started the month and a half of Hell my gut put me through- and have somehow emerged with no less than a few systemic infections. My sister came into town for the weekend and it was a blast. I have to double and triple check my holiday present lists. I'm still in the running for Blogger Idol, which is starting to take an emotional toll. I had parent teacher conferences. I'm teaching the kids to sing Channukah songs in Hebrew. DD puked all over the breakfast table. We have mice.

I have distractions coming out of my ears.

And distractions and excuses are funny names for each other.

I have shit to do. And I have got to get it done.

So if you see me dicking around on Twitter or facebook, if you see me raving about the latest Walking Dead or Colbert interview, try not to laugh along and throw in your two cents.

Smack on the side of my head. Say, "FOR FUCK'S SAKE! You have an empty bookcase cluttering up your dining room, you have heaps of dirty laundry piling up because all your baskets are full of clean clothes, and if you don't sweep the damn kitchen you will NEVER get rid of those mice. And most of all, SIT THE FUCK DOWN AND FINISH THAT BOOK! Or at the very least, make sure you're caught up with NoBloPoMo!"

If you need to keep this page bookmarked so you can just copy and paste, I understand.

And wish me luck.

The best distractions.