Sunday, April 11, 2010

Resolutions, mmmaybe.

I'm pretty sure what I've got here is not an original idea. How many people saw Julie and Julia again? My story is vaguely similar, but different: I feel years older than I really am. I am going through a difficult time in my life, and feel a sudden desire to reconnect with that childlike sense of wonder and discovery that died, unnoticed, years ago. I want to look forward to each day. I want to enjoy life before it ends. If this life is it, I've been terribly unproductive.

I've decided it's time to step up the productivity: I am going to enjoy this next year even if nobody else does. I spoke with someone recently who said that they knew a person who knew a person (etc. etc.) who had seen a study done on people with depression, and found that creativity would sometimes heal them. I'm going to try to do one creative thing a week. I'm already a mildly involved arts and crafts person, as well as a scientist, but more often than not I find myself too caught up in the shit that's happening in my life to enjoy things.

As far as making this a blog, I find that telling people I'm going to do something makes me do it. It makes me feel like if I make my plans public I'm obligated to follow through, even if nobody really cares :D.

This week: I am going to sew a pillowcase. I'm starting small, but that sewing machine manual looks pretty scary o_o. I fancied myself a seamstress long, long ago as a child when I would cut the hems off my nightgowns and "sew" them into "clothes" for my dolls. I'm a librarian, and for a tweens' program last summer a local sewing club brought in a truckload of Singers and oversaw kids sew their way through pillowcase kits. The idea of arming rambunctious kids with needles and having them stick their fingers near the machines alarmed me, but they managed just fine and all of them went home with pillowcases. Heck, if a nine-year-old can operate a sewing machine and make a pillowcase, so can I!

Mission: Pillowcase
Deadline: 4/18