Procrastinating Christmas Pack Rats Clean out their Den
It's funny how much earlier Christmas rears its ugly head this time of year. I've been seeing merchandisers and retailers put up their Christmas stuff right after Halloween. Even before the kids can get a filling or two at their dentists' office, they're being bombarded by Christmas marketing. Kids are no longer going to look out for Santa Claus on Christmas day, but rather look for special deals on the day after Thanksgiving! I know I was doing that after I realized the dubious existence of Kris Kringle. My parents were frugal as hell, and any which way I can help them find a deal on a new toy I wanted, I was there.
Nowadays, Christmas is a pretty miserable time of the year for me. Ever since my family and I were forced to move from one house to another on Christmas Day in 1995, I've had some pretty bad Christmases. That year, my parents just realized that if they moved, they would take advantage of a Capital Gains tax break on the house they were about to sell. So X-mas was reserved for moving a shitload of crap (quite redundant, eh?) from one house to another. My parents never threw anything away. In fact, since I moved from their house in 1999, they've converted my room into a storage room. It's piled high with boxes of crap they'll never use, and never needed in the first place.
In a desperate attempt to not turn into a packrat like my brethren, Jo and I (with the help of AC), have been cleaning out out house. We've only lived in it for 5 years, and we have acquired so much useless crap! It's a work in progress, but every week, there's less and less clutter. And I'm finally feeling like I could breathe a little. Not only are we getting rid of worthless crap, we're also getting our shit organized! No more looking for bills in a pile of papers, or worrying about finding our property tax statements. It's been much more enjoyable.
Now, I've resolved even before the obligatory New Year's resolutions to work on my procrastination. I have a nasty habit of putting things off until the last minute, and it's added a tremendous amount of stress on my life. I remember in high school, how easy it was to procrastinate because everything came so easy to me. But boy, in college, did I get my ass kicked when I didn't keep up on my studying. You'd think I would learn my lesson from that, but I would procrastinate at projects at work, too. Most of the jobs I've had in the past 5 years has required a tremendous amount of multi-tasking. Ofcourse, I would always perform the easy and desirable projects first, like actual teaching. I would put off writing reports, doing mundane office work, until the last minute.
All this leads to a very disorganized life, and I'm one who likes to function without chaos. It's a battle between procrastination and organization, and the former seems to always win out. No longer. I've been taking big steps in working out my issues, including reading a handbook on procrastination, and listening to an audio tape about how to overcome it.
I think one thing that Jo cannot stand about me is my constant procrastination. So I've been trying hard to keep her stress levels down so that her endo doesn't come back with a vengeance. I can truly see how much of a toll it takes on her. Before, I had the excuse that I was really tired because of my sleep apnea. I think it's made me chronically lazy, too. But now, I've been feeling really rested and content, now that I've been sleeping with my C-pap machine. So there's no more excuses for being a lazy mf.
Well, this blog went from Christmas marketing to my parent's rodent tendencies to our fall "spring" cleaning to my procrastination. I've been meaning to blog about my procrastination for the longest time; I've just been putting it off.
Nowadays, Christmas is a pretty miserable time of the year for me. Ever since my family and I were forced to move from one house to another on Christmas Day in 1995, I've had some pretty bad Christmases. That year, my parents just realized that if they moved, they would take advantage of a Capital Gains tax break on the house they were about to sell. So X-mas was reserved for moving a shitload of crap (quite redundant, eh?) from one house to another. My parents never threw anything away. In fact, since I moved from their house in 1999, they've converted my room into a storage room. It's piled high with boxes of crap they'll never use, and never needed in the first place.
In a desperate attempt to not turn into a packrat like my brethren, Jo and I (with the help of AC), have been cleaning out out house. We've only lived in it for 5 years, and we have acquired so much useless crap! It's a work in progress, but every week, there's less and less clutter. And I'm finally feeling like I could breathe a little. Not only are we getting rid of worthless crap, we're also getting our shit organized! No more looking for bills in a pile of papers, or worrying about finding our property tax statements. It's been much more enjoyable.
Now, I've resolved even before the obligatory New Year's resolutions to work on my procrastination. I have a nasty habit of putting things off until the last minute, and it's added a tremendous amount of stress on my life. I remember in high school, how easy it was to procrastinate because everything came so easy to me. But boy, in college, did I get my ass kicked when I didn't keep up on my studying. You'd think I would learn my lesson from that, but I would procrastinate at projects at work, too. Most of the jobs I've had in the past 5 years has required a tremendous amount of multi-tasking. Ofcourse, I would always perform the easy and desirable projects first, like actual teaching. I would put off writing reports, doing mundane office work, until the last minute.
All this leads to a very disorganized life, and I'm one who likes to function without chaos. It's a battle between procrastination and organization, and the former seems to always win out. No longer. I've been taking big steps in working out my issues, including reading a handbook on procrastination, and listening to an audio tape about how to overcome it.
I think one thing that Jo cannot stand about me is my constant procrastination. So I've been trying hard to keep her stress levels down so that her endo doesn't come back with a vengeance. I can truly see how much of a toll it takes on her. Before, I had the excuse that I was really tired because of my sleep apnea. I think it's made me chronically lazy, too. But now, I've been feeling really rested and content, now that I've been sleeping with my C-pap machine. So there's no more excuses for being a lazy mf.
Well, this blog went from Christmas marketing to my parent's rodent tendencies to our fall "spring" cleaning to my procrastination. I've been meaning to blog about my procrastination for the longest time; I've just been putting it off.
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