… or the art of procrastination.
I am busy.  Rushed off my feet. By tomorrow evening I will have seen my husband for 16 hours since Monday morning and we’ll have been asleep for more than 12 of those. Not good.
We’re still surrounded by boxes from moving house (but as of today we have a bed for the first time in 4 months – oh the luxury! I feel like I’m in a hotel! But the strategically placed shirt hanging off the window frame in lieu of the blinds that have not yet arrived will no longer be at the right angle to block out the street lamp – d’oh!)
I’m busy trying to stop my toddler scratching his hugely increased eczema, stop him leaping off the now-higher-than-he-expects parental bed and get him away from the joys of BBC iplayer and into bed so that he can get to nursery without tirdness dark circles under his eyes.
There’s no respite in the day either.  I’m busy at work with so many things happening at the same time and a general election in the offing which adds to the unpredictability.  On top of all this I’m trying to finalise my final project for the qualification I’m studying for – no mean feat when that’s additional to the day job.

So why have I now got rather fabulous “East village” In a New York Minute NYC nail color-painted nails? And why do I find this so pleasing?
(image from the fabulous www.mymakeupblog.blogspot.com – do visit that site! East village is the nail varnish at the top).

There’s too much going on.  I’m trying to manage it with lists and reminders in my phone.  I’m using all of my skills that I define as “ruthless prioritisation”.  But to keep sane I need some “me” time.  now many people would get away from it and go jogging, to the gym, may be jog to the gym.  But the toddler prevents this when there’s no other babysitting available.
I’ve bought myself more time by minimising my Facebook and Twitter time, but that’s freed up less than I think either my husband or I expected. I was hardly a heavy user (yes it’s the language of drugs – yet another report out today warning of the addictiveness of online life and warning that Facebook friends are not “real friends” – which is bleeding obvious when there’s no possibility of them minding the toddler for you while you get 5 minutes peace… only real in the sense of continued contact with people you care about or are interested in).
I’ve backed off for the next couple of weeks because it’s too easy to get sucked into commenting on the Pope’s pronoucements on the Equality Bill, Chris Addison’s spam friends email address problems, yummy mummy regime issues or Barroso’s Commissioner portfolios.  All this rather than just get the wretched CIPD project written!

So tonight I’m doing some work on my CIPD CTP project. I’m so tired I can barely remember what the acronyms stand for.  And the PowerPoint slides need me to manipulated the data first, to identify the method by which participants feel they learn most effectively. I need my toddler to be asleep to get to do this, but working on this after work means I’m tired and when I go to get into the nice new bed having done some of the assignment, I can’t switch off and so the whole cycle just perpetuates with me getting more irritable and less suitably in a frame of mind to do the best I can.

So I’m taking a few minutes out in what seems like pointless procrastination, painting my nails and getting a bit of a break before getting back down to it. Spending time on my hands, even though I’ve no time on my hands at all really. And writing this of course.   Taking a few minutes up could also free up my mind and allow for some of those leaps of inspiration, or even genius (but let’s not get carried away now).

Besides, they look pretty.