the house of grace

back in november, an idea began to formulate. on christmas day, the idea took hold and i found myself unearthing an unfinished dollhouse from the recesses of my parent's basement. it was a present to me in 1976, meant to be wallpapered and set up as a properly furnished little house. obviously, it was forgotten.

actually, it was too intimidating.


perfectionism, taught early on, is the ultimate joy-kill.

34 years later, suddenly, it is time to attend to the house. not properly, however. this little house is to be my waterloo, my slow death of perfection, my journal, my canvas, my reclamation of joy.

31" wide, 16" deep, almost 27" high at the removable peak. and it's heavy.

i cannot tell you what it will look like when it is finished, or even if i will finish it. it represents a thousand different things to me; the home i long for, fear of doing it wrong and my unrealized potential, for starters. i fully expect to come up against the 997 other fears and revelations it will whisper along the way. but i tell myself there are no rules or shoulds or timetables. there is only doing and re-doing, if i choose. this is an open-ended adventure. this is joy therapy. this is the house of grace.



and so, as i am inclined to do, i shared this idea with debi of emmatree blog. as fate and freakishly-connected brains would have it, she, too, was thinking of dollhouses for 2011 and planned to build one for herself. no rules, no pressure to finish it, and maybe even take a wrecking ball to it by june. it is simply a path of discovery. naturally, we asked kelly of blue muse fame to join us. she's giving it some serious thought.

this, then, is the dollhouse project.

stay tuned. perfection is walking the plank.



update~ january 2011: kelly is definitively in. and now, the lovely katie of into the woode wants to play along. and kathy, too! and marilyn of heartsdelights is making seasonal houses.

could there be more grown women who need this kind of creative, perfection-crushing  therapy? could it be YOU? would you like to come play with us and chart your progress online? do i here a giggle and a "yes'?