Painting, and Knitting, and Beading, Oh My!

Some people have a hobby or two that they like to indulge in now and then.  Others do one thing very well and have fun doing just that.  When one enjoys their "thing", whether a creative outlet or sports related, it's a go-to activity that gives pleasure in the down time. 

Having too many enjoyable pursuits becomes a burden.  I am one of those people.  As an artist I really need to paint.  My favorite medium is oil paint and I paint BIG.  What am I painting right now?  Nothing.  I'm not oil painting, not right now anyway.  Right now I'm knitting!  And I'm knitting five items at once.  And I'm making bead/wire jewelry.  And I'm pastel drawing.  And I'm sketching with watercolors, which is painting, ok.  Did I say I'm knitting?

It's all a distraction, you see.  No, not multi-tasking like people want to call it.  I'm working on one thing until I suddenly am very interested in another thing.  Then I stop doing the first activity and fluidly move on to the other.  No multi-tasking involved.  There's a good excuse for this and it's not ADD.  Since I haven't used the oil paints in a while first I need to set them up on my palette.  This takes time.  This takes energy.  So I go to the next easy-to-get-to thing which is the pastels.  Just open the box of pastels, draw, and clean up the dust, and I'm done!  But I have to pull out the boxes from the shelf.  As I start for the shelf I see the half done knit socks I'm working on.  I head for the knitting.  I'm at a juncture in the knitting where I have to count rows and I spy another pair on other needles.  I pick them up and knit on them for a few rows.  Behind this project is the beading bag full of jewelry goodies.  I stop knitting and look through the bag for something I thought of.  Do you see where this is going?

Wouldn't it be smart to get the oil paints out and just do that?  Yes, it would be a good thing unless the half knit sock is in the way.