Wednesday, April 23, 2014

Sometimes I Amaze Myself...

With my own ridiculousness and stupidity.

Seriously.

So, yesterday I spent almost an hour at Hobby Lobby. Which in and of itself is not a bad thing. Because Hobby Lobby is like my favorite store. Ever.

But, the reason I was in HL was ridiculous.

My sil and I are throwing a bridal shower for the daughter of a good friend. The shower isn't until the end of May, but we are thinking we should get the invites out soon so that people can plan on attending.

Which is why I was in Hobby Lobby.

To buy the supplies for 50 invitations. Or to buy 50 invitations-if I could find ones I liked.

Except I couldn't.

It is an almost 4th of July wedding, the groom is in the Marines, and the color is navy with pops of red. Stars and stripes forever seems like a great theme for the shower.

I paced up and down the aisles of HL (four kids in tow), looking at cards, card stock, stickers, stamps, ink, and more ink.

What are the cheapest stickers? Why is this ink more/less expensive? Is one ink pad enough? Big letter stamps? Little letter stamps? Blue card stock or red card stock? White? Star stickers? Gold stars? Silver stars? Red, white and blue stars?

What a draining list of choices.

After a good long time, I came up with a plan, and paid for it.

I was dreading the thought of printing, stamping, cutting and sticker-ing 50 invitations.

I had visions. But, my visions were not peaceful arts and crafts visions. They were looking more like first grade art project visions.

Have I mentioned that I hate cutting? I had to cut every.single.day. in Kindergarten. I have been scarred ever since.

I am not an arts and crafty sort of person. The prospect gives me hives.

My kids even asked me as we were leaving why in the world I was making the invitations when my sol has all the art supplies and enjoys doing that kind of thing. (short answer, she is going to CA next week and she doesn't need the stress of thinking about invitations either before the trip or directly after.)

My kids know me better than I know myself.

Well, I know myself. I am just trying to push through the pain.

My BFF laughed when I told her my idea. She knows my proclivities too. Yeah. As does my husband. And my sil.

So, guess who gave me a brilliant idea this morning? God? My sil? Myself? Someone gave me permission to get off the crazy train.

I'm not exactly sure but somehow we got on the idea of printing up something online. Voila'! Click over to Snapfish. Design a cool and unique shower invite optimizing the 4th of July, red, white and blue, stars and stripes theme.

10 minutes, people! That's all it took.

No cutting. No stickers. No fancy handwriting. No stamping.

Coming to a mailbox near me sometime in the next week.

Sigh...

I am more relaxed when I focus on using my gifts. I do a few. Organizing. Planning. Cooking. I thrive on writing. I enjoy doing a wee bit of decorating-especially in my own home. I am a facilitator. A teacher.

And not an arts and crafts teacher either.

I am stressed when I try to do things that aren't my gifts. Even though I genuinely want to bless someone else with this action. Making invitations is so not my gift. Arts and crafts and the idea of making something over and over and over again stresses me out. Overwhelms me. Gives me headaches and hives.

Sometimes it is necessary to do things out of our comfort zone. Sometimes those things are how we grow and/or discover new loves. But, sometimes it is the better part of prudence to admit defeat, and focus on the things that truly are our gifts.

To order online invitations. (that were 50% off, and are costing way less time, money and effort than the homemade versions) To make a trip back to Hobby Lobby with a bag full of returns. To focus on the menu and cooking.

To live in the sigh of relief that invites will be going out. Nice invites. With the minimum amount of stress from me.


Let's give up the sigh of defeat that accompanies the phrase good enough. Let's give ourselves the freedom to realize it is just possibly good. Or even better. And maybe even best.

It isn't good enough. It is good.