Wooden Resolutions

So the next batch of goals on my 2012 to-do list (still need a better name for this, kids) all have to do with wood. Kinda. This was unintentional but who am I to argue with Fate when she provides me with a theme?

Timber

First up: chop down a tree. I can’t explain where this urge came from, but my desire to wield an ax and tear down some of nature’s beauty could not be denied. The tricky bit was that I ended up borrowing an ax from my grandmother, which wasn’t really an ax. More of a long handled hatchet. I did use said ax-chet to fell a tree, though at the time it was just going to be my warm-up chopping because I needed a small tree to function as the broomstick I was making to go with my Halloween costume. Small though the tree was, the short handle and the height at which I needed to chop made for some post-chopping achey-ness, mostly due to the awkward swinging I think. Plus the cold weather made me think that I had suddenly developed arthritis in my fingers. I had intended to go back into the Forest of Cole to pick out a larger tree to chop down, but with the oncoming storm of Christmas, that just never happened. The bright side is that I made a really pretty broom from my chopped down tree, which is currently decorating the front porch of my friends Mareta & Khris.

Final Grade: -A

Splinters Forthcoming

Next came whittling. I love wood carvings as well as hill billy hobbies so this did seem like a natural fit. Even though it also seemed likely to result in a severed thumb. I happened upon a woodworking book in Savannah, for a mere dollar. I even managed to spot a few whittling-themed pins on Pinterest. And with my living in the middle of the woodsy woods, there was no shortage of raw material. Even still, the only wood I carved during 2012 was the broom described above (basically just rounding out the ends) and a stake. Yep, you heard me. A stake. As in Mr. Pointy. A piece of wood to be held in the hand and used for the slayage of vampires. (I mean, come on, there are damn vampires everywhere these days.) I carved the stake to use in a photo-a-day challenge in October (that day’s theme was “Fun With Weapons”) and it has the added benefit of serving me in this regard, but basically I did not learn to whittle. And I still want to. This is another one that will move forward on to this year’s list.

Final Grade: Incomplete

Knock the Cover Off the Ball

And for the third of the wooden challenges: learning to hit a baseball. Well, you typically hit a baseball with a baseball bat and those (at least in the old school) are made from wood, so it sort of fits my theme here. (Also, I want to take a moment and recommend that anyone who hasn’t seen “The Natural” do so soon. A lovely baseball movie, complete with Robert Redford, who makes his own baseball bat.)  It seemed like the most logical approach to this one was to get someone who knows how to hit a baseball (or did at some point in life) to go with me to the batting cages a time or two. It did not happen. Largely to blame for this failing is the fact that I actually had a job for much of 2012 (yay!) but it was one of those work-all-the-time and no-energy-for-anything-else kind of deals. And once I wasn’t working, the weather was cold and so on and so forth with the excuses. Since this was an extra credit task on my 2012 list, I can let it slide a bit, but I do still want to learn how to hit a baseball. It may make it onto the final 2013 list. And in any case I will spend more time playing Wii Baseball.

Final Grade: F. But it doesn’t matter because it was extra credit.