Procrastination 101

How to feel like you're getting your assignment done, only to realise you have a couple of lines along with a lot of "NEED TO WRITE MORE HERE."

• Dust and tidy desk.
• Dust and tidy office.
• Dust and tidy entire house, including grouting in shower and de-clogging of kitchen sink.
• Play with Basil.
• Go back into sparkling office, with a bottle of water and a cup of tea.
• Turn computer on, and wait 20 minutes for it to start.
• Check all favourite blogs and Facebook and Gmail and Wikipedia and TradeMe.
• Finish cup of tea and make another.
• Remember to put washing on. Fuss around putting all clothes in the right way out with a dab of Frend on the most miniscule stains.
• Play with Basil.
• Lunchtime. Make baked bean and cheese toastie, and become engrossed in Dr Phil. The Jena 6? Never heard of them. But totally enthralling.
• Drag self back to office. Stare at assignment question. Google the answer. Re-word it to sound like I wrote it.
• Celebrate getting work done by pottering in the garden. May as well pull out that tomato plant, it's getting out of hand. And those grapes are about to get eaten by the birds, better get those in. That palm there is way too top heavy, better chop off some fronds. Roses - deadhead. Veggie bed - fertilise and weed. Trim the buxus hedge.
• Collapse exhausted on the couch and congratulate self with cold Coke Zero.
• Play with Basil, who is looking at me weirdly. All, woman, leave me alone to SLEEP!
• Slink back to office. Research the US sub-prime mortgage crisis on Google. Learn more about it in 10 minutes via the web than I ever would have by asking someone at work. Fire off 300 words.
• Go to kitchen and begin preparing exceptionally difficult meal, with hundreds of ingredients and at least 3 hours of preparation time. Call this "a quick healthy snack."
• Back in the office, check blogs again, Facebook and Gmail. Check bank account for any surprise, large donations. There are none.
• Dream about winning the lottery.
• Look at accommodation in the Maldives and contemplate booking a trip and going.
• Check bank account again, just in case.
• Google some more about tax imputation credits and listing rules and OCRs and the export sector. Jot some notes down and highlight question saying "elaborate on this one."
• Write a blog post.
• Turn computer off and watch back to back episodes of the Simpsons.
• Shove guilty feeling far far away with a lovely spicy Bloody Mary.
• Hunt Basil down (hiding in the linen cupboard) and plant him on my knee. A most successful day.

It's all about ME!

Well what a hideous past week. With all my going to the gym, eating better (not like soy milk and lentils better, just less sausage rolls at 9 in the morning), being On Top Of Things, and sleeping lots, I still get knocked down by the most debilitating virus known to man.
Turns out the lip was a cold sore, and let me tell you that I have never had one of these before, and I plan to never again. My god they hurt. Is halfway healed now, and taking its time about it. I need to get some passport photos taken quicksmart for the trip to Fiji in May, but in no way am I having a cornflake lip for the next 10 years.
Anyhoodle along with the cold sore I got a nice virus to go with it and also a really lovely throat infection. I looked like I had goitres, or the mumps, or at the very least, like I had no neck. It's hott. So anyway 3 days off work (3!!! I felt so guilty) and lots of Berocca and fancy pants vitamins I'm slowly coming right. It's making me feel old, the time taken to heal.

So! That's my life in the last week. Hellalame. How was yours?

In other news, summer seems to be on a wane here in Godzone, with a certain lucidity to the light and crispness to the air that hasn't been around for months. It's still bright blue sky and gentle breezes, but for some reason this morning I had an urge to put the car heater on and wear a comfy woolly jersey to work. It's about 22 deg.
Last night we sat on the deck having a lovely BBQ of lamb chops and sausages with salad made from my garden of goodness, and I said to my friend it's nights like these that we'll reminisce about in the middle of winter. Summer has been oddly good here this year - no more whingeing about the crap Kiwi summers for some time. Of course now all the whingeing is about the serious drought, and hand held hosing only, but I couldn't give a toss.

On Saturday I went around to my sister's brand new house. They moved on Friday to a location much closer to me - 3 minute drive instead of 30 - and I spent the whole day "helping" them unpack by playing with Amelie. Man she is cute. She is now crawling and pulling herself up on anything, and she loves her cheese. She's also a real chatterbox - I'm sure I heard her say "Aunty Amy" but it may have been buh-buh-me-me. Close anyway.

So this week I am going to be finishing my assignment - did I tell you I'm doing some sharebroking papers this year? The one I am doing is titled "The New Zealand Sharemarket" and has questions like "How has the US sub-prime mortgage crisis affected the NZ markets? Explain your answer." My immediate response is "pretty badly", but then they want about 300 words. I had better pad it out. "Really, really kinda bad." I'm totally going to pass.

Fearfully grumpy

Sorry for having been gone for so long. I have not been in the greatest frame of mind due to the stress of work (see previous post) and have been doing far too much drowning of my sorrows.
It has got so bad that today I sit here with the flu, a mouth ulcer, a sore throat, cracked lips that are threatening to turn into impetigo and one great big grumpy ass mood.
I guess the fact that Valentine's Day is right around the corner also has me a bit depressed. Although I saw an ad on the telly last night for an Ink Jet printer "to surprise her with for Valentine's Day!". If someone gave me one of those for V Day they would get a punch in the mouth. What's wrong with a red rose? Honestly.
Sorry for the grumps. If anyone has a funny joke or pic, please feel free to forward.