Thank you for being here. I am Amanda. I make things. I am a creator, and make just about anything I can. I own a photography business, and have worked full time for the last 10 years. Living a creative life has been my passion for as long as I can remember. I enjoy finding thrifty ways to DIY just about anything I can.
We bought a 1940 art deco stucco house in 2019, and are slowly remodeling it as we live a busy, fun filled, life revolving around two little girls.
My goal while renovating our 1940 home is to lean into the discomfort of not knowing, for the sake of learning. I learn as I go, and fail often.
So why this blog?
Determined DIY was born this year, but has been a long time coming. I wanted a place to just share and connect with others while creating. No strings attached to why I was doing it, or when I should be, just letting it flow. I felt limited by the genres I had worked in before, and wanted to branch out and try some new things. I want to grow.
LIKE EVERY DAY.
I have always been self motivated to learn new things, and self taught myself photography. Which if you are wondering about can be viewed here. I felt boxed in a little into the different portrait genres, (admittedly, of my own doing because some of them make more money than others. )
But I felt restless. And tired. I had gone through a few years of post-partum depression/anxiety, and felt like I had failed at a lot of the things I had tried to do, and wasn’t balancing it well. I started to define myself by those failures, and just claimed I wasn’t able to cook, bake, garden, dance, can my own food… and the list just keeps going. The list grew so long, that I started to feel overwhelmed by what I couldn’t do , which might sound silly, but it was true. I know that nobody can literally do everything, but I had just stopped trying new things all together.
Up-rooted.
Then everything changed. We moved. The ‘normal’ that I had known for 8 years, got completely uprooted, and it was shook up hard. I had only ever been a mom in one place. I didn’t know how to make new friends in a place with older kids who were in school all day.
How did you meet new people if it wasn’t at library story time? or the park?
So we moved, it was hard, but we adjusted. It was a fresh start. I wanted to re-invent myself. I wanted to jump out of those boxes of ‘ I can’t’ and just start doing whatever I felt like.
I started trying new things about a year ago. I planted some seeds, and grew things. ( which is BIG coming from the girl who killed bamboo… that LIVES in water )
I re- grew onions, green onions, potatoes, and a few other items from old food scraps. I grew flowers. I landscaped my yard, and learned how to prune a rose bush, and bring it back from the precipice of death. I learned a lot. But I also needed to learn balance.
I wanted to make things with my kids. Be more present at home, and not feel like if I sat down for awhile, I was being unproductive.
Well. a couple of years later here I am, still nowhere close to great or where I want to be, but TRYING to be a little better every day. And I am thrilled with that.
So, yes, we moved, and at first it felt scary, and I felt up-rooted. Now it’s the best thing we ever did. I love where I live, and the new relationships we have made.
I think about those little flowers that you get for a couple of bucks in small plastic pots. It comes small, sprouted, maybe budding, and is doing ok. Time goes on, and it may get a little bigger, slowly. Then, sometimes flowers need to be planted in another container so that they can grow deeper roots, and grow even more.
So we up-root them and place them in a bigger container, with more soil, more water, and more opportunity to grow and really bloom. I feel like the last few years, I just got placed in a better pot, and started soaking up the water and sun more.
Time, rest, trees.
Remember twilight. Yes the vampire and werewolf books.
Well, when they first came out and I read them all (you read that right), and some things stuck out to me.
The fact that the vampires never had to sleep…. It was a new idea to me, and being a night owl myself I was intrigued. I have fought sleep for as long as I can remember. Not wanting to go to sleep, and then once I finally did, not being able to wake up in the morning. It is a terrible cycle, and not a healthy one. I can’t even tell you how many new years resolutions have had something involving sleep as a goal.
These characters were able to get SOOOO much done because they no longer required sleep. This caused me to daydream about all of the projects I could accomplish if I too never got tired, and didn’t need sleep. I would probably speak a few languages, play a few instruments, and host a variety of other fun and different talents.
HOW GREAT WOULD THAT BE?!?!
Then after thinking about it (probably way too long) I came back down to reality, and began to chastise myself a little.
Constantly feeling like there is not enough time to finish all of the things I want to is not the most healthy mindset to constantly be living in.
It creates a feeling of scarcity, that there won’t be enough… and maybe that I can’t be enough because I don’t have enough… TIME.
I don’t want to live the only life I have this way. It feels so negative. It feels like I don’t have control.
So after really feeling defeated, and stirring in things and thoughts that I made more complicated than they needed to be… I came to a conclusion. Well several.
- I don’t have to keep doing what I was doing, just because I was good at it.
- There are so many great things to do, even if I fail, I want to try!
- It’s ok to fail.
- I can re- learn anything I feel like. Even if I have failed at it several times before.
- I like learning. A lot.
- There is just the right amount of time there should be.
- I can make the most of each day and moment by being present.
- It’s ok to set boundaries, and stick to them.
- Some days are more productive than others.
- Rest is needed AND rest is good and healthy.
- It is ok to be still.
Trees are still, and still find room to grow. They breath in their surroundings, and release good back out into the world.
Those are my deep and honest thoughts about why I am here. If you made it to the end of my swirling sometimes all over the place thoughts…..
Awesome, thank you for sticking with me.
Yes, my husband still has to remind me it is ok to be still. That it is ok to take time to reset. I like to be busy.
I like to accomplish things, and because I have so many different things that I am interested in it can often times feel like there are never enough hours in the day, but I am learning to be more grateful for the hours I have.
I hope to share things I am working on, while I continue to learn, grow and work on myself.
I hope to connect with others, who also want to focus on the good in their lives, and the creative instead of the negative.
Hopefully something here will inspire you to start some of those long put off projects, either big or small.
Being a recovering power tool phobic myself, I know how scary starting things can be…BUT sometimes you just have to do the thing. We got this!
Amanda