Buying Flowers

Of all the projects I hope to accomplish during this endeavor, this is the one I'm most nervous about. Which is interesting, because it's not the writing I'm afraid of, exactly. After all, I'm a newspaper reporter. I write every day, on deadline.

It's not that I'm afraid I won't reach perfection, even in the practical sense. Perfection, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder, and this beholder is her own worst critic. I'm not afraid of the projects, or that I will fail in what I attempt. I probably will sometimes, if not often.

I guess I'm afraid of the newness, actually. My stomach was in knots the first time I interviewed someone. I worried through the entire first city council meeting I covered. And when I went out to cover my first fatal accident last Friday, I was terrified. So, every day that brings a new experience is scary. But it's also brings knowledge.

I know that, no matter how unprepared I am, I can get someone to talk to me -- and that makes for the best kind of interview. I know that I can dissect budgets and retell engineering jargon to make it accessible to the masses. I know that I'm not afraid to make a congressman yell at me and I know I will not look as they pull a 17-year-old girl from a car wrapped around a tree.

But I wouldn't have known any of those things about myself without a scary first time.

So, here's my first-time blog. It won't be the best I ever write, but my experience at the newspaper has made me certain it won't be the worst either. That, like the best, is always yet to come. I put this off for a couple of days, worried about how I would make my mark, make my fortune, make a difference. But all that did was find me excuses for not doing it. And that's not what this site is about.

This site is about setting your mind to something and making it happen. It doesn't matter what you don't know, because you can learn it. Specifically, I want to learn how to cook and garden. I want to do home improvement projects, and I want to write a blog.

But nothing new -- experience or knowledge -- can exist without that first time.

I bought plants yesterday. It was my first time walking into a greenhouse and buying plants to plant in my first backyard. And it was scary. And exciting. And new.

There are little plants outside (I didn't have time to plant them ... that's yet to come). They're as new as this blog, and I'm just as afraid they'll shrivel up and die as I am this will. But I want to learn how to garden. So, I will. And next time I go into Weesie's Brothers Garden Center, it won't be my first.