I Done Lost My Mind (in 2011)

Hello, dear readers. I’ve been raising procrastination to an art form, literally. I didn’t mean to, at least, not at first. I blame a friend of mine who called last summer, inviting me to be a member of the board for the Montessori preschool our kids attend. Only four meetings a year, she said. I said yes. I thought it sounded easy. Plus, it was high time I did something for my community. My kids were long out of diapers. I wasn’t working. And it sounded so—adult.



Okay, first meeting. The school was celebrating its 40th anniversary. Spiffy. I wouldn’t mind being on the anniversary committee, would I? Oh boy. At the first meeting for that they started flinging out ideas—galas and golf tournaments. I started to feel nauseous. There’s only thing worse than planning a social extravaganza—attending one.



What to do? What to do? Then I seized upon the perfect escape—fix up the school’s raggedy garden plot! Perfect—no social interaction required. Someone (might have been me) suggested making garden stones the kids could press their sweet little handprints into. Fabulous.


(Little Bear's stone. No, she's not an alien; she does have all five fingers.)

Three months later? The gala invitations garnered four acceptances out of seventy-six invitations. (One was mine.) Gala cancelled. The golf tournament fell by the wayside. Now it was down to 40 Acts of Random Kindness and the garden. Neato.

While the garden was buried under two feet of snow, I could safely ignore this missive. Then spring eventually showed up and I had to face the facts. I had agreed to make garden stones with the kids—all seventy-six of them.



It took five days, four bags of Quick Crete, eight bags of glass stones from Michaels, one roll of paper towels, a Sunday paper, and two boxes of Saran Wrap. Dude, I was wiped.

That was the easy part. Next came the construction of a garden path with these puppies. You’d think seventy-six stones would be plenty, but I ran out two-thirds of the way. Screw it. We’ll make more next year once I’ve forgotten what a pain in the ass it is.


(Bright white marble. Umm, no. Clash City. Replaced with river stone--see top pic. Yes, I edit in real life too.)

So here it is, in all its muddy glory. And no, I’m not done yet. Have you found creative ways to derail your writing lately?