What lies behind us and what lies before us
Are tiny matters
Compared to what lies within us.
- Oliver Wendell Holmes

"I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13

I have two very annoying talents:  ability to fill to overflow any flat surface within reach; ability to procrastinate to the point of absurdity.   So what is it that fuels our procrastination.  (I'll leave my Flat Surface Syndrome - FSS- for another day)   Why do we happily endure the stress of the unfinished task?

John Place says there are 11 reasons for Procrastination.  He even give a possible "cure"  for each.

• Complicated-task anxiety: Break big, complicated tasks into smaller pieces. Complete a starter task, no matter how small.
• Fear of imperfection: Accept that perfection is rarely attainable and seldom necessary. You’re a person, not a robot. Use the 80/20 rule whenever appropriate.
• Indecision: Determine your decision-making criteria, then set a deadline for your decision. Ask a friend to hold you accountable.
• Priority confusion: Distinguish obligations from options. What are you really responsible for? List and prioritize tasks.
• Boredom from minutiae: Automate simple repetitive tasks whenever possible.
• Lack of focus: Minimize distractions. Check e-mail and voicemail only twice per day instead of every 5 minutes. Find a quiet room where you can concentrate. Resist the urge to keep taking breaks.
• Poor organizational skills: Clean your work area. Put tools and utensils in their proper place so you can find them when you need them.
• Laziness: Remind yourself of the consequences of procrastination. Resist the urge to be a couch potato. Try to complete several small tasks to provide a feeling of accomplishment. Reward yourself.
• Lack of energy: Maintain a regular sleep routine. Eat healthy. Exercise regularly. Do not skip breakfast.
• Early morning lag: Before you stop working each day, make a list of the tasks you want to begin first thing the following morning so you can hit the ground running the next day.
• Post-lunch fatigue: Before leaving for lunch, make a list of the things you plan to do when you get back so you can pick up where you left off. Avoid eating a heavy lunch.

So which of these impeded my finishing this article for over 4 1/2 months?   Probably Fear of imperfection is the greatest.  Next would be a lack of focus.    Then a combination of those last three energy-related problems.

The irony here is obvious.   It took me 15 weeks to finish an article about procrastination.   A short one, at that.

The importance of doing those tasks which we know the creator has designed us to accomplish is also obvious.  And never forget, the enemy of our soul knows if he can just get us to delay enough, often enough, that important task will never get done.   So what are you procrastinating about?    While you're pondering that question, I shall move on to another task I've been putting off:  Cleaning my work area.   I'm excellent at organization -- most of the time.  But there are times that my tendency to organize things in piles simply overwhelms me.   I've ordered a new filing cabinet.  In preparation for it's arrival, I shall begin with the sorting and organizing.

The difference between what we are doing
And what we're capable of doing
Would solve most of the world's problems.
- Mahatma Gandhi

Here's to efficiently getting on with our purpose and igniting that power that lies within!!

BLESSINGS,

PJ

Reality check!

WHY I LOVE "REAL" BOOKS!! (Or my troubles with Technology)

     

Yesterday, I discovered hubby hunched over his I-pad fuming and frustrated.  

      "I can't get this book ordered from my Amazon account.  I've wasted TWO HOURS!!  Two hours of reading time is gone!" he groused.

     Trying to order an e-book, the account wouldn't accept the new (re-issued due to being compromised) credit card that he has already used in other places.  But Amazon wouldn't recognize it!!!

     I tried to help. . .  no avail.   Then I suggested ordering on my Amazon account.  So we logged out of his account, logged into mine (after changing my password because I had long forgotten the password that's in my laptop's memory!!)  But Amazon didn't like the new device (His I-Pad) with a new password...so after several terribly unreadable CAPTCHA codes later and two new passwords, it won't let us into my account on HIS device.   

     Next I tried to use my I-pad to order the book.  Amazon still wouldn't let me in to my account on My I-pad.   So I ordered the ebook on my laptop (with the latest new password--which I have carefully written into my journal.  But by the time I need it again, I"ll have forgotten which journal I wrote it in!!)  to read from his I-pad.   

     Book ordered and in my account.  But his I-Pad can't access My Amazon account.   Not even with the fifty-seventh new password!!

     Aha.  He can borrow MY I-pad.   Alas, my I-pad doesn't have the reader downloaded.  So I download the reader app.   But not until I have changed my I-Tunes password because the Kindle works on the I-Tunes account, but I have to order from the Amazon account???  

