The Plan

These are the projects I want to tackle in the next year.  I've always wanted to do them, and now I will. :)   At least one project per week, for 52 weeks.

1. Mixed-Media
   1. -ATCs
   2. -Art Journaling
      1. Marriage
      2. Birds
      3. Flowers
      4. Trees
      5. Bible Verses
      6. Collage Techniques
      7. Book-Making
      8. Motherhood
   3. -Photography
   4. Canvas Work
      1. Tulips
      2. Square Canvases for the girls
   5. Jewelry
   6. Drawing
   7. Altering other items
      1. Cigar Box Purses
      2. Beaded Bobby pins
   8. Card-Making, a la “Take-10” style
   9. Christmas items
2. Sewing
   1. Altering My Clothes
   2. Altering the Girls' Clothes
   3. Sewing from a pattern
   4. Quilting
   5. Christmas items
3. Writing
   1. The Play
   2. The Veggie Tales Spec Script
   3. Skits for church
   4. Short Stories
   5. Short screenplays
   6. Non-fiction
   7. Songwriting
      1. Worship Songwriting
      2. Comedy Songwriting
4. Guitar Practice
   1. Learning new songs
   2. Learning new techniques, such as scales and new chords
5. Practicing stand-up comedy.

Oddly enough, this is the perfect time to begin such a challenge. 

First, I have everything I need.  I've spent the past several years slooooooooowly building up a collection of art supplies, collage ephemera, stamps, sewing notions, and other assorted tools. This stuff is *expensive*, and takes a while to collect.  One of the best ways to do this is to figure out what projects really speak to you, then stalk the "arts and crafts" section of Craigslist.  I do mean stalk.  You are a hawk, baby, and you know there's a bunny just quivering under a bush.  When it jumps out, you swoop down in all your glory and grab that sucker!



My husband has known me to be perfectly slow and sleepy on a Saturday Morning, then suddenly stand up and shout, "HONEY! There's a craft store going out of business in Grandview, and I've got sixty bucks.  Can I go? Please please please can I go?"  I would get both of my kids dressed in the first clean outfit I could find, then drive them all over kingdom come, with promises of donuts if they were really, really good.  Then I'd buy $400 worth of craft supplies at some garage sale/closing sale/warehouse sale for my sixty bucks.  Tee hee hee.  Aaaah, that made my heart happy.  Enjoy the donuts, kids.  :) 

Once, I mentioned, "I'm building up my art supply collection," to an artist I knew, and she kind've snarkily said, "You should be making art, not buying art supplies!"  Gee, thanks.  The fact that I had a new baby and a husband in grad school kind've meant that things needed to move a little more slowly. If I got my teeth brushed during that season, it was a successful day.  A shower was heavenly. Picking up a set of water-soluble oil pastels w/ my 50% off coupon at Joann's on my way back from the grocery store meant that I could stare at them and dream while I nursed my baby. :) Now, my oldest is in school, and my youngest wants to create with me.  It's TIME. 



Secondly, I'm organized. 
Thanks to the amazing Lauren Lee Yentch, an organizing guru from Linworth Road Community Church, my basement is the perfect sanctuary for this season.  Also, the book "Organizing From the Inside Out," is a great resource, and of course, the inimitable "flylady.com."  (I'll add the links once I can get my Amazon associates account to start working again. Silly thing.)  I have a separate space for art, and a separate space for the kids to play while I'm creating.  Shona Cole, author of "the Artistic Mother" encourages all mothers to carve this space out for themselves.  However, since I've loaned this book to a friend, I don't have any of her cool quotes from it, lol!  :)

Finally, I was "developing symptoms."  Steven Pressfield, in his amazing book, "The War of Art," proclaims that all major vices--depression, migraines, websurfing, to name a few---are all a part of our struggle against a demon he names "Resistance."  You know Resistance.  You feel it any time you want tighter abs. :)  Resistance was kicking my tail from here to Chatanooga, and I was tired of it.  I don't want to live my life for 40 more years, then wake up and say, "Dang, I wish I'd done all that stuff, but now I can't see."  I'm starting. I'm living like I want to live. There's no time like the present.  

This is the person God made me to be. 

Now I gotta go--we're out of diapers.