Motivation

Lots of motivation issues today. The first was motivation to get out of bed, which came in the form of a full Southern revival-style dawn Easter service on the street corner just down from our house. The real down side to waking up that way was that our iPod alarm was set to play Tom Petty songs and since we both woke up with headaches, we both lay there pretending that the cacophony was just going to go away on its own. :)

My next motivation was crochet related. I wanted to start (is it accurate to say "cast on" for crochet really?) the Retro Femme top from Sensual Crochet, but my swatch didn't work out. Even with all the parameters matching the pattern, I got a 2" by 2" square dry instead of a 4" by 4" square. I wet blocked it on advice from the lovely Amy Swenson (the pattern's designer) but it wasn't even 3" on a side. So, my husband and I decided to go out to breakfast before grocery shopping so we'd have an excuse to (1) swing into a craft store for me to get a larger hook (or three) and (2) go to Best Buy to get a movie just out on DVD that he wanted. Well, alas, the craft stores were both closed. We dedicded to hang around Barnes & Noble until Best Buy opened and spent an unnecessary sum, as I always do. Then Best Buy didn't even open. We got out to double check, but there was no sign about Easter hours, and we weren't the only annoyed customers. It was strange.

So we came home, and as we closed the gate behind the car, we realized we hadn't gone grocery shopping. But, the motivation to go back out was gone and we retired to an afternoon of laundry folding and Firefly watching. (Joss Whedon, if you're reading this, Thank You.)

Alas, I'm really lacking motivation to do what I need to be doing now before shower and bed, which is grading. Does anyone out there have a trick or tip for improving your motivation to do things that need to be done?