Giving Thanks and Swallowing Frogs

Coffee in the Austin skyline mug, "Strutter" by Kiss on iTunes (what can I say? Guitar Hero infects us all). Happy Thanksgiving everyone, I am swallowing frogs this morning! Ew, you say. But no. I have Stacy (the new assistant) to thank for providing the perfect phrase for something everyone has to do in both their personal and professional lives. Most of my personal frogs have been shoved so far down the list I can't even here them ribbit, but my professional frogs--as frogs will do--are getting in the way of my getting things done. I am so surrounded by them right now that I am getting to the state where I can't even get to production, shipping, and other less cerebral, more hands-on tasks.

So what are frogs and why on earth would you swallow them? Frogs are tasks that you really, really don't want to do or that now loom over you because you have left them for so long and they're so late... If you had just done whatever the task was right when you got it, when it was due, it wouldn't be a frog now--and psyching yourself up to do it wouldn't require the effort of psyching yourself up to, say, swallow a frog! Of course some things are born frogs and the best thing to do is just hold your nose and get them over quickly. But that's more like the cleaning-the-ferret-litterbox task rather than anything I have to do professionally.

The more frogs I have, the more time I spend on the Internet. I know that whatever I'm doing is neither advancing my business, nor my preferred free-time activity, nor achieving the goal of ticking an item off the to-do list. But the frogs... they peep, they ribbitt, they croak vociferously... In short, they make me look up "coyote ugly" in Wikipedia (the definition wasn't there, but who knew the phrase spawned a bar, then a movie, then a chain of bars!) and then in the Urban Dictionary. Ostensibly I do this to enrich the post, but really I am just avoiding the anticipated cold, slimy, squiggly thing going down my throat.

But no more running! I embrace the frog! Over the next four days I will write three articles (one of them a how-to complete with photos) and put together a syllabus of classes I am interested in teaching at Ed Hoy's (and in my own studio, for that matter).

Though not frogs, I will also fire three kilns at least once a day. Today is Thanksgiving so I shouldn't be posting, and I don't usually post on weekends. But I am in the show home stretch so as I am working, I will be posting everyday through the end of the month.

This afternoon there will be turkey (deep fried, yum), good wine, good friends (and family! my Mom's here), and good Guitar Hero. I give thanks.