I didn't have a youth group growing up. For some reason they all decided to graduate from high school and move on with their lives instead of hanging around for another five-ten years waiting for me to get there.
Church activities meant helping Mom in the kitchen, playing with little kids, or listening to old people talk. It also meant I got to help with a lot of cool and fun things, such as craft preparations for the annual bazaar sale at the mall, VBS set up and clean-up, folding bulletins for Dad, bulletin board set-up, and the list goes on....
I think that's why it puzzles me when people say I'm crafty or talented. When I think of talented I think of Michelle Sappington who takes an empty piece of paper and makes it into a beautiful card with scissors and more paper. Her designs are snazzy and mine...well, they're just a bunch of lines.
I think of Dave Mincy, who can look at one note and a letter on a piece of paper and string all the right notes together in a beautiful way. Or else, he'll stop and say, "That's not the chord I want. Let's change it to this." My piano playing will forever sound "Bong, bomp, bomp. Bong, bomp, bomp." in the old fashioned octave-chord-chord method my teachers taught.
I was exposed/required/forced to do a lot of things growing up. I watched ladies who had money to buy whatever they wanted at the grocery store and never use coupons slowly scan the aisles of the Alabama Thrift Store in search of both clothes and knick-knacks to use in projects. A bag of buttons from the Arrow Shirt Factory for 25 cents? Done. That lacy angel given as a gift from someone in their travel group? A pattern. Our first job that ladies night? Wire buttons together to create an angel, a star, or wreath for ornaments to sell. I quickly learned some ladies have unique ideas and inspirations, and the rest of us can simply do by mimicking.
Being the preacher's kid meant staying until EVERYONE left church after every service. I watched old ladies arrange, clean and re-arrange flower arrangements at the front. I'll never have the knack for color they had, and my sense of style will not match everyone else's, but I did learn a few basics in between all my exasperated sighing and whining about being hungry and asking if we could go. Along the way I've also learned there's not much you can't read up on at the library, and now there's a whole world of virtual instruction on youtube. Not everything I attempt is going to turn out right, or pretty, or presentable. But if I don't try I'll never know.
Growing up in a small town with a bunch of old people who grew up during the depression taught me some of that...doing things isn't always a matter of talent. It's more often than not a matter of necessity and the stupidity/willingness to try.
Church activities meant helping Mom in the kitchen, playing with little kids, or listening to old people talk. It also meant I got to help with a lot of cool and fun things, such as craft preparations for the annual bazaar sale at the mall, VBS set up and clean-up, folding bulletins for Dad, bulletin board set-up, and the list goes on....
I think that's why it puzzles me when people say I'm crafty or talented. When I think of talented I think of Michelle Sappington who takes an empty piece of paper and makes it into a beautiful card with scissors and more paper. Her designs are snazzy and mine...well, they're just a bunch of lines.
I think of Dave Mincy, who can look at one note and a letter on a piece of paper and string all the right notes together in a beautiful way. Or else, he'll stop and say, "That's not the chord I want. Let's change it to this." My piano playing will forever sound "Bong, bomp, bomp. Bong, bomp, bomp." in the old fashioned octave-chord-chord method my teachers taught.
I was exposed/required/forced to do a lot of things growing up. I watched ladies who had money to buy whatever they wanted at the grocery store and never use coupons slowly scan the aisles of the Alabama Thrift Store in search of both clothes and knick-knacks to use in projects. A bag of buttons from the Arrow Shirt Factory for 25 cents? Done. That lacy angel given as a gift from someone in their travel group? A pattern. Our first job that ladies night? Wire buttons together to create an angel, a star, or wreath for ornaments to sell. I quickly learned some ladies have unique ideas and inspirations, and the rest of us can simply do by mimicking.
Being the preacher's kid meant staying until EVERYONE left church after every service. I watched old ladies arrange, clean and re-arrange flower arrangements at the front. I'll never have the knack for color they had, and my sense of style will not match everyone else's, but I did learn a few basics in between all my exasperated sighing and whining about being hungry and asking if we could go. Along the way I've also learned there's not much you can't read up on at the library, and now there's a whole world of virtual instruction on youtube. Not everything I attempt is going to turn out right, or pretty, or presentable. But if I don't try I'll never know.
Growing up in a small town with a bunch of old people who grew up during the depression taught me some of that...doing things isn't always a matter of talent. It's more often than not a matter of necessity and the stupidity/willingness to try.
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