Procrastinator

My daughter Gloria has many of my best and worst qualities.  Like me, she enjoys arts and crafts.  She has a creative streak a mile wide and much more than me.  I like to think I am a good imitator of other people's art.  I can look at a scrapbooking magazine and use the ideas as a jumping off point for my own pages.  I can draw a picture that looks very much like whatever I'm looking at.  But Gloria can create things just from her imagination.  She thinks of designs and makes them a reality whether it's drawing, painting, sculpting, crocheting a purse or designing useful things with duct tape.

She also has inherited my tendency to procrastinate.  If I have six weeks to complete a project, I'm likely to work on it in the final few days.  If I have six hours to clean my house, most of it will get done in the last two.  Gloria is just like me.  She'll start a job, like laundry or sweeping the kitchen... and then just wander off to do other things until she's reminded to go back.  Then she'll do a little more... and wander off again.  When I was a kid, my mom would expect me to do the dinner dishes.  Like clockwork, every night I'd sneak off to the bathroom with a book to avoid doing my job.  Gloria can usually be found in the same location immediately after dinner. 

In this photo she seems to be acting the good big sister and teaching Shane to play checkers.  The papers on the table are the research report Danya did for the science project she was doing for Options.  Gloria was also supposed to be working on one.  She put it off until it was almost two weeks over due.  Then she sat at the computer and waited for me to come walk her through it step by step.  If it doesn't involve making a craft or drawing, she isn't interested in it.  Even if it's a fun project, she quickly loses interest and motivation.  Even if she completes it, she'll neglect to turn it in.  I get so frustrated with her... because it's exactly what I do.