Old hobbies, New skills

With all kids in some sort of school at least couple of days a week. I have recently, discovered more time for myself. After years of day dreaming, imagining how life would be with the extra time, I felt a bit of a let down. I didn't expect there to be an adjustment! The first week of school was sad, by the second week I realized that I needed to set some personal goals to use this time well.

With so much time alone, I feared that I would end the school year fat and poor. I needed to find something that didn't include: eating food or spending money.

Of course, there is exercise and cleaning the house, but I wanted something to look forward to, something to get excited about and didn't require any extra motivation. So, I came up with a few things to expand my talents.

Organ. My mom is an organist and lives an hour away. I knew it was finally time to take advantage of free lessons, now that I live close by and am mature enough to take lessons from my mom. The only problem was where to practice. I came across this problem in Germany, when I was called as ward organist. Church was too far to get any regular practice in and I didn't feel comfortable at the church by myself. I knew that I would be more efficient with my time, if I actually owned an organ. So, I found one on Ebay for 250 dollars and only an hour away. I had it delivered on Halloween and it now resides in our bedroom....how romantic. It is an old organ, but plays nicely and has given me the chance to finally learn the pedals. I manage to get a lesson from my mom regularly and am enjoying working on a new familiar skill.

The Dollhouse. When I was 16, I got a dollhouse for Christmas, the kind you build and fill with collector furniture. At the time, I wanted to be an interior decorator and saw this as a chance to learn. I never got to that point, though. My brother and I worked on it off and on during my high school years, and managed only to get the outside done.

When we moved back to the states, the house was waiting at my parents house. I had been 20 years since I worked on it and it was time to be played with. So, I went in to productive mode and set a goal to get it ready for the kids to play with by Christmas. Well, my kids didn't have to have any furniture or cute wall paper to play. As soon as we brought it home, I discovered batman and polly pockets, occupying the empty rooms.

I put away my lofty goals of electrical wiring, real wood floors and the expensive furniture. Instead of going to the specialty dollhouse store, I went to Micheal's. Oh....yes.....one thing has happened since the early 90s, a crafting explosion. Now, there are craft stores full of scrapbook paper, paint, contact paper...etc. And of course, there are 50 percent off coupons. A very expensive hobby just got pretty cheap. I could wallpaper a room for under a dollar. Flooring (fake wood drawer liner)was 6 dollars for the entire house.

My main goal was to make this a family project. I didn't want it to take away any extra time from the kids. I didn't want to be a crafty-mom-control freak and only let my kids watch me work on the house. So, I found something that I could let them do that wasn't too difficult: paint the interior and modge-podge the wall paper in the rooms. Sadie proved to be a great painter. She also exhibited some taste in color and pattern selection. She picked out the girls room and decided on the wall paper. Also, she came up with a great beaded-curtain for the doorway. Letting the kids be a part of the work, also helps me to relax when it comes to play time. They have a decent amount of respect for the house, and treat it pretty gently. Also, when something breaks, we can always fix it, well..... because we built it.