A New Mess Resolution

A lot has happened since I last posted in 2017. 

I moved in with my boyfriend. I've traveled to ten different countries and learned to say "thank you" and "I'm sorry" in many languages. A global pandemic tried it's best to suck every bit of joy and meaning out of my life. I helped form a union. I got tenure. I got married. I sold my little house in Wisconsin and cried the whole way home.

Through it all, I made messes. I made yogurt. I painted curtains with latex paint. I scrapbooked with friends over zoom. I made dozens of baby quilts. I took up embroidery. I quit. I apologized to my boyfriend when he came home to find me covered head to toe in mashed potatoes making gnocchi. He laughed and enthusiastically jumped in to help, because he's the best. We made sourdough and kombucha on the kitchen counter. We threw an absurdly DIY wedding. 

Every once in a while, amidst some mess, I realize that I’ve been here before. It’s a sort of craft-disaster déjà vu that makes me wonder if I’m learning the same lesson for a second time. When I catch myself here, I always come back to this blog to do a quick search to see if perhaps my graduate school self left me a trail of breadcrumbs out of the mess I’m in. And sometimes, I’m right. I quietly thank my past self for her careful documentation and go back to my project, feeling some inkling of regret that because of changes in my lifestyle (and admittedly, my mental health), I don’t keep track of these things anymore. The internet has changed. Blogs are passé. TikTok is king.

But, as my therapist and I (yeah I said it, it’s 2024, get yourself a therapist…) rehash the things that used to bring me joy and fulfillment in the before-times, I can’t help but remember how happy this silly little blog made me to write, and how happy having the record of all of the things I used to do makes me. Today, pulling back up my blogger account for the first time in years, I see that I’ve helped 30,800 suspend an Ikea chandelier from their ceiling fan, 13,100 people dress their dog up in a tuxedo, and 10,600 people change the lightbulb in the dash of their Toyota Echo. And that warms my heart.

So, while there's no "catching up" on 6 years of messes, joys, tears, triumphs, and half finished projects that went straight in the trash, it's time. At the risk of being passé, this year I’m doing it. I’m blogging again. Stop by for my successes and failures, my beautiful creations and my total catastrophes. We’re getting crafty like is 2009...