     So I try it out and . . .  YES!!!  My I-pad will access the book.   So triumphantly I head to his office to lend my I-pad.   BUT . . .  somewhere in this process HIS I-pad has let him into MY Kindle account and he has the book.   But is too frustrated to read it and has a different "REAL" book in his hand.

     Three and a half hours!!  In that amount of time, I could have WRITTEN the book!!   

     A bit later he did settle down and read the book from His I-pad and today got the lesson done for which he needed the book.   AND I've read parts of the book as well.  

    Technology!!!    And then today, while I'm writing this blog (on my laptop), I wanted a picture from my phone.   My habit is that I email the picture to myself from phone to laptop.   I discovered that my laptop can directly access my phone pictures!!  Who knew!?? 

    The irony:   I just finished teaching TWO graduate level "Using Technology in the ESL classroom" classes!!   I CAN use PowerPoint, Build Web Sites, Write Wiki's, and use Blogs, but apparently I can't (with any efficiency) use certain applications. . .  and know Squat about my I-pad.   

     I think I have an I-pad for Dummies book around here somewhere!!!

 Nope!!  Apparently I-pad for Dummies is NOT in my library!!   

Rest Assured . . .  I WON'T order it as an eBook!!


Technologically yours,

P.J.   the sometime Techie

      

MISSIONARY STORIES

Ants in the Cereal

As a result of a meeting between a few old missionaries and various family members, came the following story.   (Narrator is not me!!  Just told in first person for effect.  Artistic license taken by the author . . .   ME!!)

We were living in a tropical climate far from civilization and were totally grateful when a visiting American friend brought us a box of "good" cereal.   We saved it carefully for a special occasion.

The special occasion arose a few weeks later when a seasoned missionary visited us.   

 "What would you like for breakfast," I asked the night before.

 "Why don't we do something simple, like cereal?" she suggested.

Happily I answered, "Sure," remembering the cereal in the cupboard.   I would have "good" cereal to serve my guests.

Next morning, I pulled out the sealed box of cereal.  To my horror there were red ants crawling everywhere.  Yes!  INSIDE the sealed cereal package.   Totally embarrassed, I showed my guest the package.

Nonplussed, she said, "We can fix that.  Let's just have toast for breakfast.   But meantime, we'll fix the cereal.   Do you have a cookie sheet?"

Puzzled, I pulled out a cookie sheet.   She spread about half the cereal, ants and all on the cookie sheet and asked me to turn on the oven.   Obediently, I did.

"Now, do you have another cookie sheet?"  She asked.

I pulled out another on which she put the rest of the cereal.  Then she popped both cookie sheets in the oven.   (Yes!!  Ants and all.)

"Now."  She said cheerfully, "Let's fix that toast."

I did.   While we ate toast and fruit, the cereal (and ants) toasted in the oven.   Later, when the sheets had cooled, she asked for a colander.   I produced one and she poured one tray of the cereal into the colander over the sink and proceeded to gently shake the cereal.   The ants fell into the sink.   As the newbie in the tropics, I watched open-mouth as she explained.   

"Don't shake too hard or you'll break up the cereal and lose too much.   Just a gentle shake will do it."

We finished the task.   I put the cereal in a SEALED plastic container.   Next morning we had . . .  cereal, sans ants!   Good stuff.

AUTHOR:  Phylis Dunlap-Huerta

NARRATOR:  Unidentified friend/family who entertained me with the story!!!

ARTISTIC LICENSE:  Taken freely for missing details of story!!

WARNING:  “A writer is a dangerous friend. Everything you say, all of your life and experience, is fodder for our writing. We mean you no harm, but what you know and what you’ve done is unavoidably fascinating to us. Being friends with a writer is a bit like trying to keep a bear as a pet. They’re wonderful, friendly creatures, but they play rough and they don’t know their own strength or remember that they have claws. Choose the stories you tell to your writer friends carefully.”
― Randy Murray  

DREAMS

DREAMS

by P.J. Dunlap-Huerta

Peaceful, but not silent.  Nature’s symphony: chickens clucking across the creek, cattle lowing; blue jay’s and cardinal’s wings thrashing.   Cicadas provide rhythm as the crows add a bass voice.   Tiny chickadees and an oriole steal in silently to grab a seed from the feeder arms length from me, never stopping long enough for me to focus the lens on their colorful feathers while a squirrel scampers stealthily over the pile of logs nearby.  Occasionally a humming bird flies up to check on the strange creature on the porch and flits away silently as it came.   I just heard a leaf fall to the ground, loosened by the gentle breeze blowing.  Getting in touch with my inner country girl.

