The Current State of Things: A blog by someone who often doesn't know what they're doing
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Chain of Hearts

Gardening Jacquie

“Indoor plants aren’t cool“, I told myself. “Indoor plants are weird. What do they even do?“, I wondered.

Oh, past Jacquie. What a fool you were, an absolute FOOL. Don’t worry though, I now know that indoor plants are the bomb dot com. You can get so many different types – small, big, drooping, contained, you name it. As you may recall from numerous posts in the past, I have a few indoor plants. There’s Mary the maiden hair fern, Cynthia the never never plant, and Phil the aluminium plant. All three had a very close brush with death after I left them outdoors in the sun for a good week or two without any water. But I am pleased to report that all three have made a strong recovery.

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Some Birthday Gratitude

Brain to Page Jacquie

It was my birthday this past Tuesday. I turned 25, which feels a bit odd. I don’t think I’ve felt like my age since I was maybe 19 or 20, maybe even younger than that. I don’t know what it is, there just seems to be this discord between how I feel and think about myself and my biological age. But it doesn’t really bother me; there’s much more important things to think about in the grand scheme of things.

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Too Many Things To Do

Brain to Page Jacquie

I have too many things to do. And I’m not talking about the boring, annoying, dull, menial tasks of work or uni, no, I’m talking about creative and fun and crafty things. GOOD things. I have too many GOOD things to do and I am completely paralysed by it all*. So, instead of starting one of the many things I could be doing, I decided to sit down and write about how I’ve got so many things I could be doing.

Genius.

But I figure if I write about it, I can vent my feelings and get all my thoughts out of my brain and written down. By creating a list of things I need to do, I can also be held accountable (at least a little bit, to the People of the Internet). See, I think it is actually a pretty smart idea.

The Many Things I Would Like To Do

  • Repot Stanley, my succulent who lives at uni. I’ve brought him home over the holidays and he desperately needs a good repotting.
  • Take photos, just for funsies.
  • Read at least some of the eleven books I need to finish to meet my reading challenge. Yes, ELEVEN. Shut up.
  • Get sewing! I’ve got a ridiculous amount of ideas for things to sew and they’re all so exciting! This in and of itself is a good example of how I’m paralysed by too many options. (I was going to make a bad joke about choice-paralysis inception but I feel those jokes have been overdone so I just explained the joke instead. Good.)
  • Start sketching again. And maybe painting.
  • Write about my PhD, creativity, life – all those good things – on this here blog.
  • Decide what I want for my blog next year.
  • Start art journalling.

Blargh. I’m tired just from typing up that list. But I can see that I just need to cool my jets and focus on one thing at a time. I think I might try and focus on the sewing side of things for a little while at first, and see if I can at least make a small dint in my “to read” pile by going to bed early and reading.

Do you ever feel like there’s just too much shit to get done? Good or bad shit? I also have a bad shit version of the above list but that’s far less interesting and infinitely more stressful so I chose not to think about it. I know this experience I’ve just outlined is not a novel one, so don’t tell me I’m alone in this! Don’t leave me hanging guys! Maybe you’re feeling overwhelmed by choice right now? Let me know!

Jacquie

*It is actually a thing that happens. There are journal articles explaining research about it but there’s also a really interesting TEDtalk if you’re keen to know more. Fun fact: this is actually one of the assignment topics I run in the psychology unit I teach at uni.