Now or Never!

Procrastination is not my friend – but, by jingies, he knows me well!

I live in a state of unbalanced, organised chaos most of the time. If things proceed in a linear way – it is always a happy accident. The paradox that is my life, is that although I procrastinate continuously – it is often because I’m champing at the bit to do stupid things as immediately as possible, if not before then. Get it? No? Shocker.

An example would be…I procrastinate about downloading photos off my camera – a 5 minute job BUT after seeing a picture of Cindy Crawford’s kitchen I HAD to find a bamboo blind and shelves for my own kitchen, and I couldn’t get bamboo blinds, so instead of waiting, I bought the matchstick blind charged home and then tormented SH to put them up for me ASAP. I’m still painting the shelves because instead of waiting for the Spring weather to get here (seriously – when???) I’ve painted a number of coats in the cold weather so it hasn’t dried properly and gotten all gummed up when I impatiently slapped on the next coat. Alot of my painted furniture is like that – thank god for shabby chic!

I procrastinate about decluttering the bookshelves, but if I find spray paint – I will stalk the house to find something to use it on (Kids, Hide! Your mother’s found the spray paint again!).

I procrastinate about writing but I have to read a magazine in one sitting as near to the time that I purchased it as I can.

I loved NaNoWriMo when i did it two years ago – I got the 50,000 words done, no problem and even produced a story that could be good with some work….but I haven’t looked at it since it went in “the drawer” two years ago.

I procrastinate about weeding but as soon as my Silverbeet leaves are large enough they’re picked for dinner…actually that’s just sensible, because if I leave them a day later the chooks notice them and they will Harry Houdini themselves to get in that patch.

When I’m home on the weekend, breakfast TIME and lunch TIME are very loose affairs – but if I find a recipe (like in the aforementioned magazine) that I like, I have to make it NOW NOW NOW.

I procrastinate about making phone-calls but I have to answer the phone as soon as it rings (OCD anyone?).

My name is Alyson and I am an Impatient Procrastinator and it drives me and my family crazy. Just ask my husband.

Any and all advice welcome.

Before: Brass Candelabra

After: Oil Rubbed Bronze (Rustoleum) – you can come out now, Kids!

Veranda sucka!

I wanted a house with a wrap-around veranda for, LIKE, ever!  So old fashioned, so cute, so Australian country.

But you know what no-one ever tells you about wrap-around verandas?

The price you pay is…(sob)…

 

The price you pay is….

 

No sunny spots to curl up in, inside.

 

Which is fine in the thick of Summer, when it is pleasant to lie on the cool tiles for 5 seconds until they are also uncomfortably warm and clammy and you have to roll yourself down the hall because the kids won’t share their cold tiles – but in (droughty) Winter when it is beautifully blue skies and sunshine, but actually minus 2 degrees without the windchill.  Ick.  It’s cold and dark but you feel bad for turning your back to the window and facing the fire. (Until it gets dark and you have a few wines, but you can’t do that at 10 in the morning, apparently..)

As a kid and living in rentals later on in my teens and twenties, I recall lying in windows with a good book or a crap magazine (confusingly, equally good) solar charging and staring absently at the dust motes floating through the air (Housework, shmousework!)for hours.  Maybe even days.

At the time I didn’t think of how splendid these moments were.  But now…I live in a beautiful part of the world and I’m entirely sun-protected, dammit, and my batteries are running low!  I know I’m whingeing…(Whinging?) whining…about something somewhat obscure, but truly – even though this will be the house I live in until I’m carried out in a box – if you are looking for a sunny house to buy, you need to know…if you find one with wrap around verandas, be aware there won’t be any sit-in-the-sunny-spot spots to lie in for more than a few minutes.

I’m just saying.

Sigh.

 

Wash & wear

My gardens have always been the cottage-y kind of gardens, purely by accident I can assure you, by virtue of the fact that I generally find all of my plants for free – from cuttings and generous friends, or for cheap – from the $5 table at the nursery or the clearance table from the hardware superfield.  Thus we have made some lovely gardens around Canberra that work around the 50 cent tree, that is now a beatiful shady elder.  Or one that has lovely yellow daylillies mass planted at the borders, which I kick myself everyday that I did not divide and bring with me to Fivehills. 

My gardens inevitably end up with the higgledy-piggledy look that I love, despite the fact that I was going for a semi-formal look.  Who am I kidding?  My life is always and has always been somewhat chaotic, and my gardens replicate that.  It could be said, that the garden is a visual of its growers’ brain.  Worrying.  I will tell you this for certain though, it is definitely a parrallel for the growers’ hair.  Don’t laugh, it’s true.

Never having been a girly girl, I have spent my life with either short, short hair that does itself or long hair that does itself looks somewhat wild and bohemian, despite my best intentions.  PAH!  I have no intentions, I can’t blowdry for shit, I am just downright lazy when it comes to hair.  Think Kate Bush, but messier.  “Heathcliffe, it’s me, it’s Cathy! My hair’s grown so bushy and looooong, I can’t see your windooooww, oh Heathcliffe…..” Sorry. 

So, though my hair is a dilemma and I’m getting old (I just proved that); and having gone for various styles brought on by inspiration and the gentle nudging of my sister I can tell you that I am lucky for this weird curly hair, and I am lucky that it suits me short or long and that as long as I have a good hairdresser who gets it, my hair looks good no matter what I do to it.  It doesn’t look styled or coiffed, it doesn’t look fashionable or neat even when it is 10mm long for some reason, but it looks fine.  My garden is like that.  I have a wash and wear garden.  Random seeds go in the bare spots, as do cuttings and freebies, and they all grow together and before I know it, it’s a wild, curly garden hiding basil and tomatoes with surprise cosmos seeding themselves and blooming hot pink where you least expect it.  It’s not neat, but it survives the heat and the lack of water with good grace and a hack back every now and then.  I am doubly blessed.

I ‘accidentally’ got all my hair cut off recently, in a style that I’ve never had before.  I love it, it’s curly and soft and it needs barely a shake and a bobby pin most mornings.  I feel like I look like the self I feel like on the inside for the first time in years.  Coincidentally, I’ve noticed just recently that the trees I first planted when we moved here have become actual trees and that plants are reseeding themselves.  There are naturalised seedlings in the garden that came all by themselves and doing just fine.  The garden is becoming what I always envisioned it to be.  It’s the hair/garden connection, I tell you.  No, really!

What does your garden/hair say about your hair/garden?  Think about it.