I was thinking about knowledge and experience today. We are still working on the Purge and renovating our garage. Slowly but surely things are being crossed off the to-do list. Many things I am attempting for the first time. A new experience to add to my skills. My sister and I have a running joke about our home project adventures. We laugh saying, "We watch as few youtube videos, read a page or two from a book and think we can do anything!" We laugh because it's true. That's how we learned to prune our fruit trees after my grandfather passed away. That's how I learned to hang a new side door in the garage, and connect the new dryer vent.
We never think that we can't do something. It's more like, it isn't safe to do something. Like the electrical in the house. We are accident prone and tend to lose our tools in the middle of a project. Electricity is something I think I can do, but am smart enough to leave to the professionals.
As for anything else, well, we always say, "No, we can do that!" Especially when we see something in the store that is creative and expensive. We think our own creative natures are up to any challenge. We like to use what we've got, but we are also spend thrifts. With a bit more thrift in us. My grandmother calls it Oaky Ingenuity. The ability to look at something that needs to be done and use what you have, but perhaps not in the "right" way. My grandfather was a big believe in Oaky Ingenuity. He was originally from Oklahoma while my Grandmother was from Missouri. They know what they are talking about.
My grandfather was able to make anything work, without spending more than twenty dollars on something. At least in most situations. We always said he used the three B's: Bubblegum, baling wire and bobby pins. Later we added duct tape. After his death we couldn't get any of our three lawnmowers to start. It seemed they only worked for my grandfather. He probably has some strange trick he used to get them started and after his passed we were left in the dark. He never wrote anything down.
My sister and I get a bit of our creative problem solving from him. We make due, even if it doesn't always come out as we planned. He always made it work.
Instead of getting us dolls when we were little, be got us a tool set, and not one of those plastic fisher-price things. A real tool set... with a saw and C-claps and everything. He helped us build cradles for our baby dolls and stables for our Barbie horses. He thought us to do anything a guy could do and funded many a home project we had seen on This Old House, or later on HGTV.
These day's we don't have him to fall back on, and tend to spend more than is prudent. While we aren't afraid to go get what we need, we are good at using what we have and changing direction when a project doesn't go the way we planned.
I guess that the ability to shift gears, as it were, is not new, but I think it has to be learned.
I use it a lot in writing, maybe that's why I'm not done yet. When I hit a road block I usually shift to something else, another story or project, because I love to write and I have more stories in my head then I may ever finish, but stopping isn't going to happen. Maybe no one will ever read my books. Maybe they aren't anything new, but that isn't why I write. Yes, I'd like to make money writing, because it's something I love, and it takes a lot of time and effort, but I write for me. I love the sense of accomplishment when I finish a page, or a scene, or a chapter. I can't describe the feeling of finishing my first manuscript.
What better way to use what I've got, than to write it down!
Anyway, that is my ramblings for tonight. As ever, Write On!
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