Well begun is half done

According to my mom, Mary Poppins was my favorite movie as a kid. Looking back on things, it shows!

I didn't mind cleaning my room because "Snap! The job's a game." My sister and I would sip our cough syrup from the sides of our spoons, although the flavors were never strawberry or lime cordial. I love umbrellas, but I have never found one that will take me up into the air. Carousels used to freak me out and I never knew why, but it's probably because I thought the horses were going to jump off the ride and take off into the countryside. Probably my favorite part about the movie is how much Uncle Albert (Ed Wynn) reminds me of my grandpa. The resemblance in appearance and laugh is uncanny.

I watched Mary Poppins the other day while struggling to write a few articles for a newsletter, and something struck me in the movie: "Well begun is half done." I'm not sure if I got it from the movie or it's just my obsessive compulsive tendencies, but I cannot finish writing anything unless it is well begun. I have struggled with newspaper articles until I had the perfect lead, and the introduction to research papers had to be written before the rest of the pages could flow.

But this week I painfully tried to ignore that writing philosophy. I threw together some empty phrases to get me started and I tried to begin attacking the middle paragraphs. Let me just say that four days later, the article was still not written. This morning I deleted all of the nonsense I had previously written and set out to begin again. About twenty minutes later, I had my opening paragraph done, half of the article written, and the rest of the article in my head.

Mary had it right all along. I guess she really is practically perfect in every way!