Channeling Junior High

Guess what? I know what I want to be when I grow up! I know, it's exciting isn't it? Drumroll please....I want to be an eighth-grader again. Well, kind of. I'll take a pass on the disproportionate lips/mouth, the gap in the front teeth, the unruly hair, the bad bangs and all the baggage of eighth grade, but I'd like to keep the topics, please:

World of Construction

Home Ec.

Photography

World of Construction was mandatory back then and, after studying basic electrical info and home design, culminated in designing your own floorplan (within the given square footage constraints) and 'building' a house from foam core. Awesome, right? I would embrace this project today. As I recall, we had to mark where all the outlets and switches would be as well as where all the furniture would go. I mean, hello, I do that furniture bit every three years (or more if you count all the rearranging) and a lot of houses I've lived in (to date: nine) could have used someone with a little more common sense dealing with the electrical layout. Not to mention that I enjoy making us a home but am always in the process of figuring out exactly how to best accomplish it. Totally useful skills!

Home Ec. started with a sewing project - making an apron, of course - and followed up with a few basic cooking skills. I specifically remember making biscuits. And if you're in my immediate family, you're laughing right now that that's all I remember. But, I loved it. I liked the sewing and I enjoyed the cooking. Uh, kind of like I do at the ripe old age of almost 35. Aprons and biscuits have given way to pillows, curtains, cakes and cookies, but the seed was planted back when I was less than five feet tall.

And finally, Photography. Ahhh. I've spent years now half-striving to take 'better pictures' and have slowly acquired 'better equipment', but really didn't it all start when I was taking black and whites on 35mm film with my dad's camera, then learning how to develop them in the school's darkroom? Yes. Yes it did. 

So what exactly have I figured out? I think just that I should take these interests more seriously. I should claim them as my own, not as a me-too (because there are so many photographer/baker/decorator people out there these days, according to blogrolls), but as things that have been a part of me for a very long time now. Because let's be honest, my kids are closer to being the age of an eighth grader than I am (!) and these interests have never been far from my heart. So you heard it here first: I am a homemaker and I'm growing proud of it. I love to cook, bake (trying these new homemade hostess cupcakes this weekend), can sew when I feel like it, would like to be better at decorating and am attempting to improve my photography skills. I don't claim to be great at any of it, but I do claim a passion for it. 

Now if you'll just cut me some slack as I figure out how on Earth this is relevant to anything, that'd be fantastic.