Thursday, June 7, 2012

Creativity Tips: Stretch


As I write this, I am sitting in an empty home office. In a few minutes, I will unplug this computer and move it to the dining room table. After 25 years, two kids and three dogs, we're getting new carpet throughout the house.

Oh yeah, baby. Fresh. New. Carpet. There may never be another glass of red wine, Kool-Aid or apple juice in this house again.

In preparation for the carpet installers, I completely cleaned the office so they can move furniture. That included emptying the closet -- stuffed to the gills with office supplies, creativity toys and craft stuff. And two huge bookshelves, filled with books, photos and other essentials for life.

Since the office was clean, I took that as an opportunity to paint. Rather than the charming Johnson County beige we had before, the walls are now a beautiful pale turquoise.

I had never painted a room before -- that was always Tom's job. But, he was busy, I had time, and it's my space. As it turns out, I'm a heckuva good painter. Damn few drips and hardly any stripes. I also spackle and tape like a pro. Never knew I could do that. Then again, I never tried.

Ooooh. There's a key. I never tried.

Think of something you've always let other people do -- some creative, productive task you've just never tackled. The weekend is coming up. Stretch. Do something new!

P.S. The link on "Johnson County beige" contains adult language and excellent sarcasm. It's also a fairly accurate description of Johnson County. For the record, I am not from Johnson County. I'm a KCMO native. Just sayin ...

2 comments:

Rachel Bastarache Bogan said...

"Stretch yourself." I loved this!

Too often we define what we can do by only the things we've done and succeeded at in the past. Rather than such a limited definition, we should define what we can do by all the things we've tried, and could try to do. We never will know what we'll find!

Thank you for your post!

Jan said...

Thank you for your comment, Rachel! Nice to see you here!