Hopefully I am not alone. There must be quite a few 'Yes, I Can' people out there and that is a good thing, but sometimes our plate overfloweth. I have wild admiration for people whose plate of life is proportionally fixed.
My husband's plate is proportionally fixed. He cruises through life with a realistic approach - helping when he can, don't get me wrong, but not spreading himself thin.
I, on the other hand, am like Welcome Back Kotter's Arnold Horshack when a problem arises and a volunteer is needed to fix it. Ooo, ooo, ooo, Mr. Kotter, pick me, pick me!
I am not sure what makes me tick and why I am that way. Truth is, I genuinely like to help people, but often I need a few more hours in the day to get everything done. And more often than not, some things just don't.
My recent undertaking has been a sewing project. A few years ago, a fellow Tamburitzan dance group mom found a bag of Beanie Baby dolls and accessories in our costume storage room. (Obviously a project of another 'yes' person who had a vision but for one reason or another, never reached completion.) The dolls were going to be donated or thrown out, but when I made eye contact with these red headed dolls I knew throwing them out was not going to happen. Not on my watch. I was going to see this project through.
The dolls were going to get the extreme ethnic makeover they needed to make some little kid happy and hopefully make the group a few dollars toward our general fund. One problem, I am not a crafter. I make little things here and there, but not seriously. I don't measure. I only sew by hand and there's the lack of time issue.
Well, the doll discovery was two years ago. They got moved around from shelf to shelf in my house. Once I moved them for the fourth time I got motivated. No doll left behind was my new mantra, but I knew I needed help.
A couple things happened this year that created a perfect storm of get 'r done. My daughter offered to help me and a fellow dance mom was willing to put her superior crafting skills to the test and spearhead the design process. We wanted to create Eastern European looking dolls - girls and boys - in costumes that we would make.
This would be a challenge because neither my daughter nor I knew how to use the sewing machine we were recently bequeathed, but our enthusiasm and determination made up for our lack of skill. Luckily, our fearless leader was able to give us a few pointers before sending us off with our part of the project: the doll skirts and aprons.
During the next couple months our task proved a little more challenging than we anticipated. Our deadline, luckily, was pushed back to the first week of June, due to timing issues, which gave my daughter and I more time to discover we were probably in over our heads. But she is stubborn like me and we weren't going down without a fight.
After buying some sewing do dads, downloading the sewing machine manual and utilizing the crucial help of a friend visiting from out of town, our portion of the project was completed. Six skirts and six aprons - done. I cannot wait to see these dolls on display this weekend at a local ethnic festival. I hope I get the satisfaction of seeing just one little face light up as her parent allows her to chose one for her very own. (I don't mean my daughter either who has already picked out one she plans to buy herself.)
I have wanted to make clothes since I was in high school and even bought my own antique sewing machine, just for that purpose. In college, I hand sewed a pillow case dress, which ended up being way too short, and the dream went into hibernation. Although the dream was resurrected in doll form, who knows what it might have inspired for my daughter.
Sometimes my plate of life doth runneth over and sometimes it can be overwhelming, but with a little help from my friends, along with making adorable dolls, I made incredible memories. I am proud of what we accomplished and I am also happy to have tried something new and have something amazing to show for it.
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