When I was five-years-old I glued a bunch of orange yarn on paper plates and sold them door-to-door for a dime a piece. I'm not exactly sure why I thought combining strands of an unknit scarf and picnic supplies was such a brilliant idea, but I'm guessing it comes from the same part of me that scrapbooked high school through college and learned to sew throw pillows a couple of winters ago. I love a good project.
It's always been my favorite way to spend my free time. Instead of asking my dad to buy me the coolest video game out, I'd beg for one of those DIY kits to make a bejeweled stepping stone or sand art. Incidentally, this was before the term DIY was coined. Instead of going out on a Friday night in college, I was the weird kid that wanted to knit scarves with my friends. Maybe I wasn't too weird if my friends wanted to do that too? Don't answer that. These days I can honestly tell you that my husband and I have been on more "dates" to Home Depot that we have to restaurants. And that's just the way we like it.
One of my recent projects was more of a long-term one. I've had this photography business thing going on for the last five years or so. It really started to take off in the last two years, in large part because of that Home Depot-going husband of mine. His name is Rob, by the way. I'm just going to call him that from now on, so it's less confusing. Anyway, this photography thing, it has been one of my most favorite projects. But, I decided recently that I just don't have the energy to do it right at this stage in my life. Since the business and the blog that goes with it have been on hiatus, I've realized how much I miss documenting my work. I don't know that we'll keep our photography website up for much longer since there's a monthly fee, which brings us back to why I'm writing this blog.
Projects and documenting. It turns out the second part is just as important to me as the first. It's like running into the kitchen holding my magenta and turquoise sand in a triangle shaped vase to show my dad. (By the way, is anyone else still wondering what was so awesome about sand in a plastic bottle?) I get a kick out of showing things I like to the people in my life. And also, creating a bit of a timeline so I can look back and remember what I enjoyed and what was challenging about each project.
Two years ago, almost to this date, Rob and I were next to each other on our hands and knees staining almost every inch of floor in our house. The part we weren't staining, we were sleeping on, on an air mattress. That was a really hard weekend. We had one of our worst fights that Friday evening. But by Saturday morning, we were in one of the strongest places our marriage has ever been. I didn't know it at the time, but that was one of those mile markers in our relationship. I wish I wrote about it somewhere so I could remember what was going on in my head back then. I'm sure there will be many more holiday weekends in my future where Rob and I pretend we're on some HGTV show. And when it happens, I'm going to write about it.
So here's to projects. Big and small. Creative and purely functional. I can't promise life-changing writing. I can't even promise life-changing projects. But there will be a lot of them. And they're going to be way more fun than sand art.
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