Future Things

Hubby and I were talking about my post-graduation plans yesterday. Apparently he's been thinking about it a lot but hadn't said anything. These are a couple things that he noted as being important:

- Something that will keep me busy, productive, and contributing to the world.
- Something that will get me out of the house and interacting with people.

He added that he never wants to say that I must get a job, partly because we'll be ok financially if I don't get a job right away, but that for me, I should find something that satisfies the two requirements he identified. My husband knows me well. Even before we were dating, I knew that it was emotionally dangerous for me to be too isolated, and that when I didn't have structure, or ways to contribute to "society," that was also bad. So I agree that those are important considerations for what I end up doing.

One idea that I tossed around yesterday was--at least temporarily--taking time to work on crafting and creative endeavors. I can be a little more ambitious than I currently have skills for, but it's something that's kept my interest since I was a child. (I think I tried sewing my own dress when I was eight years old... It was a red cotton print with little pink strawberries all over, but all I knew was a basic running stitch, which didn't hold it together very well, and I accidentally made a cut in the middle of the dress, so I never got to wear it anywhere.) I'm mostly thinking about sewing, but I could try other things as well.

I was inspired yesterday by two things: the first comment left on this blog, and browsing through clothing retail websites. Lauren suggested a medley of things that were related to the hobbies and interests I had listed, and they sounded fun; I was specifically intrigued by the painting idea and considering the Etsy shop. The clothing websites I looked at reminded me that 1) it's hard sometimes to find cute clothes that fit and are modest and 2) I think I can do a lot of those fix-ups, or even making them from scratch.

So one idea is to build up my repertoire of crafting skills by doing these fix-ups and crafts for friends, either doing it for free or charging for materials only. I still want to take a sewing class and a few others, but it's a talent that I can start working on as soon as I have more time. I see it as being something useful for other people too.