I decided to take up crocheting. My lovely friend taught me how, and I love it. I feel so useful. It’s a good feeling. No matter how meaningless school or work feels, I can pick up some crocheting and actually see visual progress in something. 
I’m the one forming this chaotic ball of sting into something of use. I’m the one who decides when it will be finished or even if it will be finished. I decided to finish my first scarf today. It’s orange and fluffy and wonderful.
My church had a woman’s retreat, but I was busy playing at Alley walk. I did do all the decorating for it, though. The theme was a Garden Getaway. Can you tell this is going to be part of my major? I painted all the mason jars and made all the paper flowers and pinwheels. The lights I’d gotten at a garage sale, and the tablecloths I borrowed from a family friend. Streamers I had at home.
Good times at Alley Walk. Joey described it as “adding to the sound track of life.” One couple was interested in us playing for their daughter’s wedding. That felt great to hear. Even if nothing comes from it, just the thought of someone thinking we’re good enough to play at a wedding felt good and was encouraging.
I played an instrument for the first time in public. I’ll be honest. I totally messed up a song. But then I did better. And I’m sure I’ll continue to do better. I do love playing the ukulele!
So the other day I failed a quiz. Completely and utterly failed it. For me, a competitive spirit, that was hard. I took one look at the statistic questions and knew I couldn’t do it. In my defense, the teacher hadn’t even assigned homework on the material covered in the quiz. So I sat there and turned my mind towards the questions I could answer. “God, calm my nerves” was my prayer. Fighting back tears I tried to do what I could until my professor came over and said, “You’re out of time.”
The funny thing is, I have don’t think I have ever failed before. Not in school. Not in anything. Sure, I’ve messed some things up, but I’ve never failed. One of my job interview questions was “tell me about a time you’ve failed. What did you do about it and what did you learn from it?” I didn’t really have a good answer. I guess I do now. Well, I failed a test because I didn’t do the homework because it wasn’t assigned yet. I studied like crazy. And I learned to ALWAYS overachieve. Okay, maybe not overachieve, but work hard.
Honestly, I think this failure was a good wake up call. A call saying “Hey. Yeah, you’re smart but don’t slack! You can still mess up. You can even fail. But you can get back up again.”
I don’t remember a time I didn’t know these lads. With my brother leaving for college, we made a video in the memories of all the good times.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88TaktHVjPA