Multi-tasking

One of the more frustrating effects of getting older (I started Medicare yesterday) is that I can not multi-task the way I used to. This has come strongly home to me in the past week. And it’s all the fault of TV.

My DH is teaching this year part-time, and one of his classes is beginning Japanese. While waiting for the textbooks to come, he’s been thinking about what to do. One idea was to watch movies. He thought the Zatoichi movies & TV series might work. That makes evening TV subtitled. When we watch TV in English, needlepoint is no problem. With Japanese subtitles, I can watch or stitch things other than Tent. No multi-tasking.

The other is a series to watch on my computer. Often if it is just something to listen to, I can do other work while it goes on. But if I do need to watch, I can only stitch; I can’t even play mindless games. As a result, I got a fair amount of a blackwork background done. I first discovered this a few years ago watching The Chosen. I now need to change my planning to include one project I can work on at these times and one Tent-only project.

That will take care of stitching multi-tasking, but what about finishing? It’s another thing where I need to work undistracted. That means buying finishing pieces when I see them and then finishing them in a bunch. For example, the box above was bought at Hobby Lobby several months ago. On Sunday, I finished it, another box, and a picture frame. I’m storing up more projects to finish. And will do them on a future Sunday.

Yes, I find it irritating that I cannot accomplish as much, but I try to take delight in everything I can complete. And I have four ornaments in process that all will be self-finished.