“I still find each day too short for all the thoughts I want to think, all the walks I want to take, all the books I want to read, and all the friends I want to see.” --John Burroughs

I decided to write a few posts about things that "someday" I hope to do. Random, I know, but I recently was talking with some friends about things we want to do and realized that I've been saying some of those things for quite a while. Maybe it's time to start doing them!! These aren't things that have to be done and they aren't for the house or my health or anything else--I've just always wanted to do them.

Well, in actuality, I've already done one of them. For the last couple of years, I've said "Someday I'm going to get a puppy." Well, I did that a few weeks ago and couldn't be happier about it. I'm having the best time with my new, little friend and am so glad that I finally did it.

Another thing that I'm going to do "someday" is take watercolor painting lessons. I love art----all different kinds of art----but I've never taken any sort of real art lessons. I took an art class or two in high school, but they really just focused on introducing us to a variety of mediums. I want to take a series of lessons to actually learn to paint. When I was growing up, my mother took oil painting lessons and loved it. However, she felt very strongly that children should not take art lessons because it would inhibit their natural imaginative spirit and stifle their creativity. She also rarely let us use coloring books and encouraged

us to draw from photos or actual objects/people rather than using art as a model, so that we could develop our own techniques and not copy someone else's. At times, I thought that was kind of silly, but as an adult now, I realize how very wise she was. I've heard story after story of how comments by well-meaning teachers have inhibited a child's creativity and made them unsure of themselves in regard to artistic ability. Sometimes that is the only thing they remember about that age or place or person, showing me how profoundly negative that comment was to them.

So, although my creativity has been sufficiently stifled by any number of circumstances or people, I will "someday" take watercolor lessons and add yet another craft supply to my every-growing stash.