I Can So Do That

Today is the day.
I am a big fan of doing things even when you you're not sure how, but this one is a tough one.

My oldest daughter has helped me to set up this blog. She swears to me that blogging is "so easy", but for some reason, it pretty much scares me to death. I'm not sure at all what I am doing, or exactly how to do it, but as I said before, I am a believer that I will be able to figure it out if I just try....so here's goes nothing.

I'm pretty much what you would call a 'Do It Yourselfer', Since my husband and I were married almost 25 years ago, I found out that sometimes if I wanted a certain thing or wanted to have something for our home, that I would need to do it myself. Not that my husband didn't want to help, he has always been supportive (okay most of the time anyway :), it was just that sometimes we couldn't afford that 'certain thing', or when we could afford it, I wouldn't want what someone else had made or done, I wanted to do it myself. I guess it was the sheer joy that I got from accomplishing something that I never thought I could.

It started out with mainly crafty things. Things I would see places and then say to myself or whoever was with me, "I can do that". I would sew outfits for my children because I knew a little about sewing (and I would usually have to get my mom on the phone to help talk me through it). Those weren't the most successful attempts at "being a DIYer" and I remember well an outfit I made for myself that I was afraid to put in the washing machine for fear that it would fall apart. But I did try. I still sew a little here and there, mainly just hemming etc. But would rather spend my time doing other fun things.

It happened with painting I think, then I decided if I could paint walls, then why not wallpaper too? If I could wallpaper, surely I could put up a chair rail and make curtains to match the room.
Since then I have made our younger daughters room into a "barn", (she loves horses and hates the idea that we don't live in the country:), tiled several floors, knocked out and framed in a wall (Okay, this was where my husband wasn't so sure he could be supportive), painted numerous items (you can make almost anything look better with a little paint), and with a help from the family, redid a bathroom with a tiled shower. I knew it would be a while before we could afford to have someone come in and redo our bathroom for us, so I spent some time praying about it and saw a picture in my mind of how it could look and then started working on figuring out how to do it. I found tiles for .5 cents a piece....amazing, I know right?! So the biggest expense was replacing the window and buying fixtures. We did the whole bathroom for right around $700. Not bad for amateurs. It is not perfect, as we don't claim to be professionals, but it is a beautiful! We take pride in knowing that we did it ourselves.

What's my point you're thinking?
Well, I guess it's that if you are reading this, I hope you will know that you can do things yourself too! I know that anyone who wants to be a "DIYer", can be one. You just have to have the courage to try...sometimes failing...but trying anyway.

I will be posting pictures on my blog of things I've done in the past and hopefully lots of way cool ideas that I come up with in the future.

~My hope is that we will always seek to be Inspired~

Thanks for taking the time to read this!
Jaki