During the session on metaphor (described in the endless post below), we were given 5 minutes to write down a description of our own writing metaphor. Mine, as I said, surprised me. I’ve never really thought about it before and THIS is the first thing that pops into my mind? I’m going to include it here just as it appears in my notes. It wanders. It gets convoluted. It has bad punctuation. You are warned.
****************************************************
Training a wild horse:
I can see all these stunning, gorgeous ideas/horses in the distance. They race around, wild, manes cascading behind them, nostrils flaring, full of ancient power and young arrogance. I know others have captured them in the past or at least those like them. But now it’s my turn. I’m sure I haven’t learned enough, don’t know the right things to capture them and not destroy them in the attempt.
No, that’s not exactly it. I know I can catch one. I can catch twenty. (Some days they crowd around begging to be caught). And I can get them into the corral of my mind and close the gate and be proud of myself for bringing this wild beauty off the prairie. But I won’t because my admiration and pride is just a mask for my fear, the thing that holds me back from going out and doing the part I know how to do — once I have them captured, what do I do then?
If I just let them run, angry and magnificent even behind a fence, they’re wasted. Worse than useless. And I’m afraid they’ll die there. Will that slow death be any better than a quick and bloody breaking if I try to train them and can’t get it right (and I’m sure I can’t)?
I know what’s required. I have to take them one at a time and patiently train them. I have to gain their trust, learn their language, and figure out their individual quirks. So much patience is required, so many setbacks, so many times I think I’m teaching them the right thing only to realize they’ve learned something totally different…sometimes better, sometimes far worse.
At the end, if I’ve conquered both my fear and theirs, I have something beautiful. No less so because they’re now trained, because their essence, their wildness, is still apparent in every line of their bodies. Though restrained, there is still a power underneath, that quality that first attracted me. It’s just that, through my work, through my specific muse, I’ve been able to bring that power to hand where it can be encountered and wondered at and understood.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
To sum up...
Okay, FF&W. It's a long story.
The encapsulated version: I got to work early on Thursday so I could leave early so I could make the first session and I did. Then I listened to Luci Shaw do readings, always a highlight of anything. Over the next two days, I attended several sessions, some interesting, some helpful, some incredibly funny, and one very boring and pointless one. I was very tired at the end, somehow managed to lose seven pounds over those two and a half days, and had one moment of combined bravery and shrinking violetness. And then I took Sunday off to breathe in spring air, nurse my sunburned and itchy skin, and completely enjoy the silence. It was nice.
Longer story:
First, Luci Shaw. I heart her. I do. I want to hang out with her and plant things with her and give free reign to my metaphorical nature impulses and speech which I can so rarely do around other people. And, because of her, I have to figure out where I can find a Tibetan prayer bowl. Which may be difficult as I don't think that's actually the name of the thing. ETA: Nepali singing bowl! Not Tibetan. Thank you, random blogger.
The "I've Written Something...Now What?" session was a given to attend. Realistic, depressing, but fun. Trying to write for eventual publication can be such an exercise in futility and yet, like Sisyphus, we keep rolling that hope up the industry hill, which just gets steeper and more slippery every year. At which point, maybe I mean the glass mountain with the princess at the top. Regardless, very helpful session with three industry insiders, one of whom I worked with directly at Baker, but who, I'm sure, would not recognize me at all. Good session.
The session on C. S. Lewis and Moral Imagination reinforced my assertion that children KNOW good and evil exist, no matter what adults try to tell them about the relativity of truth and despite our attempts at protecting them by filing down the teeth of fairy tales.
Brian Doyle, essayist extraordinaire, was deeply encouraging to a person who also employs excessive adjectives and wandering sentence structure.
The three ladies of "Can Christians Tell the Truth?" did just that and generated no less than three ideas for further writing according to my notes. My favorite line (or at least the only one I wrote down) was from Deb Rienstra: "Romance really is the Christian story, isn't it?" I quite like her.
