Getting Off My Butt

Finding time from the whirlwind of life with baby

I have had years to get off my butt and do something. Thirty-one, to be exact. Well, I did a lot up to about age 13. I would take out books about different crafts from the library and come home, perusing them in bed on Saturday mornings, dreaming about the toilet paper roll dolls and clothespin characters I would make. I sewed my first outfit when I was maybe 5 or 6 years old. Actually, all I sewed was the button on the back of the skirt and on the vest. I think I glued the gingham ribbon to the flowered skirt. And you might have been able to see my butt from the back. But check out the trendy mixing of patterns:

I woke up early on Saturday mornings to make pancakes for my family, made friendship bracelets in the porch on hot summer days, and coveted a pottery wheel for Christmas when I was 9. My favorite gifts to receive were the ones that included a project of some kind: a kit of embroider-it-yourself Christmas stockings, DIY ornaments, jewelry making kits, etc. I loved to sit and draw. I even submitted my work to those art education schools from the back of magazines (where you copy the drawing of the cartoon turtle).

Then I hit high school age. I was so busy with schoolwork, friends, and theater that I didn't have time for making things anymore. I thought I'd be able to do more once I was in college and had more time to myself. Then I got to college. Between my sociology classes analyzing the effects of social movements, Phish shows and Indigo Girls concerts, and all night talks about the intensity of art with my roommates, man was I inspired. I had ideas jammed in my brain. But I didn't have time to make anything. I thought one day I could travel the U.S. in a van, making things and selling them along the road. THEN I would have more time to make everything I wanted to make. And so I graduated, joined the rat race, turned 30, and had a baby. I would CERTAINLY have time during my maternity leave to make everything I wanted to make!

Nope.

So here I am, 31 years old, with my almost-5-month-old baby T, up at all hours of the night, working full time, with my free time taken up doing public relations for a nonprofit group. And all of a sudden I have found the time to make everything I wanted to make. I made the most important thing: a family. And now I am flooded with inspiration, motivation, and most of all, a desire to support my family doing what I love. And so the saga begins.