Blue-Footed Musings

I have my own particular set of sayings that I use frequently. One of them is “make it snappy.” I use this saying on the kids when they’re slow to do whatever it is they’ve been told to do. But Marshall has decided to take the saying literally. If I tell him to “make it snappy,” he starts snapping his fingers and doing a little dance. Usually we’re in a rush, so I ought to get angry when he starts dancing instead of following my instructions. His snappy dance is just so hysterical that all I can do is laugh.

I am old enough to know by now that if I hide something in an unusual spot and say to myself “Don’t forget that you put this here” it means I absolutely will forget and shouldn’t put it there. But I never seem to learn, and that is how I ended up spending a lot of precious time this week fruitlessly searching for my list of Advent gifts and printouts. I have now searched in all the likely spots several times, and most of the unlikely spots, too. No luck. Thank goodness I did some of the work on my computer and can at least reprint that part!

Noticing is the first step toward knowing.

I learned a lot from working on my nature photo album. I wanted to apply those lessons to my current project, so I put them into a handy list. Now I’m going to post the list here, where I can find it any time.

• If the project is too big, break it into smaller pieces.
• Keep track of what you’ve done, what you’re doing, and where you’re going. Don’t throw away anything until you’re done, because you never know when you’ll need to backtrack.
• Look for better solutions. Just because you’ve found a workaround doesn’t mean there’s not a better solution. Do what you have to do to keep your forward momentum, but don’t give up on the idea of a better solution until you’re absolutely sure there isn’t one.
• Work on the project every day, and do not stop until it’s done.
• Accept that there will be mistakes. Better done and flawed than never done.
• Ignore the voice that says, “No one will like this. This has no value. I am wasting my time. This is a stupid project, and I am stupid.” It doesn’t know what it’s talking about.