Professional procrastinator

The sun is shining, the weather perfect ( not sweltering) and I should be sewing drapes. But.... last night equipped with advice from many of my friends, I went on a stairwell picture hanging frenzy, finding myself involved in a very important task that took me away from the drapes (which I fired on my sofa in frustration before the hanging adventure.)

My daugher in law and I had decided, upon her last visit, that I should showcase some quilt art I had done ,in the stairwell, filling up a puzzling space I had in our home. (eek a wall with nothing on it!!!) My other friend told me how it was a piece of cake to vertically line up pictures with the simple aid of a pin, thread and a button. (I reinvented this theory by just keeping the spool attached to the thread! I was amazed how efficient this new plumbline was.

I started with the lowest (the only one I could comfortably reach), found the space on the plumbline, guessed about where the nail should go based on the approx. distance from the picture wire to where I wanted it to hang. I couldn't find the hammer, so I cleverly banged in the nail with a pair of needle nosed plyers. Did I mention this is on a dark red wall?????? I put the picture on my plumbed lineup source. Too low. I carefully pulled out the nail and raised it, grateful that the now white first nail hole would not show.

Picture #2 was a little higher and a little heavier and in just the wrong position. Too high for standing on the landing of the stairwell and too low for leaning over the stairwell. I reached through the railing, found my plumbline and started my nail. However, the plyers did not pound well from this angle and how I had a 1/4 " hole in the wall which would not be so bad except the wall was red, the hole very white!!! I went in search of my hammer in my newly organized quilt studio. I am sure I put it somewhere logical but it illuded me. Digging in my drawer, I found the new substitute, my meat tenderizing mallet!! It is metal and except for the tenderizing uneven portion of the "hammer" it seemed like a doable substitute. Unfortunately, I had left the needle nose plyers between the rails on the stairwell, they slipped and were now sticking straight up out of the carpet below. (Thank you Lord that hubby is in Alberta!!)

Armed with my mallet, I managed to hang #2 with only three holes behind the picture and one teensy tiny white mark just above the picture.

#3 now loomed before me. Grace is not my finest feature and I knew I should search for a suitable ladder but I wasn't sure where to look so a foldup chair perched next to the open stairway seemed like a viable option. My plumbline was now too short for this last picture but I carefully removed my pin and slid it up the wall. That attached spool of thread caught the picture at the bottom making it skew but leaving it attached to the wall. I leaned out into the stairwell just to check about where the now very heavy picture should go. This time I measured just where the nail should go, trial hung it in the air. It looked good so I took my meat tenderizer in hand, leaned out and pounded it in, hitting the pin and sending it, the thread and my plumbline into blissful oblivian! The good thing? This picture was right where it was supposed to be-first try.

As I looked at my handiwork, I was pleased. As I admired my work, the sun shone through my stained glass window and made rainbows on the pictures. I think God was telling me to get on the ark and quit destroying the earth (or in this case my walls). The sun has now gone behind a cloud, my pictures are hung and I think I will go mow the lawn. The drapes will survive a little more procrastination.

Too bad it is not my birthday. I think I need the

little picture hanger tool thingy.

To quote my son from his early highschool essay,

"I know I need to quit procrastinating, but I just never get around to it."

Tomorrow is a new day.