the long story

A couple weeks ago Steve and I took the kids to the library. It was rainy, (it always seems to be) and we had all five.

We've always loved the library, everywhere we've lived, even before we had kids. And we've always gone every couple of weeks - but ever since our Mems learned to crawl, the time between library trips has gotten farther and farther in between. And what used to take only one parent, now definitely takes two.

This particular trip was no exception. I took Reese. Steve took Mems. The other three made their selections. Steve took Reese. I took Mems. We got the kids ready to check out. I took Reese. Steve took Mems. We moved everyone to the front desk - and then at the vey last minute, Steve grabbed a book that caught his eye. Something about shoes. I kept Reese. Steve kept Mems. The pirates took the books and the rest was history. Or so I thought.

A week went by and Steve, mentioned he was reading a good book. The shoe book. It was a memoir of Phil Knight, the founder of Nike. 

And then a couple days after that, he told me it was worth reading - but I was going to have to wait until he finished it. 

A third week went by, and I went to return our books, but Steve kept the shoe book and finished it two days later. 

The next day I started it over lunch. (I'm only about halfway through, but it has me feeling inspired. All sorts of inspired.)

Rewind to about a year ago. (Or maybe two...)

I started a project with my sisters. It took months of research. And months of work. And months of tweaking the idea and changing the details to give our idea the look we saw when we closed our eyes and thought about it. 

But I hit a speed bump. Or a couple of them. And the project we'd poured months of work into - took residence in my basement closet. Our project was a book. A real book. Printed in black and white, with dry erase pages, and filled with imagination. The speed bump was me hesitating to do anything with it - because it wasn't as perfect as I could imagine it could be. 

So it sat there. Nice and neat. Packaged and pretty. For several months. Until Steve handed me Phil Knight's book, and I started reading it - and realized Phil Knight, founder of Nike, started out selling encyclopedias. He didn't start out with Nike. 

It was a genuine, bonafide "aha" moment. 

I have to start somewhere. And where I am right now, is a happy and good place to start. The book is so fun. It lives in our church bag, and the pirates and I use it regularly. (I admit to using it during the third hour of church. Where my pirates are nowhere close, and the only thing that needs keeping busy is my brrrrain.)

We titled the book "THIS IS NOT A STORY" because it's not... it's a zillion of them. It's one story in one setting. But then it's erased, and the very next time you start it - the story is different. (I've used the book to tell stories, over and over again, whilst drawing in the illustrations. And the pirates love it.) I love it. 

It's a happy and good place to start. 

So there's the long story. 

(On instagram we're @poppystreetpress and here's the link to the book!)

Happy Wednesday!