The day it (almost) paid to procrastinate

The cost of waiting 'til the last minute is usually overnight shipping fees, a trip to the post office that you really don't have time for, "night before" shopping madness and frantic attempts to find something to wear.

One of the benefits (??) to law school is the chance to dress up more often. We've been married two and a half years, and our wedding was the last time I'd really "dressed up" until this semester. Since you can't exactly wear a wedding dress to a formal dinner, it was time to do a bit of shopping. After visiting thrift stores, discount stores, Wal-mart and just about every shop in the Mall, I was getting rather discouraged. I mean, I'm not that picky. I just wanted a black dress with a bit of a sleeve that hit a little below the knee or was floor length. I naively though that it would be a simple matter of walking in, finding the right size and buying it.

As I continued the search however, and kept stumbling across darling dresses that were either XS or XXL (or any size but mine), I realized that to find anything in my size that was pretty and feminine and modest and wasn't designed for preteens or seniors would be great.

Then in the very last store in the mall I found exactly the dress I wanted---which just happened to be on a one-day sale.

After wearing it twice it needed to be washed, but procrastinated and rather than taking it to the cleaners immediately, stuck it in the closet thinking "I'll just bring it in when Joshua needs his suit cleaned. Surely I won't need it again soon..."

Right. I did need it again, but we didn't decide to go until too late to have it cleaned. And since I couldn't wear it again without washing it, I was in somewhat of a dilemma. I mean, I've washed other delicates by hand, but they were 50 cent garage sale items that I didn't mind risking...not a new dress that had taken hours and hours to find.

After a bit of searching online, I found that manufacturers are no longer allowed to put several washing labels on clothing, like "dry clean or hand wash in cold water" and must stick with just one. Therefore, though many "dry clean only" materials, like rayon, wools and silks might well shrink or loose their shape, garments made from polyester, spandex... are much safer to try at home. So I did.

And it worked. For once, procrastinating helped me save money, stay at home and learn something new...

If only we hadn't procrastinated about nailing down our tentative babysitting plans. ;)

This almost happy procrastinating story has shown me just how often I procrastinate. Rather than taking care of what needs to be done in a timely fashion, it's so easy to "put it off 'til later". With that in mind, I've decided to declare tomorrow morning anti-procrastination morning: a time to pull out that list of odds and ends that falls through the cracks on a normal day that really shouldn't be put off. Anyone care to join me?