No one who knows me will be surprised that I went to a session on metaphor. There was much discussion and an assignment on finding your own writing metaphor and discovering its inherent strengths and weaknesses. Mine surprised me. I'll do a complete write-up on that in a different post. Quite enjoyed it, though, and furthered my previously formed desire to someday speak to and learn from Leslie Leyland Fields.
Davis Bunn, best-selling author in both CBA and ABA markets, gave two interesting and useful sessions on writing commercial fiction, which is somewhat unusual at a conference so often focused on literary work. They were great to sit in on since, though my non-fiction is decidedly literary, my fiction tends toward genre fiction. (I think. I often find myself rolling my eyes at the difficulty of pinning down a pigeonhole for my writing.)
Chip MacGregor gave the session that I found the most completely practical (and at the same time, wildly amusing) of the entire conference. He's self-deprecating, which I always find funny as long as it doesn't make the audience uncomfortable which this absolutely did not. He told us the anatomy of a good book proposal from the inside, what all of the terms mean exactly, offered a helpful set/subset form of the three things agents and editors look for (Big Idea, Great Writing, Platform), and encouragingly reassured his audience that it's not only okay to be derivative, it's unavoidable. I like him, rather a lot. If I wrote Christian fiction, I would so want him to be my agent. (I kind of want him to be anyway, but I don't know if it would be a good fit--that's the annoying thing about being a Christian who's a writer, but not a "Christian writer").
The "Laughing Out Loud" session (starring Haven Kimmel and Joan Bauer, moderated by Calvin prof Karen Saupe) was an incredibly accurately titled time. Because that's ALL we did. Laugh hysterically. Which was great.
The last session I went to was...well, by this time, I didn't think I could go to a bad session. I didn't think there would be anything (at least in the sessions) that I could regret. I was wrong. This was pointless, boring, unhelpful, and had next to nothing to do with what it was supposed to be about. Grr.
Then I went to a mix-and-mingle reception for Seattle Pacific University's Creative Writing MFA program and proceeded to feel very badly about myself when I, unsurprisingly, was bad at mixing and mingling. I was hoping someone in the program would come over and talk to me, try to get me interested in spending money to go there and learn. Instead, I wandered around, feeling shy, telling the three people who came up to me that, no, I didn't have anything to do with the program but was, in fact, here to find out more. Which wasn't particularly helpful to either of us, as they were too. I wandered past Brian Doyle by his lonesome (the only person of the four I specifically wanted to talk to who wasn't surrounded by other people) a few times, trying to get up the courage to say hello, thank you, "Gee, I like essays," whatever, but never could. After half an hour, I left. But I went and I stayed for half an hour! Which is great for me!
In the midst of all of this, I got to talk to several people at magazines, publishing houses I don't work for, writing programs, and a matchmaking website for authors and publishing houses. True story. I was encouraged by the amount of people who want to see my work based solely (apparently) on conversation with me, my description of my own confusion on defining my writing, that I work in publishing, and am fairly articulate and easily amused. It's actually rather intimidating because I feel like their hopes are higher than my writing skill can deliver on, but I'm trying to focus on the "Cool! They like me!" side of things.
Now that it's over, I'm following through on contacts, writing furiously, considering the merits of SPU's MFA vs. finding a good mentor or two (which would be cheaper and possibly more helpful more quickly, but WHO?!), etc., etc. And this morning yet another book idea came to mind and I really want to write it, but I should probably finish the two I've already started first. Or I could take the 25 hours a week SPU says is average for writing in their program and just write simultaneously on all three and whatever else comes up, but I desire feedback and bettering my craft and...and sometimes my mind moves too quickly for my own good.
That's what I have to say about that. Sorry for the length.
The encapsulated version: I got to work early on Thursday so I could leave early so I could make the first session and I did. Then I listened to Luci Shaw do readings, always a highlight of anything. Over the next two days, I attended several sessions, some interesting, some helpful, some incredibly funny, and one very boring and pointless one. I was very tired at the end, somehow managed to lose seven pounds over those two and a half days, and had one moment of combined bravery and shrinking violetness. And then I took Sunday off to breathe in spring air, nurse my sunburned and itchy skin, and completely enjoy the silence. It was nice.
