dianaschnuth

OMG. I just made a batch of banana candles, and now the whole ground floor of my house smells like banana pudding. Oh, yum.

Once my test votive sets up, it’ll be time to burn that along with my coconut test candle to see if, together, it really would smell like banana cream pie. If it does… Oh, yeah. New candle flavor on the menu.

Edit, Friday Night: I’m burning the votive I made for myself, and it has kind of an odd chemical/medicinal smell. That’s really disappointing, because it has such a great cold scent. Ah, well. That’s why I buy one-ounce samples instead of huge vats o’ fragrance oil.

On the subject of candlemaking, I was just thinking… Does anyone else have a tendency to burn out (very punny) really fast on hobbies? Not entirely, I suppose, but…

For example, me with the totoro hats. I was completely psycho gung-ho about making fleece totoro hats for about three days in a row. —Well, maybe that’s not a good example, because after the third day, I discovered that I wouldn’t be able to attend the Animarathon, where I’d been planning to wear the hat in the first place, so there was no immediate point in continuing. Sure, I still want to perfect my fleece totoro hat, but I’m not single-mindedly driven to make a third and better hat right now.

Then there was me with Fullmetal Alchemist. I watched that for, again, about three or four days in a row. Then something happened to derail me—I think I played Civ III too long one night or took a nap on the couch and messed up my normal evening schedule or something—and I never got back into watching it, not even after Aaron got us a new DVD player that plays .avi files. I’m still intrigued by the anime, and I want to watch more of it sometime, but I’m just not excited enough to go and watch it right this moment.

Or how about those times I said, “I really need to photograph every day,” then went out for a few days, skipped a day, and (you guessed it) never quite got back out to photograph after that? Or how about my New Year’s Resolutions? Or practicing my mello? Or my exercise regime? The list goes on.

Is this a function of my monkey mind? (I couldn’t find a passable definition online, but “monkey mind” is a Buddhist term for the easily-distracted, short-attention-span, counter-productive and sometimes agitated state of mind of many people.) Or is this just me being jack- (or jill) of-all-trades again? Or is it willpower, which I never seem to have enough of?

(Incidentally, speaking of willpower, I ate a Pop-Tart out of the vending machine this morning when I got hungry way before lunchtime. Bad Diana.)

It makes me feel unsuccessful when I get all fired up about something, then let it peter out after not even a week. On the other hand, though, I don’t know if I’d have enough energy or time in the day to always do everything I was ever passionate about. Sewing hats, mello practice, working out, webpaging, candlemaking, plus all the other things I *should* be doing as a matter of course (like housework, possibly the one major sore spot in my relationship with Aaron—I’m such a lamer).

Does anyone else find that they fizzle out quickly on things they really do enjoy? Is this a normal thing? Or am I just overanalyzing again?

I think I know the answer to that. 😛