CONTENTS UNDER PRESSURE: I'LL PROCRASTINATE LATER: PROJECT TABLED FOR LACK OF ACTION

Ever notice that planning a project is a lot more fun than actually doing it?

Several months ago, a friend of mine gave me a battered little table left behind by the previous owner of her just-bought house.

It's not too badly battered. It is, however, peeling paint that is the shade of those green after-dinner mints, and the green paint covers water-stained wood.

So, the old green paint has to come off and new paint has to go on. That's a given.

The rest of the table's resurrection is something I've been pondering for the last several weeks.

The table top is in pretty good shape. The legs are sort of scarred up in a few places, but a little sandpaper can fix that.

In the case of the table, and any other project I decide to tackle, it's the finish that's in question.

I don't really procrastinate. I just need to think for a really long time about what I'm going to do. Haste, as they say, makes waste.

Besides, the last time I was really impulsive, I bought a car. My latest impulse has been to get my ears pierced (again), but I've found some impulses need to be carefully considered.

At least it's only my ear lobes that are in question.

I come by pondering projects naturally. It took my father 15 years to get central heat-air conditioning put in the house.

Actually, doing the work -- running in the ductwork, installing the compressor, whatever -- took about a week and a half. Pop spent the other 14 years, 11 months, etc., planning the job and listening to us whine about how frigidly cold or boiling hot it was upstairs.

Nobody's whining at me to get the table refinished, so I have little incentive to get to work.

And I still haven't really decided what to do. I can paint it in a yellow, blue and white color scheme to go with my bedroom and stencil the top.

Or I could paint the body and use little ceramic tiles on the table top to make a mosaic.

But first I have to pick out the stencil or find the tiles.

The devil is in the details. And quite possibly in the paintbrush, too. That remains to be seen.

I've noticed that planning projects -- laying out gardens, picking finishes, losing weight, cleaning the kitchen -- is a lot more fun than actually doing them.

And finishing a project is fantastic. It's that part in the middle where you have to do the work that seems to be the sticking point.

I always say I'll finish the job, whatever it happens to be, when I get around to it.

And the classic comeback is, of course, what aisle are the round-to-its in?

I need motivation. I need gumption. I need stick-to-itiveness.

I need Martha Stewart to come over and paint the stupid table (and lay out the garden and clean the kitchen), but we won't discuss that.

I have a stack of stuff that I should get around to some day. A candle-making kit, the table, a couple of novels, adulthood.

Now if I could just find those round-to-its....

Peggy O'Farrell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.