Very occasionally, procrastination actually pays off

 

 Those are words I may never have expected to hear myself say.  I fight procrastination every day of my life.  I guess it may be a common character flaw to many people.  But this time it did work in my favor.  I'll explain.

For many years I've had a large collection of Taste of Home magazines.  You can read about my Christmas issues here.  Every couple of months, I like to get out part of my stash of older Taste of Home magazines -- the ones for the particular season we're in-- and browse through them.  (I often do this with my Cook & Tell newsletters as well.)  Invariably I find some neat recipes that I had forgotten about, or ones I had meant to try and never got around to.  I keep most of the out-of-season magazines neatly stacked in a bookcase, and transfer the ones for the current season to a bakers rack in the dining area where they are handy for browsing.

I was thinking in mid-October that I needed to get out the Thanksgiving and Christmas issues.  It's been such a busy year for us and I couldn't even remember the last seasonal issues I had brought out.  (I keep a folder of healthy recipes and one of slow cooker recipes stacked atop my seasonal magazines in the bakers rack.)  So I reached under those folders to see what season was there.

Lo and behold!  Thanksgiving, starting with the very issue you see at the top of this post!  And, stacked just beneath them, the Christmas issues!  There was no need to change out the issues, as I had apparently never changed them out at any point in 2023.  They were just as they'd been left in 2022.   And rather than being disgusted with myself for procrastinating, I am actually very thankful for it, as it has saved me some work at a very busy time.  Now I can browse Thanksgiving and Christmas recipes at my leisure.