Sounds idyllic, doesn’t it?  But less than an hour ago, I was in a makeshift outdoor shower--less than ideal.  It brought memories of an improvised shower in an unfinished basement many years ago.  Cold water only; cobwebs to be knocked out of corners.  This one had a rough wooden floor; that one a bare cement floor.  This one had dollar store plastic hoses and fixtures; that one had store-bought ones.   Getting in touch with my inner country girl.

Sitting here on the porch of my Hillbilly retreat tears stream down my face as I remember the young girl who used to dream sitting by the creek bank with the smell of honeysuckle around her.   Dream of an education; dream of life in the city; dream of nice clothing and cars that hummed instead of rattled; dream of a house with real hot water in the shower.   Dream of being a city girl.

The irony of life:  Now the city girl dreams of retreats in the country, of the smell of honeysuckle, revels in the sights of sunrise over the hills and listens to the concerto of God’s creation.

God has been good to me!  

CITY LIFE

"That's it," he says. "No more bottles for you."
Leaning over the crib, the baby smiled briefly, "Uh-oh," only to dissolve into tears as Dad smacked my bottom sharply. It was the last bottle I was given. At 9 months old, I was weaned in a day.
My babyhood had been spent happily shoving bottles out through the slats of my crib as soon as the bottles were empty. I never did have much patience. One by one the bottles broke on the cement floor. Until the last one went "Bye-bye." I do recall conversations contradicting the ideas of the controversial Dr. Spock and his book, Baby and Child Care, published only two years before I was born. None of this pampering and listening to the needs of the baby for my parents!  Nope.  I was on a feeding schedule and we were doing things the old way.   Unfortunately for me, I really liked things my own way, even pushing empty bottles out of the crib.
In the wake of World War II, Dad had returned from the war and went to work in the auto industry in St. Louis, Mo. He and Mom married and lived in the basement apartment of a three-flat. Children were not allowed, but the landlord made an exception because he liked my Mom.
I spent my pre-school years on Spring Avenue. Dad and his brother-in-law (who was also his cousin) co-purchased a small four room cottage and two plots of land up the street. They divided the cottage down the middle: two rooms on one side for us; two rooms on the other side for them. The shared refrigerator on the back porch belonged to Aunt Lois; the washing machine they both used belonged to Mom. The tiny space didn't seem so small for my cousins and I. There was plenty of outdoor space and my grandparents' house next door. As for the land, they agreed to help one another build the houses, first one then the other. For fairness, they tossed a coin. Heads got first pick on the land; tails went first in construction. Uncle Gene won the toss; he picked the highest piece of property; our house was built first. We were able to move in before my sister was born when I was three and a half.
Mom always spent lots of time with my sister and I, reading books, reciting nursery rhymes and singing songs. Kindergarten was fee-based and optional so Mom taught us the prerequisite skills for first grade. By age three I had most of the Dick and Jane books memorized and could "read" them perfectly. By age five, I could actually read the words and could spell and write basic words. I was terribly disappointed in the fall before I turned six that I couldn't go to school with all my friends on Spring Avenue. The birthday cutoff was the day school started, September 4, that year. My birthday was November 30.  Left behind with my young cousin and baby sister, I felt abandoned.

IF ONLY

I read a book the other day.  A really great book.   It threw me for a loop though.   It was the book I wanted to write.   It was the book I wish I'd written.   It was the "If only . . ." book for me.

Maybe you've seen that too.   If you're not a writer-type, it would be a thing you wish you'd invented; a movie that went viral and you KNOW you could have done it. A business venture that someone started and it should have been yours.  In fact, you're sure you could have done one that was better.   If only . . . 

But now . . .   it's been done.    Sigh.  So we pad off to the tv, social media, the nearest chair and a book.

Today, God said, "I didn't give you HIS gifts, I gave you YOURS."

So today, it's back to the keyboard pounding out the book that really wants to stay hidden.   

The "If only" excuse is just another excuse.


What's brewing in your heart?   Time to get to work!!