Two meetings this week.

I had 2 meetings this week. The first one was to the Arkansas Arts Center. They want me to teach a class on hand painting yarn this May. I am excited about it and yet, scared. It is always like that with me. I like my little box. I feel comfortable in my little box. I have a hard time making myself get outside that box. I am so content to just sit at home and write my pattern books. I am great one on one, but a group scares the bbbb-boogers out of me! I am not one who gets up and speaks. I was never comfortable in front of a group. I see all these people and my brain and my tongue don't connect. I have notes and they go right out the window!!
The hard thing about teaching is presuming that a student knows certain things. When you have been doing something so long that it is just natural to you, you presume that it comes natural to others. I was asked that question today at my second meeting, the local "Chicks with Sticks" group at the Children's hospital. How did I get from knowing how to knit and crochet, to writing books. I really don't know! It was a long progression. It started at my maternal Grandma's feet watching her crochet, then a childhood friend, Janet Dycus, teaching me to knit on the steps of Rose City Elementary school, then led to making things for my Barbie, hats for my family, my stepmother-in-law teaching me the correct way to purl, working for Leisure Arts, and then writing instructions. I have always looked at it as a gift from God, a path that He laid out for me. This ability has been a great blessing to me, to my family, and to the ministries that I have been privileged to support. I don't take my talent for granted for one minute. I am still enamored with the way that something so simple as yarn, two sticks, or a hook can bring such enjoyment and create such beauty. I am so blessed to have a job doing what I love! Thank you, God.