The opposite of focus

School has been out for almost a week, and I have been wandering in circles ever since.  I know I need routines and structure in order to function best, and summer doesn't exactly provide that to a schoolteacher.  I have a long list of things I want to accomplish, and ways I want to spend my time... Just haven't really felt like I've dived into something yet.

A prime example: Oakie, the travel penguin, needs a raincoat for his upcoming trip to Alaska.

Oakie on recent outing to the Portland zoo

I promised, after Oakie's very damp trip to London, that I would make him a raincoat (he actually spent time inside a ziploc bag on that trip--horrors!)  I dug out a Cabbage Patch clothing pattern, figuring I could alter it a bit for his shorter flippers.  I puttered around in my sewing room for most of the morning.  Do you see any raincoat?

Focus?  Hardly.  From left to right, the originally-intended Oakie raincoat blossomed into: a backpack (adorable dinosaur print!), a hoodie (which is what I spent most of my time adjusting and playing with), the raincoat (fitting the pattern in a calico before I work with the unruly vinyl), and a sleeping bag in a teddybear print (blame Natasha and her hippo time post for that idea).

Argh!  I started a new project, only to enthuse my way into *four* new projects instead.  Oh, I get so excited at the beginning of things.  What will become of it?

And, as if a morning full of lack-of-focus isn't bad enough, I finally got to the library this afternoon

Spent a lovely 90 minutes perusing the shelves.  Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to put half the books I was looking at back on the shelves.  But really--this is the heart of my "crazy about new ideas, want to immerse myself in them" thinking.  Two books in the "recreational mathematics" category (my students are amazed that I can read math-y books for pleasure; or that such things as math books for a general adult audience even exist).  Three books on organizing.  Really?  Three?  Didn't I just chuck a book on organizing into the Goodwill bin?

Notice there's no fiction in sight.  (Sad face--how did that happen?)  I am listing heavily to starboard.  Need balance.  And structure.  And focus.