{"id":2105,"date":"2012-11-28T00:00:25","date_gmt":"2012-11-28T06:00:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.walkingwithcake.com\/?p=2105"},"modified":"2012-11-29T09:52:15","modified_gmt":"2012-11-29T15:52:15","slug":"good-intentions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.walkingwithcake.com\/?p=2105","title":{"rendered":"Good Intentions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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(The road to Hell…)<\/p><\/div>\n

After my day of crafting<\/a> at Anthropologie, I felt inspired and wanted to make something else by hand again.\u00a0 Ryan’s mother is an expert knitter and makes the most beautiful blankets, and she always has stacks of cardboard yarn cones lying around once her projects are finished.\u00a0 The boys love playing with these at her house, and I realized that they could easily be transformed into whimsical little trees for Christmas and winter decorations.<\/p>\n

My original thought was to spend a little craft time with my boys and cover the cones in glue and glitter.\u00a0 But I’m not really a glitter person (I bet that surprises you, doesn’t it?) and I don’t have any on hand.\u00a0 I have to be in the right mood to head to the craft store, and I’m just not in that place right now.\u00a0 Plus, I like the idea of using objects around the house, and I have plenty of yarn and felt left over from other failed craft attempts.<\/p>\n

So, I spent one evening wrapping a soft-colored green yarn around a cone.\u00a0 Wrapping and wrapping and wrapping.\u00a0 And as I sat there doing it, I realized that these cones were once wrapped in yarn that became beautiful blankets, pieces that cover my boys and me as we read, snuggle up on the couch together, and dream softly at night.<\/p>\n

My wrapped cone looks nothing like those lovely afghans, and honestly, I felt like I was wasting my time wrapping and wrapping and wrapping.\u00a0 And my cone looks nothing like a tree, but more like a cardboard cone wrapped in yarn, and I decided I didn’t want to spend time cutting out felt balls and shapes to glue on the trees once they were wrapped.\u00a0 I just didn’t.\u00a0 It wasn’t fun, and I didn’t see the point.\u00a0 So I went to the computer and worked on my blog.\u00a0 And that gives me endless amounts of joy.<\/p>\n

I am not a crafter, and I’ve known this for many years.\u00a0 Sometimes I get a little urge to do something crafty, a funny, fleeting feeling in the pit of my stomach, and then, just as quickly as it appears, it is gone.\u00a0 I love handmade crafts and appreciate the time and effort that goes into them, but I just can’t do it myself.<\/p>\n

Last summer, I made a trip to the local Hobby Lobby in search of fabric, needles, thread, a measuring tape, and that sticky tape stuff used for making a fake hem.\u00a0 I was hell-bent on making an easy ottoman cover, and when I brought the fabric home and tried it out on my couch, it wasn’t the right color.\u00a0 So you know what I did?\u00a0 I went right back to Hobby Lobby that same evening, dragging Ryan and the boys with me in the Texas heat, just so I could pick out another fabric that I liked better.<\/p>\n

And then the very next day, I started a blogging class,<\/a> which really changed how I view my writing and this blog, and that fabric is still sitting on a shelf in my utility room, waiting to be used.\u00a0 The ottoman cover was never made, and you know what’s covering my ottoman now?<\/p>\n

A knitted afghan<\/a>, created just for me, by someone I’ve never even met.<\/p>\n

My boys play with it, dragging the blanket around the house and hiding under it, and when they are sick, it covers them and keeps them warm.\u00a0 It is beautiful, and I love seeing it every day, knowing that it was made by loving hands, by someone who enjoyed creating a little piece of beauty for others to enjoy, too.<\/p>\n

And that’s why I write this blog.\u00a0 To share the things I love with you, with the hope that you might love them, too.<\/p>\n

So the moral of this story is to do what you love, and what makes you happy, and don’t worry about those things you let fall by the wayside.<\/p>\n

I might go back to that cardboard cone wrapped in yarn one evening when the house is quiet and I have some free time.\u00a0 I might sit and glue little decorations on it, to place on my mantle for the holidays.\u00a0 But, then again, I might not, and that’s okay, too.<\/p>\n

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