Don’t Tell Me I’ve Nothing To Do

It just occurred to me that I like having lots of different things on the go at the same time. Sometimes I can do something like crocheting or writing for an hour, and sometimes I can do it for four hours. At the same time, though, in between times I have other activities that keep me occupied.

Every day I spend a few hours online reading the news, checking my email, doing word puzzles, and seeing if anyone is reading this blog. Actually, my computer time is my starting point and it occupies too much of my time but, like any addict, I am trying to keep my compulsion restrained.

Sometimes the background sound to my hobbies is any random television channel I can happily ignore visually (today it was the ID channel) and sometimes it is an audio book. Regardless, I like to have someone telling me a story while I do other things.

Then, I start to focus on my favourite time wasters. Aside from doing useful things like laundry and cooking, I like to practise some creative pastimes. Today I spent two separate hours working on a crocheted cardigan. I also spent several hours working on a jigsaw puzzle. Yesterday, I spent a couple of hours starting a painting and then added to my collection of sketches of television’s talking heads.

I am aware that my lovely life is much too sedentary, so to keep my health conscience clear I take walks near my apartment two or three times a week, and I go on short hikes with a local group on Mondays when it isn’t raining or snowing. Otherwise, though, I just enjoy the comfort of my easy chair or some other chair next to something functional in my home.

What is interesting about this is how many things it is possible to do within the confines of a small home. Now I’m wondering if there is an upper limit to this. What else can I do? Learn to play a musical instrument? Learn a new language? Sing? Become a voice actor? Read for audio books? Provide movie reviews? Whatever it is, I know I will do it in between practising multiple other arts, crafts, and diversions. Doing just one thing is not enough for me.

I admire anyone who can focus on a writing project or a painting for days at a time, but that isn’t me. I have become a flibbertigibbet. Like a bee buzzing from flower to flower, I gather my creative pollen in multiple small doses from whatever flower is available. I like to think that makes the best honey, but actually flitting around between projects is simply my nature.

Here is the video of The Statler Brothers singing Flowers On The Wall: