Remember my guest room? And the curtains I made?

You might remember that I bought less fabric than I should have because
A) I wanted long curtains and
B) I wanted to save $.

4 years later, the curtains were still too thin on the sides and were constantly taunting me with their thinness every time I stepped into the room.

And so I cut my curtains in half.

When I first thought of cutting them in half, my second thought was, “I can’t do that! I worked so hard to sew those curtains! What if I don’t like them cut?!”

But then I remembered I already didn’t like them. So I had a choice. I could either cut them in half {with the possibility that I would love the result} or I could leave them long, still hate them, and never know whether I would like them cut in half or not.

So I broke out the scissors, folded them in half, and cut down the middle. I didn’t even hem the ends – just folded them over and clipped them to the existing white rings.

And I also didn’t sew the two pieces together. I just folded the edges over each other like this:

I fluffed them out a bit at the top because I thought it looked pretty like that.

And here we are, approximately 30 minutes after picking up my scissors and plucking up my courage, I had curtains I actually liked.

I learned a lot during my curtain-cutting exercise.

I learned about risk.
And that sometimes it’s worth taking a risk in little things like curtains because it teaches you to take risks in bigger things like life.

Really, the whole thing started when I read this post by the Nester about why she painted white dashes all over her wall.

“This post is not about me telling you that I think you should dash your walls. And that they are the new style and that you should love them.
This post isn’t about dashed walls at all.
This post is about me reminding myself (and you?) that they are just walls. And they are there to serve me and my family.
It’s okay to take a risk and try something, even something I might get tired of and hate.”

You know when I was cutting the curtains, Anna Grace (5 years old) came running in and yelled, “MOM! What are you doing?!?!”

“I’m just cutting these curtains in half,” I replied.

“Oh, cool. Can you cut mine too?”

I don’t know that I taught her about risk-taking during that encounter. I think she really was just fascinated by the idea of cutting curtains in half.

But, like Nester said, “I want my [kids] to grow up in a house where they see a mom not afraid to do something as silly as [cut curtains in half]. Because all good things in life involve a little risk.”

Agreed.