SO WHAT?

By now you may all be wondering...So What??? And I don't blame you. Sometimes I have trouble getting to the point. But here it is in a nutshell: I am horrible at the domestic arts.

And that is where this blog come into play. See, I love to write. I always have. In the past I have have attempted other blogs, but they had no purpose to them and they fizzled. You know what else always fizzles? Any project I ever start. EVER.

And now there is Pinterest. So many good projects, great recipes, organization tips! I am totally addicted. To the pinning part, not the doing part.

Can you see that I have a serious problem here?

That is why I have decided to start this blog. I want to chronicle my current failings and my growth, if any, as I attempt to tackle all of these ideas one pin at a time.

And all of that has me wondering both why I am so bad at these things and also why I so desperately want to be better at them. Thus, I shared with you the talents of the 2 women who shaped me in these areas.

I should point out that I am adopted so everything I do like them is a learned behavior.

My mother has told me pretty much all my life that I am JUST like her mother. I have always loved that and I know in many ways she is right. I am a bit spoiled and was never really forced to cook or clean as a child. There were no chores to do. To this day any cleaning I do is purely out of necessity, not because of some OCD type of drive, or even out of a desire to make a comfortable, presentable home. Most of the cooking I do I also out of pure necessity. However, I do enjoy baking very much. When given the time and space to prepare interesting or fun meals or desserts I truly enjoy it. The prep is a drag and I avoid the clean up at all cost however. I feel like if my Mema was born in my generation she might have been more like me and relied on a lot of prepared meals for her family.

But then there is crafting. I am not really like her in this area. She would always follow all the rules and finish every project. That is not me at all. In this way, I am much more like my mom. She usually finishes projects, but she never follows any rules. She does it as she goes. She may use a pattern for sewing, but usually finds a way to change it up to make it better. I usually start out with instructions but them start improvising as I go. Sometimes I even tackle something without any directions at all. Those times never end up as well as they do when Mom does it, though.

As I mentioned, my Mema was pretty organized. It was mostly due to being brought up in the Depression so she hated to keep old things. It should all be new. My mother, like me, is a collector. We worry that if we get rid of something we may need it. And even worse, we get attached to things. So my piles all over the house, pile of bills, pile of children's school work, pile of folded clean laundry, pile of craft/food/other ideas, those I learned from Mom. I guess in a way it is our own brand of organization. I wish everything had a place, but it just doesn't and no matter what I try I just can't get better at it.

You know what else I get from Mom? The intense love for animals. (See the About Me Section.) At one time we had 8 animals in our house. She is currently a dog groomer with her own business. Mema? She liked animals from a far.

Aside from all this domestic talk I also love, with a passion, reading. I always have. I owe this a little to nature, but also to both of these amazing women. Mom taught me to read by the age of 3. She was not a big reader herself, though she did pick up a book from time to time. She did, however, highly value reading and we spent a lot of time reading together before I was big enough to do it on my own. Mema was a non-stop reader, as was my Grandad. They had their own paperback library in their home and by 8th grade I was borrowing Mema's Danielle Steele books. When I learned to drive I would often stop by the library for her to pick up the latest Steel release. Grandad was more about True Crime and other non-fiction. Today I read nearly anything I can get my hands on. This might be part of why I have never been so good at the housekeeping thing, although audio books have greatly enhanced my laundry folding time. (You can find me on Goodreads.)

So at this point I am even boring myself so I will leave this self realization and study for now. And soon the fun will begin. I hope to entertain you with crafts, tantalize you with cooking, thrill you with book and movie reviews, amuse you with tales of my kids, and even educate you with parenting tips (or fails). So please, stay tuned.