SassyBlonde

I am an inveterate procrastinator at heart. Most projects I undertake get finished at crunch time or not at all, and I'm a creature of deadlines and to-do lists for a reason: if I don't have a deadline I'll never finish. Sometimes that's because I overbook myself or burn out, but usually it's just because I forget or it falls off my radar until I'm down to the wire.

Now this can become a real problem when it comes to my philosophy of gift giving, especially for events like weddings and baby showers: I hate giving nondescript stuff off registries, or at least to give only that kind of thing-- I've had way too good of an example set for me by Sister Sassy and my aunt in terms of thoughtful giving. This of course means that I have to plan ahead, and well, you can see where that train of thought leads.

Procrastination was definitely the case for my friend's baby shower today-- I had a great idea for a gift weeks ago and simply got too busy with painting, cleaning and concert PR and let it slip my mind until my commute last night to the theatre. Crap, I thought, and resigned myself to another night of watching the Olympics like a zombie while I worked.

I had hit on the idea a while ago to do a watercolor calligraphy setting of this poem for her newly decorated nursery, but just hadn't dug out my aquarelle pencils and paper, so that's what I did when I got home. Hour by painstaking hour I outlined, inked, and washed, and eventually was left with the piece that I wrapped up for her this morning before I left, never having seen my bed and having burned through about five episodes of Jeremiah and a lot of esoteric sports coverage.

I honestly have to say it was worth it, though-- after opening mounds of cutely wrapped bibs, blankets, clothes and equipment, she was eventually handed my brown-paper-wrapped packages (note to self: if your package doesn't have riotous scrawls of pink and blue or puppies on it, the Vera Bradley-toting shower coordinator will place it at the back or under the table like a red-headed stepchild no matter how big or small it is) and after pulling the paper open, her eyes filled with tears and she hugged me close. (It didn't hurt either that the other gift made her howl with laughter.) At least I hit this one out of the park, even if it was last minute. Woohoo!