A cautious person's goals tend to look something like this: This is totally the year I'm going to do research on potentially sharing this creative stuff in some capacity sometime in the next 3 years(!) Yeah!

But really...this is totally how I've spent a good chunk of my life. If my parents are reading this, they're shaking their heads saying, "If that's cautious I don't ever want to see what reckless looks like." And they'd be at least partly right, as parents usually are.

There are things in life I've been totally fearless (sometimes maybe a little.. uh, stupid) about - walking up to an important person and just asking for a job, buying houses a little outside of my price range (that's HGTV speak for EVERYONE SAY A LITTLE PRAYER ON MORTGAGE DAY), or painting that insane color on the wall that I think might just surprise someone, in a good way.

But I've realized in the last few years that the things I am fearless about are firmly in my comfort zone and I'm pretty confident I'll be successful in them. Now, when you take away the safety of statistically probably that I will come out looking like a champ, I have been (who are we kidding? AM) a total wuss.

I'll give you a silly (but revealing) example. Andy loves to golf, and I love Andy, so I agreed to try golfing with him. Background: my dad also really loves to golf, and I've been to the range or out with him a handful of times in my life, but never really took to it because I had cooler things to do as a teenager, like put lots of tiny little braids in my hair and cover them with glitter and hairspray. Anyway, I'm familiar with the game, but have not swung a golf club in years.

So yes, I told Andy, I will go golfing with you. BUT, only under the following conditions:

no one else can be with us
we can only play 9 holes
we have to take a cart in case I need a quick getaway
no one can be golfing in front of us or behind us
I get a free stroke on every hole
I get as many do-overs as I want
You can't coach me
When I say I'm done, we have to be done

Trust me, this is totally one of those times that I wish I was exaggerating to make this funnier. But I'm not. I actually said all of those things. And bless his heart, Andy agreed to all of them, at least for a while. But he also had a pretty frank conversation with me as we sat in the car and I about cried because I thought I had totally embarrassed myself on the first time out.

Of course it was ridiculous that I was expecting to be a decent golfer right out of the gate, and even more ridiculous that I was so upset when I wasn't. Andy probably doesn't even remember this, but he said something to the effect of, "You need to figure out how to enjoy doing things you're not good at. Dive in and figure stuff out as you go."

As I was reflecting on the year, it hit me that this is probably the area that has the most potential for improvement for me on a personal level. And so, diving in has become my mantra for 2016.

Now you may be saying, "That's a lovely self-deprecating story, but what does that have to do with your blog? WHERE ARE THE PICTURES OF CREATIVE STUFF?!" Well, you sassy critic, starting this blog was my first real example of diving in.

After much prodding, I could rattle off to Andy and my friends approximately 4,583,406 reasons why I wasn't ready or wasn't ever going to do this blog. A sampling:

I have no formal training or "expertise" in any of this stuff. I'm not coming fresh out of a high-profile interior design internship, nor have I ever actually done any professional interior design.
No one will read it.
I don't have enough content pre-written, and people will know that I just started doing this, like, yesterday.
I'm not a photographer and won't be able to take nice enough pictures.
I'll probably run out of ideas in about 2 weeks.
No one will read it.
There are no original ideas left to blog about. Everything is on pinterest already.

Well, I dove in anyway. I don't have a month of content figured out. Tonight the roads were really snowy and slippery and I couldn't get to HomeGoods to get a few finishing touches for the post I wanted to put up tonight. I didn't have a back-up plan for something else to post. Instead of trying to cobble something together, I decided to share with you where this blog is coming from, and why I'm diving in.

Stay tuned for a big picture-heavy post sometime in the next few days when I get my crap together.

Most of all, thanks for reading and proving Andy, friends, and parents right. (again.)