Today’s Daily Stoic writing prompt: Am I dragging my feet or am I doing my job as a human being?

As the associated meditation mentions, my “job as a human being” is to get out of bed and get at it. That’s not the way I used to be; I used to love to sleep in as a kid, sometimes as late as 10 am, on Saturdays. But that’s something I just can’t do any more. In fact, for about 10 years I used to get up at 4:50 on Thursdays to go in to work early and catch a Toastmasters meeting. These days, I’m getting up at 6:55 on weekdays; by 7:30 I’ve logged into work. Weekends I’m usually sleeping until 8 or 8:30. And I’m used to it by now.

But on dragging my feet in the more figurative sense? Yes, I procrastinate, particularly on things I don’t enjoy–but I do get it done, and that’s because I’m pretty good with time management and generally make sure, if it’s something I know has a deadline, that I’ve planned properly.

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I’ve started in on the next project. I need to make a padded base for the beaded work I’m doing. I had originally contemplated stitching down cheesecloth (which I’ve dyed grey) and then stuffing it, but I did a test area and didn’t like it. So instead it’s the original idea of layers of felt, and I may lay the cheesecloth over top of that to give a more smooth surface for the beading. Doesn’t look like much right now, but I think this is going to work.

Being away from work for three days meant a busy day back, but one where I felt I made some good progress on some things. COVID cases remain below 200. Today’s big news was the nomination of Mary Simon, a well-known Inuk leader and diplomat, as Canada’s next Governor General, and already that Indigenous Canada class is paying off because I was already aware of the organization she helped start and the modern treaties she was involved in negotiating. Friends in the civil service speak very highly of her reputation.

My big accomplishment today? Making two pallets go away. I’d posted to the Hamilton Reddit group asking how to get rid of them, and someone messaged me. I left them at the curb and a couple of hours later they were gone.

The scroll I made for a colleague in Atlantia finally got to her! That was close to six weeks in the mail. I had wondered why I hadn’t heard, since she’d been ecstatic about the scan I’d sent.

I’ve also got a book of Chernobyl oral histories coming (good timing on a day I’m starting a piece inspired by a mosaic in Pripyat) along with a piece for our upstairs sink drain to replace the stopper that’s apparently broken. Excitement! Tomorrow, a VP-PR training class and maybe I’ll get a chance to get back at the Russian language studies again.

And finally, I’ve become fascinated by the people trying to make spam comments to this blog. I have it set where I have to approve all posts, and these I’d never even seen because they’re going into a spam filter. They’re usually doing it on older posts–some of them going back more than two years. Some of them look like they’re asking legitimate questions, but the grammar is odd and the questions are exceedingly general. Others are straight-out spam for various products. And a few of them were massive lists of celebrities and porn-type keywords and links. The thing is–none of them ever show up. I didn’t even know they were there until yesterday. It looks like my account is configured to automatically delete them even from the spam bin after a couple of weeks.