Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Tuesday Coffee Chat: Starting's the easy part.

Rory Bore at Ink Interrupted hosts the Tuesday Coffee Chat, and this week she asks the question, My home still has several projects requiring starting or finishing.  I hate leaving something unfinished.   Are you a starter or a finisher?





Unfortunately, i am a starter.  Some might think this is a good thing, but it's not.  It tends to mean that i have a ton of things started, but not completely finished.

Most projects that i really want to do start out with great enthusiasm and i get a good bit done, then run out of steam.

That running out of steam, well, i've tried to analyze it.  Part of it may completion anxiety.  What if i get it done and i don't get a good grade?  Yes, that's silly, i'm a grown-up and i don't get grades any more.  Old, well drilled in habits die hard, i was even once punished for bringing home a 99% on a test because, "You should have known how to spell that word!  You should have brought home a 100%!"  To this day, if i can't do something "correctly" i have to force myself to do it at all, and i cringe inside knowing i wouldn't get a good grade.

Part of it may be the boredom factor.  When a project gets to the boring stage, and almost all of them do, i want to wander off and find something else, maybe even anything else, to occupy my time.

Then there's the skewed view of time i seem to have.  For some reason, i tend to either vastly underestimate or vastly overestimate how long things will take.  If i think something will take "forever" i don't want to do it, or i don't want to start it because i believe i can't finish in the amount of time i have.  If i think it's an easy thing, i will put it off because "i can do that any time!"

Either way i'm usually off in my estimate of time, so i don't get as much done as i thought, or i get more done than i ever dreamed i could.  Those projects that turn out to be easier and faster than i thought generally do get finished, when i do finally make myself start them.

Thus i would consider myself a starter who only finishes what i can get done in one sitting, when i have time to sit, and what i think i can do correctly.  No wonder i am such a messy mimi!



Today is:

Birthday of the Raja -- Perlis, Malaysia

Constitution Day -- Nauru; Norway; Svalbard and Jan Mayen

Dea Dia Festival -- Ancient Roman Calendar (goddess of growth)

Dia de las Letras Gallegas -- GA, Spain (Galician Literature Day in Galacia, an autonomous region of Spain)

Falling Off a Log Night -- Fairy Calendar

Feast of Azamat(Grandeur) -- Baha'i

Grand Spring Festival -- Toshogu Shrine, Nikko, Japan (through tomorrow; includes horseback archery, processions in costume, and more)

International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia

Liberation Day -- Democratic Republic of the Congo

Merry-Go-Round Day -- the first merry-go-round, powered by horses, opened this day in 1620

National Cherry Cobbler Day

National Walnut Day -- declared in 1949 by the Walnut Marketing Board

Navy Day -- Argentina (anniversary of the victory at the Battle of Montevideo in 1814)

Pack Rat Day -- come on out and admit it, you are a pack rat, too!

Rubber Band Day -- patented this day in 1845, and aren't we pack rats glad.

Shunki Reitaisai -- Toshogu Shrine, Nikko, Japan (Grand Festival of Spring, through the 18th)

St. Madron of Cornwall's Day (Patron against pain)

Tell An Umpire "I Love Your Outfit" Day -- only if he has a sense of humor or you can duck quickly

Watch a Baby Fall Asleep Day -- because few things in the world are as funny and precious

World Hypertension Day 

World Neurofibromatosis Awareness Day --  for information about neurofibromatosis click here or here   

World Telecommunication and Information Society Day -- UN


Birthdays Today:

Nikki Reed, 1988
Tahj Mowry, 1987
Drew Roy, 1986
Andrea Corr, 1974
Sendhil Ramamurthy, 1974
Mia Hamm, 1972
Jordan Knight, 1970
Trent Reznor, 1965
Craig Ferguson, 1962
Enya, 1961
Sugar Ray Leonard, 1956
Bob Saget, 1956
Bill Paxton, 1955
Debra Winger, 1955
Christian Lacroix, 1950
Dennis Hopper, 1936
Maureen O'Sullivan, 1911
James "Cool Papa" Bell, 1903
Joseph Norman Lockyer, 1836
Edward Jenner, 1749


