A friend of mine was surprised the other day when I mentioned that I found the African helix stitch to be intimidating. She thought that I'd be more than happy and eager to give any new technique a whirl and that I'd be an expert at it the very first time. Oh, if only...

The fact is, I look at a lot of new things and think 'I'd love to do that' but procrastinate. Why? Because I'm intimidated by it. It's something new, something different and probably outside of what I'm used to doing. I know this isn't something that I'm the only one going through... I'm pretty sure that almost everyone goes through it at some point or another.

I guess the trick is to admit that it scares me and try it anyways. If I deny it, then I have a tendency to come up with reasons to continue to procrastinate and then I get bored with what I'm doing. Where's the sense in that? Who am I hurting or embarrasing, by admiting that something scares me? No one. Who am I stunting if I let that fear overwhelm me? You guessed it

I have a list of things I'd like to try and yet keep putting it off. The list goes like this:

1. African helix
2. loom work
3. quilting
4. getting my stuff into a gallery
5. learning how to cook

There's no priority to this list, it's just a list. I think what I'll do is, make a complete list and add to it, when I find something that intimidates me. I'll choose one new thing a month and if I can overcome the fear within a reasonably short period of time, then maybe I'll try something else that month (on top of what I'm already doing, of course). I'm not going to push myself to try something new every day or even every week because I want time to do these things and then learn to do them WELL, before trying something else.

But, all of this will have to wait a week or so, cuz I've done something to my left arm and I've got to wait for it to stop hurting