Longer story:
First, Luci Shaw. I heart her. I do. I want to hang out with her and plant things with her and give free reign to my metaphorical nature impulses and speech which I can so rarely do around other people. And, because of her, I have to figure out where I can find a Tibetan prayer bowl. Which may be difficult as I don't think that's actually the name of the thing. ETA: Nepali singing bowl! Not Tibetan. Thank you, random blogger.
The "I've Written Something...Now What?" session was a given to attend. Realistic, depressing, but fun. Trying to write for eventual publication can be such an exercise in futility and yet, like Sisyphus, we keep rolling that hope up the industry hill, which just gets steeper and more slippery every year. At which point, maybe I mean the glass mountain with the princess at the top. Regardless, very helpful session with three industry insiders, one of whom I worked with directly at Baker, but who, I'm sure, would not recognize me at all. Good session.
The session on C. S. Lewis and Moral Imagination reinforced my assertion that children KNOW good and evil exist, no matter what adults try to tell them about the relativity of truth and despite our attempts at protecting them by filing down the teeth of fairy tales.
Brian Doyle, essayist extraordinaire, was deeply encouraging to a person who also employs excessive adjectives and wandering sentence structure.
The three ladies of "Can Christians Tell the Truth?" did just that and generated no less than three ideas for further writing according to my notes. My favorite line (or at least the only one I wrote down) was from Deb Rienstra: "Romance really is the Christian story, isn't it?" I quite like her.
No one who knows me will be surprised that I went to a session on metaphor. There was much discussion and an assignment on finding your own writing metaphor and discovering its inherent strengths and weaknesses. Mine surprised me. I'll do a complete write-up on that in a different post. Quite enjoyed it, though, and furthered my previously formed desire to someday speak to and learn from Leslie Leyland Fields.
Davis Bunn, best-selling author in both CBA and ABA markets, gave two interesting and useful sessions on writing commercial fiction, which is somewhat unusual at a conference so often focused on literary work. They were great to sit in on since, though my non-fiction is decidedly literary, my fiction tends toward genre fiction. (I think. I often find myself rolling my eyes at the difficulty of pinning down a pigeonhole for my writing.)
Chip MacGregor gave the session that I found the most completely practical (and at the same time, wildly amusing) of the entire conference. He's self-deprecating, which I always find funny as long as it doesn't make the audience uncomfortable which this absolutely did not. He told us the anatomy of a good book proposal from the inside, what all of the terms mean exactly, offered a helpful set/subset form of the three things agents and editors look for (Big Idea, Great Writing, Platform), and encouragingly reassured his audience that it's not only okay to be derivative, it's unavoidable. I like him, rather a lot. If I wrote Christian fiction, I would so want him to be my agent. (I kind of want him to be anyway, but I don't know if it would be a good fit--that's the annoying thing about being a Christian who's a writer, but not a "Christian writer").
The "Laughing Out Loud" session (starring Haven Kimmel and Joan Bauer, moderated by Calvin prof Karen Saupe) was an incredibly accurately titled time. Because that's ALL we did. Laugh hysterically. Which was great.
The last session I went to was...well, by this time, I didn't think I could go to a bad session. I didn't think there would be anything (at least in the sessions) that I could regret. I was wrong. This was pointless, boring, unhelpful, and had next to nothing to do with what it was supposed to be about. Grr.
Then I went to a mix-and-mingle reception for Seattle Pacific University's Creative Writing MFA program and proceeded to feel very badly about myself when I, unsurprisingly, was bad at mixing and mingling. I was hoping someone in the program would come over and talk to me, try to get me interested in spending money to go there and learn. Instead, I wandered around, feeling shy, telling the three people who came up to me that, no, I didn't have anything to do with the program but was, in fact, here to find out more. Which wasn't particularly helpful to either of us, as they were too. I wandered past Brian Doyle by his lonesome (the only person of the four I specifically wanted to talk to who wasn't surrounded by other people) a few times, trying to get up the courage to say hello, thank you, "Gee, I like essays," whatever, but never could. After half an hour, I left. But I went and I stayed for half an hour! Which is great for me!
