One of These Days

Creative Inheritance

Besides writing, tell us about a hobby you have. How did you discover it? How long have you been doing it?


Aside from writing, I've always loved arts and crafts. I've done some cross-stitching, I made a friend of mine some button art for her baby when he was born (spelled his name on 4 separate canvases covered with fabric with the buttons sewn on in the shape of the individual letters), I have a cricut and I've made some window clings, some birthday cards, I made a mobile for my niece's first baby shower, some food labels, again for my niece's first baby shower. I also made a pretty (simple) wall art using a star fish that my boyfriend has had for years, it reminds him of his dog that he loved and grew up with. I have it hanging in our bathroom and it's lasted 4 years already.

It is relaxing for me to do things with my hands. I've actually thought of getting some kind of cross-stitching thing to work on. I also want to learn to crochet. I'd love to learn needle point at some point too. So we will see. I'll probably start with crochet first tho, just because it seems like a mindless thing once you learn it and I'd love to have something like that while I watch something or heck, read something on my kindle. I just have to set some time aside and do that.

As far as discovering it, I have always loved to be creative since I was young. It's tied in with my love for stories (reading and writing). I remember creating a little picture book when I was probably six or seven and I remember "reading" it multiple times with different stories each time. I also remember being in sixth grade and using green printer paper that my parents had left over from something and I'd take it with me to class and I'd make like outdoor settings in 3 dimensions, like I'd crinkle up a ball of paper to make a bush. Maybe curl a small strip of paper to make a wooden bench, etc. I'd do them during class, during a lesson. I got really good grades so I didn't ever get in trouble for it or talked to. Plus my sixth grade teacher was pretty liberal in general, so... (I was a weird kid, ok! )

I've inherited it from my dad, I think. He was very creative. He could draw pretty decently, at least from what I can remember as a kid. Which I don't mean to cheapen it, but that when I got older his vision went (macular degeneration), so he barely wrote, much less drew. But I remember it being very good. He drew animals, much as I remember. I often wish I had kept them. He was a wonderful cook and could take all kinds of things and make a meal out of it. There were off-shoot meals that he made that friends of mine loved. He made some kind of pasta salad with some left over spaghetti, some black olives, parmesan cheese, some onion, and some vinaigrette dressing (probably some other stuff, but it was really basic pasta salad) and one of my friends still talks about it to this day. My dad made this amazing stew, he happened to just call zucchini stew, which he made from some left over pasta sauce my mom made, then he added some cut up yellow squash, zucchini, green peppers, and italian sausage. It was a m a z i n g. He made it for our graduation parties (from high school) and my college graduation party. It was always gone in a flash and my dad (who grilled the burgers and hot dogs) never got to enjoy any when he got to sit down. My older sister always had friends who heard about it, bought all the ingredients, and had my dad make it for them. I actually literally just gave the recipe to my cousin to texted me to ask about it. She was talking about it with her dad, my uncle, and her mom, my aunt, (I feel weird for doing that, since that seems obvious!) and they were both excited that I had the recipe for it. So yknow, it still exists.

But anyway, yeah he was very creative. Even in a white trashy, sort of recycling things, kinda way. He was born in 1933, so he also had that kind of mentality. Like we got him one of those round charcoal grills (I forget the name of them!) for his birthday or father's day I can't remember. Probably father's day, because I think it was warm out? His birthday was in January and while it's still possible we could've gotten for him then and he would've used it then, in the dead ass middle of Central NY winter, but I'm pretty sure it was warm out in my memory of it. Anyway, the legs rotted out from the snow. He had an old ass wooden casing for an old gas grill that had finally died on him (hence why we got him the charcoal one) and he removed the grill part from the wooden casing and just set the round grill part from the broken metal legs and wallah, a whole new grill.