Saturday, January 09, 2010

Could This Explain My Lack of Productivity?

Have you ever taken one of those surveys, the ones with a few demographic questions at the beginning to establish who you are and what products someone might be able to sell you in the future? 


There's always a question about your level of physical activity. And the responses are always things like "walk twice a week," "run every day," "just completed a marathon."


Uh, yeah ... I always lie. Don't tell me you don't ... I won't believe you. It's like those questions about family income ... who's going to admit that they really earn somewhat less than the national  poverty level? And with that level of education? What does that say about our success level as individuals? Basically, the surveyors have to be really dumb if they think we're telling the truth about those things. But I digress.


Have you ever noticed that no one ever queries the fitness benefits of knitting? After all, my hips may be ... er, overlarge ... but darn it, my wrists are incredibly flexible and my fingers are limber as all get out. Well, that might be explained by the outrageous number of hours they spend hanging out on keyboards, but you get the point.



But actual exercise? Not so  much.


Now it turns out it's not my fault, and I can prove it. 


That big furry thing on the left is a pugbutt. A 20 pound pugbutt. The rest should be self-explanatory:  handknitted socks on feet, blue corduroy leg, rounded turquoise colored belly ... yep, that's definitely me. With a giant furry pugputt on my lap. The computer is to the left of the pugbutt, on the arm of the chair.


Oh, yeah, that other stuff? Yeah, that's yarn, part of the inventory process if it matters. My big opportunity for Task Accomplishment for the day.


I thought yesterday would be a great day to sort through yarns and get them entered into Ravelry. (I continue to delude myself by thinking that if I have it identified and labeled and entered in the Ravelry database, maybe I'll be (a) inspired to actually use it, or (b) give some of it away to a charity specializing in the yarn-challenged, or (c) be too embarrassed to buy more. So far, this methodology has proven to be flawed, but you never know when a yarn miracle could occur.)


And it's a physical job. Get up, find yarn, photograph it, sit down in chair with laptop and dive into Ravelry..


But the bottom line is that once I got settled in the chair with my laptop and the yarn that needed to be added to the list, Lucy settled onto my lap. I shifted the laptop around her, on top of her, behind her ... nope, she wasn't going to move. And I wasn't going to get anything productive done. 


I had no choice ... I just relaxed into my enforced Snow Day With Pug and knit. Well, I might have played in Ravelry a little.


Not that bad a day, when you think about it. Just don't go to my Ravelry page to see my progress. You'll be sorry.

2 comments:

Jane Prater said...

I am so glad I'm not the only one who will just sit there rather than disturb the dog who is in her lap producing warmth. I'm becoming really good at planning before I sit. Yarn Harlot says that one hour of knitting burns 80 calories.

Woofgangpug said...

Shouldn't it burn extra calories to have to knit with a pug on your lap?