In the midst of all of this, I got to talk to several people at magazines, publishing houses I don't work for, writing programs, and a matchmaking website for authors and publishing houses. True story. I was encouraged by the amount of people who want to see my work based solely (apparently) on conversation with me, my description of my own confusion on defining my writing, that I work in publishing, and am fairly articulate and easily amused. It's actually rather intimidating because I feel like their hopes are higher than my writing skill can deliver on, but I'm trying to focus on the "Cool! They like me!" side of things.
Now that it's over, I'm following through on contacts, writing furiously, considering the merits of SPU's MFA vs. finding a good mentor or two (which would be cheaper and possibly more helpful more quickly, but WHO?!), etc., etc. And this morning yet another book idea came to mind and I really want to write it, but I should probably finish the two I've already started first. Or I could take the 25 hours a week SPU says is average for writing in their program and just write simultaneously on all three and whatever else comes up, but I desire feedback and bettering my craft and...and sometimes my mind moves too quickly for my own good.
That's what I have to say about that. Sorry for the length.
Friday, April 18, 2008
Peregrination #1
More on the writer's conference at some point. (Man, do I wish I owned sunscreen--or didn't burn so easily). But for now...well, a goose just flew honking overhead. And it made me write the following:
There are certain sounds that grab something deep in my soul. The honking of Canadian geese. The warble of a loon. The echo of a train's horn. The ebb and crash of waves on the shore and rocks. The howl of a wolf.
Each of these cries brings a smile to my face automatically, an unasked-for burst of responsive joy. At the same time, they are some of the loneliest, most haunting sounds in creation. They have both pathos and perfection in their echoing strains. They carry an inevitability, a ring of time and history that my entire being seems to recognize. I respond to their resonance and beauty, a beauty that in large part is owed to sorrow.
Perhaps more than sadness or loneliness, though, the ache they evoke is due to something simpler. Each of these sounds carries with it a particular image -- solitude. It is the sound of space. The sound of wide-open plains and pristine vistas. Woven deep in the warp and weft of these one-note tonal symphonies is the memory of, the promise of it being the sole sound. No other people. Just a lake or trees or wind or rock or sun or moon.
They tell my heart a lie, that if I could simply find the place from which they are born, I could lose myself there, merge myself with the world I find. That this lonely, perfect place would be my Northern Eden, dark greens and shadows, nothing but the deep, minor note of quiet. That -- at long last -- I can become one of those moments of brief and absolute beauty that never fail to startle me and drive the air from my lungs.
They remind me of something I suspect deep down: peace on earth can only be a place of mingled transcendence and pain. Complexity is its foundation, a reflection of the realization that human peace, by our very nature, cannot be the truest peace.
There are certain sounds that grab something deep in my soul. The honking of Canadian geese. The warble of a loon. The echo of a train's horn. The ebb and crash of waves on the shore and rocks. The howl of a wolf.
Each of these cries brings a smile to my face automatically, an unasked-for burst of responsive joy. At the same time, they are some of the loneliest, most haunting sounds in creation. They have both pathos and perfection in their echoing strains. They carry an inevitability, a ring of time and history that my entire being seems to recognize. I respond to their resonance and beauty, a beauty that in large part is owed to sorrow.
Perhaps more than sadness or loneliness, though, the ache they evoke is due to something simpler. Each of these sounds carries with it a particular image -- solitude. It is the sound of space. The sound of wide-open plains and pristine vistas. Woven deep in the warp and weft of these one-note tonal symphonies is the memory of, the promise of it being the sole sound. No other people. Just a lake or trees or wind or rock or sun or moon.
