Today’s prompt: What themes, lessons, or beginnings from this month are staying with you?
I want to continue with the daily writing prompts on Letters’ Lounge. It only occurred to me late in the evening today that tomorrow is February and that I hadn’t scheduled any writing prompts. I managed to get a few ready to go and will finish the rest over the next few days.
(more…)The big project for today was figuring out why the humidifier had stopped working. Before turning it on for the winter a few weeks ago, I gave it a wash. Perhaps mistakenly, I used the shower head to get into all the nooks and crannies on the inside, where pet hair and dust had settled and coagulated. When I plugged it in and turned it on, it didn’t work at first but then it started spewing out warm mists of hydration.
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It’s more like me to have an idea that I won’t follow through on than it is for me to see one of them through. There are a number of reasons for this, one being that I have too many ideas. This doesn’t stop me from preparing myself to eventually get to the project and complete it. I have a lot of tools and even more materials for projects that I had the idea for.
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Not even a few years ago, if you would’ve asked me to buy a router, I would’ve come back with something to transmit the internet. It’d have multiple antennae and lights that flash green when everything is working the way it should. To set it up, I’d use a computer.
(more…)“I have to give this a go,” I keep telling myself. My parents reiterate the same to me when I speak with them. “If I don’t try this, I’ll always wonder what could’ve come of it.” So, I’m doing it. Most of the time, it’s pretty good. Sometimes, I get nervous.
I’m an anxious person, that I know. It’s hard for me to let things go, whether that’s a mistake I made or a new tool that I want. I fixate on what might be or could’ve been instead of what’s all in front of me. I know, truly, that I have everything I could need and more. If moving all that shit over the workshop hasn’t given me any insight into just how much I have…my optometry benefits renew in September.
Diving into this project, that of making and selling handcrafted wooden (mostly) goods, as I’ve done this summer, has been really good for me. It’s given me a focus. My mom keeps reminding me that it’s a passion of mine and it also happens to be something I’m good at. Her gentle encouragement is a result of my complete inability to accept a compliment or praise from my parents. Before now, the closest that I’d gotten to woodworking was holding the flashlight for my dad. Occasionally, I’d swing a hammer — the rusty one.
What’s really been bothering me these last few days is the cost. It’s cost a lot to get this project off the ground. While I do feel like I’m making gains, I’m the one financing all of it. Nothing is selling right now. There is no money coming in.
Yet. This is a tortoise and hare tale.
To be fair, my advertising and marketing strategy is piss poor. I’ve been spending more time trying to get myself in a position to make things. I’ve been making things, too, just not enough. There are a few pens that I need to photograph and post pictures of, though. I don’t read all the emails that I get sent about how to grow your small business. Who’s got the time for that?
It feels like I’m having trouble situating myself. Where, in all of this, do I belong? Squarely in the centre. I’m the bubble in the middle of the mind map, the one that looks like a cloud and has bold letters in it. From this position, you can only see out in front of you, not what’s beside or behind. Everything is drawn out from here and remains connected.
Right now, it’s hard for me to identify the gains that I’ve made. I’m seeing the forest, not the trees. Wood is crucial to the success of this enterprise.
Some days are slower than others. Today, we took a pedal boat around the lagoon at Bowness Park. We were never moving too fast. For an hour, without any gusto, we pedalled.
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I rotated my tires today. Six tire changes took place. I kept wishing I had just paid the guy to do it when I went in for an oil change.
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I got out of bed around 10:00 this morning. Well, I got out of bed at 7:00 am to feed the girls and then went back to bed. There are very few mornings when Eloise isn’t pestering me to get out of bed to feed them. If nipping at my toes doesn’t work, she’ll start scratching at my bum through the sheets. Genevieve is clever enough to let her sister do the work.
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Creativity is a funny thing. We seem to value it very highly in our private lives but dismiss it too easily in our professional ones.
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Playing used to mean going outside to ride my bike, play street hockey, shoot hoops in the driveway, or build something with Lego. It made senses to call those activities “playing” because they were fun and carefree. Going to the playground wouldn’t be all that much fun if it were work.
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Summer break takes a few days to set in. It’s the cold pool your toes need to test first. Soon enough, you’ll acclimatise and be swimming without reservation.
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