I’ve been interested in idioms for a long time. Years ago I wrote in another blog:
I think that English is an extremely rich language, one of the reasons being the endless list of idioms available to use.
[…] an idiom can be defined as a phrase where the words together have a meaning that is different from the dictionary definitions of the individual words.
I recently heard someone use the idiom ‘having irons in the fire‘ and it reminded how much I like them. I also thought it was a great way of describing my current set-up, with a handful of projects going on at the same time.
If you have an iron in the fire, you have a project, undertaking or plan of action; having several irons in the fire means you have more than one.
It’s worth remembering that it may be used with a positive connotation, e.g. ‘have other irons in the fire’ (other projects are available if this one fails), or with a negative connotation, e.g. ‘too many irons in the fire‘ (overwhelmed by having too many tasks).
My Excerpts 