They tell my heart a lie, that if I could simply find the place from which they are born, I could lose myself there, merge myself with the world I find. That this lonely, perfect place would be my Northern Eden, dark greens and shadows, nothing but the deep, minor note of quiet. That -- at long last -- I can become one of those moments of brief and absolute beauty that never fail to startle me and drive the air from my lungs.
They remind me of something I suspect deep down: peace on earth can only be a place of mingled transcendence and pain. Complexity is its foundation, a reflection of the realization that human peace, by our very nature, cannot be the truest peace.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Rueful amusement
I was wandering around last week, visiting a new library, getting cat food, etc., and realized I was on 29th St. I thought, "Hey! Isn't that wood store I wanted to visit around here somewhere?" And it was--down by original Andicott.
It's not what I expected. Less wood bits and more furniture, some of it really gorgeous. And away up in the very back "samples" room, I found it. A tiny little foldable set of a table and two chairs. Exactly what I've been looking for to put on my balcony since I moved into my apartment. Very thin white planks with white wrought iron. It would be super easy to transport because even the table folds up flat. It's perfect. And it was mega on sale for only $40.
I cast my mind back to all my little wistings about having tea on the balcony, and writing at the table and putting some potted flowers on it and...then I realized. Even $40? I can't afford. Well, I could if I didn't want to pay my bills, but I kind of do. $40!!! For the perfect table set! Trust me, I've looked everywhere for this, and the closest thing I could find before this was nowhere near as cheap.
Then on Monday, I came to another realization. The whole volunteering at the riding center in Rockford? There's no way I can do that. I simply can't afford the gas. I find the idea of not be able to afford to volunteer ironic.
A year ago--heck, three months ago--I would have been in the throes of despair about both these things. Not because of the things themselves, but as symbols indicative of how my life is a morass of thwarted hopes and unfulfilled dreams. But this time, I'm inclined to snort, roll my eyes, and chuckle ruefully at the ridiculousness.
Yes, the table set is perfect and cheap and I'll never find it again. Yes, I want to be around horses and help others at the same time. Yes, someday I'd like to be able to not have to live under a cloud of money-worry.
Eh. *shrug* Whaddya gonna do?
It's not what I expected. Less wood bits and more furniture, some of it really gorgeous. And away up in the very back "samples" room, I found it. A tiny little foldable set of a table and two chairs. Exactly what I've been looking for to put on my balcony since I moved into my apartment. Very thin white planks with white wrought iron. It would be super easy to transport because even the table folds up flat. It's perfect. And it was mega on sale for only $40.
I cast my mind back to all my little wistings about having tea on the balcony, and writing at the table and putting some potted flowers on it and...then I realized. Even $40? I can't afford. Well, I could if I didn't want to pay my bills, but I kind of do. $40!!! For the perfect table set! Trust me, I've looked everywhere for this, and the closest thing I could find before this was nowhere near as cheap.
Then on Monday, I came to another realization. The whole volunteering at the riding center in Rockford? There's no way I can do that. I simply can't afford the gas. I find the idea of not be able to afford to volunteer ironic.
A year ago--heck, three months ago--I would have been in the throes of despair about both these things. Not because of the things themselves, but as symbols indicative of how my life is a morass of thwarted hopes and unfulfilled dreams. But this time, I'm inclined to snort, roll my eyes, and chuckle ruefully at the ridiculousness.
Yes, the table set is perfect and cheap and I'll never find it again. Yes, I want to be around horses and help others at the same time. Yes, someday I'd like to be able to not have to live under a cloud of money-worry.
Eh. *shrug* Whaddya gonna do?
Monday, April 14, 2008
Considering creation
It was an interesting weekend. I had a terrible headache on Friday, enough to send me home from work, but Saturday and Sunday brought happy times and much fun with friends. Drinks with Adam, pizza and chatter with the Jewetts and Sebestyens, and baby showerness with at least half the people I love. Good times. But, strangely, Sunday night left me...not bereft, precisely. Empty? At loose ends? Suffice to say, I went to bed at nine for lack of anything else to do. I've sort of been thinking, "I need a vacation, I think. But I want one with something to do!"
