DIY
How to Be the Tortoise Who Wins the Race
And other tips from this week’s DIY Diaries
It’s a pleasure to receive such a variety of stories for The DIY Diaries that I can’t adequately sum them up in the title of my weekly review. So I chose to mention the tortoise in the title, not only because one of the articles this week features a tortoise but also because I think the do-it-yourself theme is often related to the idea that “slow and steady wins the race.”
While others might hurry us, when we do things ourselves, we’re on our own terms and our own timeline. This has always appealed to me because my best work happens when I have time and space to think and reflect, rather than trying to rush to meet a deadline.
This spirit of following a meditative pace arises in Min L’s story about making a beaded rainbow necklace and finding relaxation through the process of focusing on the details of her project. Thanks, Min, for sharing your work; I always appreciate the feeling of kindness and community in your stories as well as your comments.
We also had a treat in receiving a new story from Ali, who has been sharing a series of stories about her journey in learning to paint. This story explores trying some new techniques with acrylics — both painting and pouring. I think you’ll agree the combination yielded really cool results in the image of a tiger that she shares in her post.
Howard the desert tortoise, age 65 give or take a year, makes an appearance in Mona S Gable’s story about how she learned to garden in order to raise healthy food for Howard when it was less than accessible during the early phases of the pandemic. I read this article out loud to my girlfriend because I so enjoyed its combination of stories: I learned about Mona’s family, many aspects of tortoise behavior, and the successes of a newly empowered gardener.
Photographer and photography teacher extraordinaire Duvy McGirr shares a project this week that starts with table napkins and ends with a one-of-a-kind decorative step stool. What? Yes, this is a really cool step-by-step project (no pun intended!) for how to custom design a step stool using decoupage. I love how affordable and adaptable this project is — if you don’t need a step stool, you could make a wooden box or any other piece of decor for your home or for a gift.
And after Duvy shows us how to make the project, she demonstrates techniques for how to photograph it effectively. I appreciate the combination of projects that come together in this story!
To say I was pleased to receive a story from Trista Signe Ainsworth is a bit of an understatement, as her publication Thank You Notes was a big inspiration for me in creating The DIY Diaries. One of the reasons I started writing on Medium was that I wanted to write more about gratitude, so imagine my delight in finding a publication with just such a focus.
Trista wrote a lovely story about the everyday ways we can find abundance in our food preparation by appreciating and creatively using the food that we have. Her post is part self-reflection, part recipe, and part gentle advice. If you have some rice on hand, you might want to make your own version of the rice ball recipe in her story right now…
The creative and generous MW Mercer gives us a practical and encouraging how-to piece about writing poetry. This is the kind of advice you’d pay a bunch of money to receive in a writing workshop, but you can read it here for free and benefit from the knowledge of someone who has been writing poems for 30 years. As I, too, have been writing poems for 30 years, I see a lot of valuable ideas here that I recognize as well-worth thinking about and putting into practice. I highly recommend this story for its friendly tone and doable ideas for taking small steps to build your skills as a poet.
I shared a little story this week about my gratitude for my girlfriend’s sense of space and organization. I’m good at some things, but when it comes to spatial awareness and interior design, not so much. I wouldn’t have thought that we could install roll out drawers in the kitchen so easily, but indeed, she could. In short, I wrote this story to say that there are a lot of cool things you can do to save money and maximize your space, with the help of reasonably priced DIY kits and a couple of tools — and, if you’re like me, someone in your life who can make the pieces fit while you stand by with the toolbox to hand over supplies as needed.
Thank you for reading this post, and I hope you’ll go back and read the stories these writers have taken the time to write and share this past week. If you want to give The DIY Diaries a follow, I’d be very appreciative, too. And remember that your stories are always welcome, so please let me know in the comments if you’d like to be added as a writer.
Thanks again to everyone who has submitted their writing here — and those who have read and commented. :)
