Buffy the quilter?

I totally learned to quilt! Well, am learning to quilt. It is actually way hard. I think I need a bigger surface area.

Me. Quilting! So awesome!

After the terrible time I had of life last spring, I decided that I needed to stop reading and pick up other hobbies. I have never had a lot of talents or hobbies in life. I actually dread the question "so tell me about yourself" or "what do you do." I don't have a lot of confidence when it comes to my ability to create. I am not sure where it came from, but I am completely convinced of my own incapability and lack of creativity and usefulness. I get bogged down in the impossibility of my ideas before I even start. This lack of confidence is exacerbated by my love of reading. Reading is the one thing I am truly, truly good at. I am not a great reader, I am not reading great books nor do I read them quickly, my greatness at reading comes from sheer quantity rather than quality.

Reading is a compulsion for me. I generally read 5-10 books a month with the only exception being a couple months during the last year of law school. Oh, and I am fairly good at school. School just comes naturally to me. But that makes sense, because most school is just reading (or at least the school I do...no hard sciences for me). When it comes time to actually use that knowledge however, I am a complete basket case. I have a lot of interests, ideas, projects running around in my head, but whenever I think about actually acting on those ideas I run aground with two thoughts, "I am just not creative or capable enough to do that" and "I would rather be reading."

Since we've moved to Norfolk and I have been truly a stay-at-home mom in the most complete and total sense of the word. I think I have time alone outside of the house at most 1 hour a month and depending on the year, not even that. I stay at home. I am a mom. Those are the only two things I could say about myself that didn't reference something that was actually my husband's life or my kid's life. I started plunging into an absolute funk which got pretty bad last spring. I finally realized where I was heading and knew I needed to actually do something with my life. I adore my children, I adore being home with them, but what use am I if I allow myself to waste away into a complete and utter non-entity? What kind of an example is that for my children?

I realized that I am capable of teaching myself things. I am capable of learning outside of school and without a teacher. I don't have to be afraid of failure, because no one is watching and no one cares. I don't want to get to the end of my life and realize that I have spent my life reading about other people's lives rather than living my own.

So this past year, I have tried really hard to act on my ideas. If I find myself thinking, I can't do that, it is too hard, I don't know how, I am not creative enough, or it won't be as good as all the other ones I see around me, I take that as my cue to start working on it.

The worst thing that could happen is that it totally sucks and at least then I will be able to figure out what went wrong and what not to do again.

I have created a blog of awesome things (a phrase coined by James) so that I can have a reason to document the things I work on that I personally consider achievements. I know that they are not as fabulous achievements as many of the people in my life (I know a lot of truly accomplished people) but they mean something to me and keep the darkness at bay and having a place to go to look at my "stuff" and to feel pleased with the person I am creating is a good thing for me.

My new Blog of Awesome Things can be found here if any of you want to share in my "stuff."