I used to name my summers, give them a theme in hopes of having something to do. I suppose I was setting an intention before setting intentions became a thing.

One year, it was The Summer of Learning. I taught myself to knit and made scarves in the comfort of an air conditioned home while sweltering triple digit temperatures fried the yard. I had a guitar and tinkered with it for a while, but I didn’t get far. I had a three year old and it mainly revolved more about his learning than mine. A summer with a three year old certainly counts for something though. After several summers, I lost track, had another child, and got too busy to even think about naming them.

As the end of the school year became a reality, a friend asked what I’d name this summer. I hadn’t thought of it. Great question. I contemplated.

The Summer of Breaking Free.

My life is good, but there are things I still hold back on. One of them is following through on projects here and there. The fun ones I long to do, but don’t seem to make time for while I’m working because I’m flat out tired. I have a fresh fourteen year old, so I’m now the resident Uber driver. Then there are the necessary projects that best lend themselves to be done during the long stretch of summer break. Look at flooring samples. (Probably best to budget for it first). All the paperwork in case something happens to us. Repaint bedrooms. Might as well paint the bathrooms while we’re at it. And don’t the cabinets need to be replaced too? Yeah, breaking free seems to be more of a long term commitment I didn’t want.

I signed up for a virtual craft and art workshop earlier this month. It’s free, within my price point. I also participated last year and completed some projects. Regrettably, I didn’t purchase access to the courses. This year, I allowed myself to purchase access because the instructors were fantastic, down to earth, and encouraging. For a full week, I connected with thousands of people from around the world and followed along for watercolor orange slices, planner doodling, mandalas, making a stamp from an eraser, sketch noting, block lettered paper collage, illustrated and cut bursts of happiness with sticky notes, and mixed media florals.

This led to cracking open a new notebook, not for writing, but for playing around. For a week I put my work in there and I’m popping in to view the sessions I didn’t have time to complete. I’m not out to become an artist, but it sure has helped me do something beyond my comfort zone. My medium of choice is words. Doing something I’m not great at is a way to stretch myself. I intended for my notebook to be a wordless journal, but some sessions involved journaling, a change I didn’t expect.

One big idea instructors continued to remind everyone was that of embracing what’s on the page (or canvas). If you make a mistake, it just becomes a part of the piece. Keep going and let it be what it wants to be.

Last week my body ached from painting. Walls. My daughter moved into my son’s ex-bedroom and she went in all interior decorator mode with a fierce vision of how she wanted to make it hers. (She is an artist). It took her all of ten minutes to choose her paint color. Dark Ash.

I’ve renamed it Teen Goth.

Her room will become my craft and writing room-at least that’s the plan. I’ve narrowed down my color choices to three. I’m indecisive, but I’m ready to have my own room. Our kitchen table is tired of having me perched at one end with a hot mess of whatever project I happen to be working on. My husband is tired of it too. Soon we’ll be able to eat at our kitchen table without having to shove everything to one side. But first, there’s the paint color. Maybe I’ll close my eyes, spin around three times and point at one. Otherwise it might wait until next summer. I can always repaint if I don’t like the color.

This seems to be The Summer of Painting. Should I rename it? I think I’ll hold on to my original title because painting and doing something other has helped me break free from the walls I put up around myself. On to the next project!