This morning I got to work a little early. And in my email there's a note from the VP of my department about Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing.
Now, mind you, I checked around back in January, again in February, and brought it up a again a couple of weeks ago. I'm the copywriter. It seems logical to go to FF&W. Plus, leaving logic completely aside, Luci Shaw is going to be there again!!! (I heart Luci Shaw. A couple of years ago I went to a reading of hers at the last FF&W. She was speaking on beauty, and when she started talking, my jaw dropped. Her words sounded like they'd been pulled from my head, then arranged in a far more compelling, coherent order and spoken out loud.) But no. Only editors get to go if we get free tickets. There was puzzlement as to why anyone else would even want to.
So, I'd given up on being able to attend, despite a coworker's offer to pay my way (which he can't actually afford to do--he's given to grandiose gestures). And then this morning the VP emailed me that she's arranged for me to have a badge. I get to go! The writer gets to go encounter writers! I'll have to take some time off work for Thursday and Friday, and Saturday--the one day I don't have to take any time--there aren't as many things I want to go to, sadly. But I don't care! I get to go!
Now I just have to narrow down what sessions I really want to attend. Heh. Just. That's an understatment. I can only go to one at a time, clearly, and there are usually three or four running simultaneously that I'd like to go to. I fear it will soon become a game of eeny meeny miny mo. Tiger toes, here I come!
This morning I got to work a little early. And in my email there's a note from the VP of my department about Calvin's Festival of Faith and Writing.
Now, mind you, I checked around back in January, again in February, and brought it up a again a couple of weeks ago. I'm the copywriter. It seems logical to go to FF&W. Plus, leaving logic completely aside, Luci Shaw is going to be there again!!! (I heart Luci Shaw. A couple of years ago I went to a reading of hers at the last FF&W. She was speaking on beauty, and when she started talking, my jaw dropped. Her words sounded like they'd been pulled from my head, then arranged in a far more compelling, coherent order and spoken out loud.) But no. Only editors get to go if we get free tickets. There was puzzlement as to why anyone else would even want to.
So, I'd given up on being able to attend, despite a coworker's offer to pay my way (which he can't actually afford to do--he's given to grandiose gestures). And then this morning the VP emailed me that she's arranged for me to have a badge. I get to go! The writer gets to go encounter writers! I'll have to take some time off work for Thursday and Friday, and Saturday--the one day I don't have to take any time--there aren't as many things I want to go to, sadly. But I don't care! I get to go!
Now I just have to narrow down what sessions I really want to attend. Heh. Just. That's an understatment. I can only go to one at a time, clearly, and there are usually three or four running simultaneously that I'd like to go to. I fear it will soon become a game of eeny meeny miny mo. Tiger toes, here I come!
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
Mind-boggling
So Martin Sheen and I have exchanged a couple of phone calls today. We both left messages.
I'm not kidding. Martin Sheen. The actual. He of the West Wing.
Sometimes my life is so very, very strange.
I'm not kidding. Martin Sheen. The actual. He of the West Wing.
Sometimes my life is so very, very strange.
Misty, moisty morning
It's gray and soggy outside, which is normally something I rather enjoy. But today, I'm blue. Sort of a smoky blue, not navy--more a cadet blue, perhaps. Nothing too deep. Like I'm wrapped in a wisp of net or chiffon and it's slightly obscuring the world around me.
I don't think I felt like that when I woke up. In fact, I'm relatively certain it came upon me after I sat down at work.
You know what it feels like? That wistful feeling you get when you wake up from a really good dream--the kind where you've met that person you feel like you've always loved and they love you back and life is unbelievably rich and amazing and surprising and everything is hyperfocused and you're both just so in awe at the depth of feeling...and then you wake up and they're not there and never have been. But you can still feel them, this dream person, because you've only just left their side.