Debuting/Premiering Today:

"Information Please!"(Radio), 1938
"Shéhérazade"(Ravel song cycle), 1904
Comic Cuts(Comic Paper, first publication), 1890
"Cavalleria rusticana/Rustic Chivalry"(Opera), 1890


Today in History:

Italian Jesuit Niccolo Zucchi becomes the first to see 2 belts on Jupiter's surface, 1630
Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve founds the Ville Marie de Montréal, 1642
Frontenac becomes governor of New France (Canada), 1672
Louis Joliet and Jacques Marquette begin exploring the Mississippi River, 1673
England passes the Molasses Act, putting high tariffs on rum & molasses imported to the colonies from a country other than British possessions, 1733
The US Continental Congress bans trade with Canada, 1775
The New York Stock Exchange is founded, 1792
John Hawkins & Richard French patent the Reaping Machine, 1803
Napoleon I of France  orders the annexation of the Papal States to the French Empire, 1809
Occupation of Monaco changes from French to Austrian, 1814
Antoine Joseph Sax patents the saxophone, 1846
Rosalía de Castro publishes Cantares Gallegos, the first book in the Galician language, 1863
Aristides wins the first Kentucky Derby, 1875
Greek archaeologist Valerios Stais discovers the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient mechanical analog computer, 1902
The Columbia Lions and the Princeton Tigers play in the first-ever televised sporting event, a collegiate baseball game in New York City, 1939
The United States Supreme Court hands down a unanimous decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas, 1954
Soviet Venera 6 begins its descent into the atmosphere  of Venus, sending back atmospheric data before being crushed by pressure, 1969
Thor Heyerdahl sets sail from Morocco on the papyrus boat Ra II to sail the Atlantic Ocean, 1970
Maoist guerrilla group Shining Path attacks a polling location in the town of Chuschi, Ayacucho, starting the Internal conflict in Peru, 1980
Lebanon, Israel, and the United States sign an agreement on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, 1983
After 18 years as the mayor of Paris, Jacques Chirac takes office as President of France, 1995
Three days of popular protests against the government of Prime Minister of Thailand Suchinda Kraprayoon begin in Bangkok, leading to a military crackdown, 1992
Zaire is officially renamed Democratic Republic of the Congo, 1997
Massachussetts becomes the first US State to legalize same-sex marriage, 2004
The aircraft carrier USS Oriskany is sunk in the Gulf of Mexico as an artificial reef, 2008
Dalia Grybauskaite is elected the first female President of Lithuania, 2009
The brightest lunar meteor impact ever observed is recorded by NASA, 2013

6 comments:

  1. I am definitely a starter.I think the reason for this is two fold. First I

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  2. I'm a starter too. I often run out of steam and often it's weeks before I go back to that particular thing. I'm off to something else. I've a ton of things left to finish. Sigh.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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  3. I'm a starter. My husband is a finisher at work, but at home, not so much. Right now I've started cleaning out the 12 office filing cabinets and it's going slow because it's so boring.

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  4. YES! I totally agree - some of the things I haven't started yet I keep putting off because of time constraints and figuring they'll take muuuuuccccccchhhhh longer than they ultimately may. Or I'm right, and time works against me! :)

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  5. I am a starter, but mostly because I will start a project, and think, oh, if I did this, and that, and some other, I could make a (companion piece, something for X person, a new twist on it), and then, try as I might, I have to get out some, usually needles, and start. And, of course, that leads straight to ANOTHER idea. There is a reason I call the large area of Un Finished Objects "Area 51"! Cat

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  6. Oh I totally agree with the "have to finish in one sitting" thing though. There's other stuff to be done and if I think well, I only have an hour!! I won't do it. And really, with only an hour, would it ever get done? And then you do it, and it takes like 15 minutes. ha.

    ReplyDelete

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