Technology Overload

Originally written last week but too overwhelmed to post - and - No. I haven't knit that little neckband on Brica. I haven't knit anything all week. I am blaming it on Technology Overload, with some justification, too, but not with an entirely honest heart. Yes. The library goes live with it's eBooks on February 1 and I still can't get my Nook to open up the borrowed book I loaded onto it. Their website gives you clear directions. Just didn't work on my apparatus. Chat-boxing with Mary from Adobe was interesting and she gave me a nice set of instructions. They didn't work either. The work order guy from India had another set of instructions. They didn't work. If I had this problem, my patrons will too - so ... we have issues. I've tossed problem out among some consortium buddies in the hopes that they have solved this problem. Not good. And I still have to teach my staff.


And then there is Kindle. Let us hope this works more easily than the nook/adobe pathway. Amazon is actually manipulating this process behind the scenes of the consortium website. There are also the two new web pages that have to be created on our library website. oh yes. and the eBooks loaded into our catalogs.

At the same time, my phone died. I always by $10 phones (which, I believe, are now only available in the $15 version). I have to pick a new one and get to know it all over again - and of course - it has to be something my Luddite husband can figure out too. This is the guy who no longer turns on the DVD player because the buttons aren't where they were on the last remote we had - and besides, he just gets angry that the wide screen does not fill up with a movie - unless he's willing to watch everything with extra wide faces and short squatty legs. Which he isn't.

And oh gawd my brain is exploding.

So. No. I haven't really been in the mood to knit the neckband onto a sweater whose shoulders do not promise to make me happy. They might make me happy - but they might not.

Mind now,  I enjoy technology - it's just that I'm overwhelmed and crunched by deadlines. That's my story and I'm stickin' to it.

Daunted by completion - unchallenged by goals

I hate it when the threat of completion looms up to terrify me. Right now there are so many unfinished knitted garments tucked about my house, I could probably clothe the whole county if I ever sat down and finished them. That's not all - there are the uncluttered closets, the undecorated screened porch, and the final un-lost pounds on my body. Sometimes I just feel daunted by it all. I imagine my poor son, shoveling through the detritus of my life, all snippets and plastic zip-lock bags with $15 circular knitting needles in them, tangled in faded, flattened merino yarn, wondering if he should just set a match to everything.

So what is it about completion that is so ... so awful?

Well. Of course, there is the FearFactor. The doubt about the success of the finished project. Will it fit? Will it make me look like a sausage, cased in wool? Will I ever wear it in public?

Then there is the ShameThing ... closely tied to the FearFactor. Will I have to admit to others that I am not so clever, talented, skilled, as I puff myself off to be. Worse yet! Will I have to admit it to myself?

These two evil genies swirl around me till they conjure up the evilest genie of all, the PityPrincipal - which means, the longer you put off completion, the sorrier you feel for yourself - till it becomes the unfinished project's fault and you can start something new.

Traditional thought is that when mired in procrastination, one identify a goal, the steps to reach said goal, then transform each step into a goal on its own. Stringing successful goal achievements, like beads, is supposed to get you to the final, gleaming, blocked and darned garment goal!

Alas, I as your classic, solid

Extraverted	Intuitive	Feeling	Perceiving
Strength of the preferences %
44	38	62	11

I'm not too likely to be too tickled about reaching goals. It took me nearly 10 years to actually feel any pride in my part of the new library building. Compliments about my finished objects usually hit my flattery button about a year or two after I receive them. So - tell me - what do you do when you are completely unchallenged by goals?