That's a little bit what I feel like this morning. Bereft and wistful for something I can't define.
I don't think I felt like that when I woke up. In fact, I'm relatively certain it came upon me after I sat down at work.
You know what it feels like? That wistful feeling you get when you wake up from a really good dream--the kind where you've met that person you feel like you've always loved and they love you back and life is unbelievably rich and amazing and surprising and everything is hyperfocused and you're both just so in awe at the depth of feeling...and then you wake up and they're not there and never have been. But you can still feel them, this dream person, because you've only just left their side.
That's a little bit what I feel like this morning. Bereft and wistful for something I can't define.
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
In which I finish something I started
During my first phases (and by that, I mean the first week) of realizing my scannerness, I was so excited. I was suddenly able to focus, not worrying that if I did some things, the others would feel abandoned or if I picked one picture, three others would have been better. And I started doing things and getting things done I'd always wanted to.
One of those things was hanging things on my walls. I've never been good at that because it smacks of commitment. Never mind that if I don't like it, I can always move it. In my mind, nails are permanent things. Also, I was pretty sure that I'd inadvertantly knock a hole in the wall if I tried something so foolish as hanging a picture.
No longer! Not only had I finally been able to decide on pictures I wanted framed, I knew just what the frames looked like, I found them right away for $1 each, I found black shelves that I have been dreaming about and searching for since I moved here (and have never been able to find) on clearance, two to a box, and I found a white shelf that required no tools, was super easy to hang, and would house my idea binders for under ten dollars on the very day I thought it would be a good idea. That was a month ago.
And there it sat. All in the package and taunting me with its unrealized potential. Until last night.
I hung a shelf. I PUT TOGETHER AND HUNG A SHELF!!!! This is unbelievably exciting, though I know it wouldn't be for most of you out there who have nowhere near the same kind of commitment issues I have over the silliest things. It took a lot longer than I thought, because see those decorative brackets underneath? Yeah, those took twenty minutes of me practically laying on top of them to get into the predrilled holes. "Just two hands and firm pressure," my Aunt Fanny. But I did it! (Let my shaky triceps of today bear witness). And then realized I didn't have any nails to hang the pictures underneath with. Well, I haven't bought those binders yet, so I put the pictures up there instead. And every time I look at it, it makes me smile with pride. I did it!
Rejoice with me, oh my friends, for I am beside myshelf with glee! (Hee.)
_________________________________________________
One of those things was hanging things on my walls. I've never been good at that because it smacks of commitment. Never mind that if I don't like it, I can always move it. In my mind, nails are permanent things. Also, I was pretty sure that I'd inadvertantly knock a hole in the wall if I tried something so foolish as hanging a picture.
No longer! Not only had I finally been able to decide on pictures I wanted framed, I knew just what the frames looked like, I found them right away for $1 each, I found black shelves that I have been dreaming about and searching for since I moved here (and have never been able to find) on clearance, two to a box, and I found a white shelf that required no tools, was super easy to hang, and would house my idea binders for under ten dollars on the very day I thought it would be a good idea. That was a month ago.
And there it sat. All in the package and taunting me with its unrealized potential. Until last night.
I hung a shelf. I PUT TOGETHER AND HUNG A SHELF!!!! This is unbelievably exciting, though I know it wouldn't be for most of you out there who have nowhere near the same kind of commitment issues I have over the silliest things. It took a lot longer than I thought, because see those decorative brackets underneath? Yeah, those took twenty minutes of me practically laying on top of them to get into the predrilled holes. "Just two hands and firm pressure," my Aunt Fanny. But I did it! (Let my shaky triceps of today bear witness). And then realized I didn't have any nails to hang the pictures underneath with. Well, I haven't bought those binders yet, so I put the pictures up there instead. And every time I look at it, it makes me smile with pride. I did it!
Rejoice with me, oh my friends, for I am beside myshelf with glee! (Hee.)
_________________________________________________
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)