I'm not odd... am I?

I love these little books - just perfect for me.

I am now horrible with deadlines.  When I was working, I was always meeting them or getting things done early.  I am the queen of organization and prioritizing - lists and timelines were my saving grace.  I could organize a work day like nobody's business - people would come to me so I could teach them how to do what I did.  Then I retired and put it all away... until now.

I have the cutest inspiration books on the planet.  I keep them in my purse to write down pattern ideas, project desires, photo set ups and the occasional recipe.  I keep track of my Nerd Wars projects and submissions in there as well.  Shoot, I bet in my old one I could find blog notes - I have always had a day planner or notebook with me because my mind runs ninety to nothing and since they don't make actual pensieves, this system will work in the interim.

Y'all know that we only have about 17 days until Christmas - take away my birthday trip, Christmas Eve and time to wrap that leaves me with about 14 days to finish Pokey's sweater.  It was a test knit for a girl back in October and it taught me to never volunteer for big projects.  She and I have been in communication and she totally understood back when I was initially late and all that has transpired since.  A real peach of a girl.  Pokey has begun to wonder if it will ever be done and I jokingly tell him that perhaps by our 25th Anniversary, if I don't have arthritis so bad that I can't knit any longer.  He doesn't find that funny - I do have a good giggle at his expense some of the time.  Well, last night when I was waiting for Pokey to come home from work so we could watch the Michael Buble Christmas special (it was wonderful!), I created a true, workable timeline.  It looks like this...

This schedule is the key to finishing in time to give it to the love of my life on Christmas.

Now, do you see how I wrote "Three day wiggle room" on the bottom - that's not actually true.  Sure, the timeline says that I should finish on the 21st and that gives me three days to have it under the tree... but look closer.  Did you see it?  No?  Look again... I don't have the project listed for the weekends.  I actually built in an 8 day wiggle room variance.  Pretty spiffy, huh.  By writing in that I have the "weekend off", there is no pressure on me because I can "play catch up" if I need to on those unscheduled days.  Also, by working in inches, I can measure my progress and being the hyper-competitive soul that I am, I know that I will want to do just a bit more than scheduled to prove that I was capable of more than I gave myself credit for... don't laugh, I know me and it's true.  Don't believe I do that... take a look at this...

 I worked a good 1.5" last night even though the schedule starts today.