I’ve been thinking an awful lot about this blog.  Should I continue it? Refocus it? Give up entirely?  Should I start a totally new one? What the hell am I blogging about anyway?  

Way back when I started this, I wanted to give myself writing practice because I loved writing, and I wanted to practice it with a potential audience (I think not many people want their creations of any kind to sit in a total vacuum).  As my lack of recent posts shows, I’m also not so productive without the pressure of a looming deadline.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t change.  I was WAY worse when I was younger!

When I started this, I intended to write, just write.  And I thought some of my posts were pretty good.  Admittedly, some sucked.  But sometimes it sucked to see that people were just not looking at the posts that I thought were really pretty good.  Then I posted some things on Facebook, but in so doing, my friends found out about my blog.  Which was good, and bad.  Good, because people saw it, but bad because then people I knew in real life saw it.  LOL.  I went through the internal dilemma of, “What am I going to write about that won’t compromise someone’s privacy?” because there were some good topics I could have written about, but even disguising names and details would not have been enough to completely hide whom I was talking about from other people that I knew.  This doesn’t necessarily mean I wanted to talk about BAD stuff, but you know, everyone’s different.  What you think is cute or funny, they think is not funny, or too personal ("I don’t want the world knowing that I shell my peas!").  My kids went through a period of time where they were always asking, “MOM, are you gonna post that on your blog?” and usually when I asked them if I could, they emphatically said “NO!” 

So I didn’t.  

Throughout all of this, I posted about crafts, and art projects, because I like doing them, and because throughout my life people have always said things like, “Oh, that’s cool. How did you do that?” So I did some posts about that stuff, and I saw that people, (people I didn’t know in person!) were viewing them. And that was SO COOL.  I made scenery for a few plays at work and at my daughter’s school and posted some projects and a considerable amount of people viewed them, and that is still so cool, but the play scenery thing did not work out logistically the last time or two, and so it’s not going to be in my immediate future.  The play people I know like work on a VERY intense time schedule where everyone’s schedule depends on everyone else’s and I just don’t enjoy working like that.  Maybe it will be possible for me to do play things further down the road and if so, that would be great. But I'm still going to make things, even without plays, and maybe I'll even make some things that can be used in plays. Who knows what the future will hold. 

All of this introspection has made me realize something.  I’ve been on a journey to find my thing, the thing that I most enjoy doing, and that was what I wanted to blog about, but I realized..

 my thing… is searching for my thing. 

So yeah, let me clarify:  this blog is about me searching for my thing.  And when I say thing, I mean the “work at what you love to do and you will never work a day in your life,” thing. (It’s like the “One True Love” of arts/crafts.)

Months ago, while I was pondering all of these questions about what I should be doing with my life, (creatively speaking) I had a psychic reading.  The woman reading me seemed pretty accurate - she told me some things that were pretty specific to me and my family that she really would have had no way of knowing.  Both of my grandmothers came through and said that this is “my time” and that I have “gifts that I’m not using.”  Jeez, I was kind of upset by that one.  I told her, “BUT I JUST DON’T KNOW WHAT THE GIFTS ARE!  WHAT SPECIFIC GIFTS ARE THEY TALKING ABOUT, CAUSE I LIKE TOO MANY THINGS!”  Is it writing?  Is it paper mache? Is it photography?  Is it costume design? Does it involve power tools, because I LOVE power tools! 

I don’t yet know what my thing is, but I know that there MUST be other people out there with the same exact dilemma because Pinterest is LOADED with great creative things that people feel passionately about, and it’s also loaded with people like me who are trying them and doing some well, and some not so well.  All I know is that this blog is about, and is gonna continue to be about searching for my Holy Grail of creativity.  I’m gonna have some bombs, surely, (I’ve already posted some!) but I’m gonna have a few successes, too.  And I’d LOVE to hear about your searches and your successes because if you’re reading this, you love to create and you are part of my tribe.  

So now that I’ve written my rallying cry, I have to go to bed cause tomorrow promises to be a LOOONNGG day at work - I get paid to be a secretary and school starts in a scant few days. Goodnight, friends!

Mediumless: ...more commonly known as, Art and Craft ADD

My very first paper mache sculpture - based on a children's book. You can see it took some abuse from the preschoolers before this picture was taken.  

I was probably younger than four years old when my mother sculpted a head out of paper mache and baked it in our oven in attempt to dry it.  It turned black and moldy and never hardened the way it should have.  Little did she know she was going about the drying process in the wrong manner.  After her attempt, I begged her on several other occasions to try it again.  "Paper mache doesn't work…" she would tell me, or something like that.  She probably doesn't even remember this, but it made a lasting impression on me.  I thought there was something truly amazing in turning something into something completely different.  

Already, I was addicted to art and crafting.  As a kid I made doll furniture from cardboard milk cartons, coasters out of yarn scrolled in flat disk shapes and held together with tape, looped potholders, hooked rugs, crocheted squares, line drawings, macrame, tissue paper flowers, corn husk dolls, sock puppets…  Some of these items I haven't thought about in years. They were all wonderful and fun, and yet, I didn't stick with any of them for long.

I started sewing in high school; mostly because my mother was of the "why should we pay this much for it when we can MAKE it for this much…?"  school of thought.  She had her own sewing machine, but she never sewed much.  She got me a pattern and some fabric and told me to "look at the pattern directions and figure it out."  After I while I got pretty good at it, although perfectly set zippers still elude me.  I made ruffled shirts, button down shirts, jackets, pants and costumes.  I stuck with sewing for a while and I still love to sew but I can't sew exclusively.  I'm a craft cheater.

When I worked at the preschool I tried other crafts, most notably, paper mache.  Then I drifted to making beaded jewelry at home, but I still managed to take up scrapbooking, painted wood crafts; I tried soap making and I dabbled in herbal and essential oil crafting.  One thing that's disappointing, though.  It's difficult to get spectacularly good at any one thing when you keep losing interest and switching to another craft or medium.  I used to read articles about various types of crafters and artists - telling how "… the moment they picked up…"  this or that item they were mesmerized or hooked or whatever. I still dream of finding my One True Art and Craft Love, or maybe I'm just looking for that perfect combination of paint, sculpture beads, fabric and wire…

In any case,  I am willing to keep looking, and  willing to try them all.