So, I got the little device home and loaded it onto my computer, and nothing happened.  I couldn’t get it to work.  So, I immediately did what I do in these types of situations.  I plant my heels firmly, and I attack!  Battle!  And, I eventually did get it working.  On the wrong computer mind you, but I did get it working.  And, when I did get it working, I realized that it wasn’t all that cool.  It didn’t do what I wanted it to do, and I realized that I didn’t really need it, so I took it back.

Throughout the process of this whole thing, I really had to think about why I wanted to have a TV in my craft room.  In fact, I have always told myself that the reason I am not really working on anything now is that I don’t have a TV in the room.  What this all led me to is that I don’t ever really craft without something else to do.  Even when I was young, I used to talk on the phone and make necklaces.  But, I don’t ever really remember spending time working on my projects without doing something else at the same time, and it is usually watching TV.  I have talked about this before, but this goes back to my own feelings of guilt, maybe that’s the right term, about doing things that don’t seem to have a purpose, beyond making me happy that is.  So, I have always doubled-up on my creativity activities with something else that seems to be somewhat a waste of time.

**On another note, I think that this also goes back to the fact that I do better when I am around other people.  I love the conversations and the company, but just hanging out is also something I feel guilty about at times, so I do think it is possible that I am doubling up here as well.

So, bottom line was that I returned the tuner, and now I have a big chunk of Best Buy money burning a hole in my pocket, which is where it will stay for a while.

But, the other day, I was reading Christine Kane’s post about how to enhance your inner bling and one of the twenty-two on her list is to break up with your television.  This is something she has written about before, although I did forget about that post.  I am conflicted about this whole television as an energy sucking thing.  I agree that it isn’t the most effective use of energy to spend all evening in front of the television.  It is actually a little boring, which is probably why I am always doing something else as I watch, but the thought of canceling cable panics me a little, and that makes me feel really stupid.  Maybe the tv watching has gotten a little out of control.

So, I think I am going to spend a little time considering what watching tv is for me.  I am going to keep the “tv” out of the craft room, although I am not sure that I won’t watch movies in there.  But, I am going to try to weed out the amount of tv I watch.  There are lots of other things that I would like to do to fulfill myself rather than be a passive participant in the information I receive.  So, look for a new post sometime soon considering the role television plays in my life and what it is doing for me.

As I am sure that readers who know me have noticed, I love to make gifts for people. And, I love to create things that I have seen somewhere else or in my brain and recreate them. However, one of the first things that I will do when I give you anything is show you where the imperfections are. I also rarely keep anything I make for myself, and I am beginning to more clearly understand why.

For about four years, I have been planning on making a quilt of my husband’s and my old t-shirts. All the shirts that hold sentimental feelings, but we not longer wear them. This was originally because I knew that as a military family we weren’t going to be able to keep collecting, but there were a few things that I knew that we wouldn’t be able to let go. So, I thought this was a wonderful idea.

So, I have been taking baby steps on this quilt for some time. The first major step was cutting the shirts up. Then, I went back in and trimmed all the pieces. I looked around online to see if I could find any really cool examples, but all the ones I found were so carefully planned and executed that I knew that it wasn’t the right way for our quilt to come together.

So, I found a backing that I love, and I got the batting that I think that I am going to use. But, since I did all that, nothing has gotten done. I am completely stuck. I don’t know if I should carefully try to lay everything out, or if I should just wing it. Honestly, the worst thing that will happen is that we end up with two quilts if I run out of space on the one.

However, after reading the blog entry for today, I have been thinking a lot about all the projects that I end up working on. Most of them are perfectly laid out in my brain, but I have some trouble with the execution. The blocks don’t line up, or the painting isn’t just quite right. And, I have trouble seeing past the imperfection, which is largely why I think that I don’t keep the things that I make for myself.

So, I have decided that I am going to be try to let myself be more imperfect now. Instead of it being something that I hide from, I think that it is going to be something the I embrace. I am human; I make mistakes. Thank god! I personally don’t really like perfect people, so I am not sure why I want to be one. However cliche is sounds though, there is one thing that I can do perfectly…I can just be the person that I am in the best way I know how.

So, if you get an imperfect something special from me, I hope that you love it (which is the whole point, right)!

I just had a meeting with my boss about my reappointment to my job for the upcoming year. I am a teacher, and I specifically teach tech writing. I was reappointed to the job, but some of the comments that I received from my colleagues were a little harsher than I anticipated. Two major concerns that people had about me were that my classes were too easy and that I am making a mistake having my students write anything to me specifically. I have thought about these two issues long before I had the meeting with my boss, so I am surprised that I am having this reaction at all. I guess that I am a little shocked. I have always prided myself on being a hard teacher, but I am not sure why it is a bad thing to be easy.

Another teacher for this course explained that my students create better work than other instructors’ students, so if my students are performing better, then why should I be upset that they have an easier time getting to that performance. We have a great deal of assignments to complete in a very short period of time, and I push them hard to create near perfect documents, but I give them lots of time to revise to create those near perfect documents.

Oh well. I guess that I shouldn’t be and am not all that upset about this particular piece of feedback because I don’t necessarily agree with the choices that are being made by these other instructors either, and it is our job to look at each other’s techniques. It is my job to not let myself be hooked.

I remember lamenting to my mother not so long ago about not liking the feeling of not knowing what the right answer to a problem was. She told me that I was past the age where right answers we always apparent to us, and now I just had choices that I could make. And, what I wonder about that interchange now, after reading Christine’s post, is how can we know when that shift happens. Wouldn’t it be better to teach our kids that there are always choices. There are never truly right and wrong answers to any question (well, maybe some do– “Should I kill my brother today?”). And, I believe with this whole choice idea that some choices are more inherently “right” than others, see above question. But, what if we started to teach kids at a young age that there are choices that we make, but there isn’t such thing as one right answer. This is the approach that I have started taking with my students in my classes regarding changes I am suggesting to their writing, and although these aren’t little kids, maybe that is just as important for them to learn this lesson while they are making choices that affect the rest of their lives.

Think about it. All through college people asked me what I was majoring in, and when I told them English, I got the look. You know what look I am talking about. The look that says you are wasting your time, you will never find a job. But, I did find a job, and I went on to go back to school and do more studying, and now, I want to go back more than ever to keep learning. Maybe those people that gave me the look just didn’t understand the goal that I had for myself (and, that goal doesn’t include making tons of money and it does include being happy with what I am doing), but before passing judgement, they could have asked me more about what I was hoping to do with my degree. I think that parents all too often suggest to their children that they hold the knowledge kids will someday have. The blinker that goes off in your brain to tell you the right answer, and it seems this way because we are constantly shown by our parents what choices we should or should have made. We all have that ability to make good decisions, but how often are kids taught how. So, instead of, “you will not smoke because it is bad for you,” why not talk to kids about why we don’t want them to smoke. Ask them to consider the consequences, and then, let them make their own choice. Teach them at younger ages that there are choices that they have the ability to make, and parents don’t always know the right answer. Maybe then, future kids won’t have to reach a point in their lives where they figure out that there is not one right answer — just different paths, and maybe it would eliminate the anger that lots of us feel when we realize that our parents don’t have all the answers.