So the past two days I’ve been up on a ladder drilling screws into a barn wall.

This barn, to be exact.

Bless Your Heart is moving into the barn and I helped.

I hung a hundred of these signs.

And when I say “100″, I mean “47 million”.

All that time on the ladder got me to thinking about the strange things I’ve done for work over the years.  I’ve mentioned before that I couldn’t even handle 52 days of college.  I am not a school girl.  I am a give-me-a-drill-or-some-paint-or-some-origami paper-or-a tree limb kind of girl.  (Occasionaly I’m a get-a-wild-hair-and-sew-50-hearts-to-hang-from-the-ceiling kind of girl….)

Last year these big jerk-wads chopped down the forest behind my in-laws’ house and so I grabbed a few trees (sawed them in half and drug them out to the road) and took them into work.

Ok, this tree might look all nice and dainty but it went way way up to the ceiling and I had to toss a rope over the metal beams and hoist the darn thing just to get it upright.

It took me FOREVER because the tree was so huge and I am such a wuss.  Plus there were like 10 people with their faces smashed against the glass just staring at me.  Give me some space, people!

And that’s not the first time I’ve hauled trees into work.  In Chicago, I hauled all kinds of weird stuff , and it was 1000 times more awkward because I didn’t have a car.

But in the city, no one cares if you’re walking a mile down the road with 6 giant metal birds.  Or a canvas.  Canvas + Windy City = Aaaarrrrgggg!!!!!

I walked a mile to work with these things.

A MILE, people!

But then we moved to the suburbs.  I wore my mopey-pants the whole way.

Bye-bye big city.

We moved to a small town and I worked for several  boutiques.  They were right across the railroad tracks.  I HAD to walk.

And every stinking time I had an awkward load, I got stuck behind a train while all the bored motorists stared at the lady with the tree and the trash bag full of origami birds because there was nothing better to do.

Sometimes I had a bunch of frilly stuff. Felt so out-of-character….

Or sometimes it was like negative 20 degrees outside and I’m standing on the side of the road with three paint cans and a broom.  

I just like to change things, you know? And sometimes I have to bring my own tools.

I worked for a place called tiddlywinks & scallywags.  I HATED answering the phone.

I did a lot of painting on dressing-room walls there….

..and everything else.

Sometimes I’d even wander over there at 11 at night just to paint the outside steps.  

Really, a lot of what I do has involved standing around at midnight and wondering how on earth I’m going to fix the mess I just made….

But today, it was the barn.  

My boys all came out to see me and The Dark Knight took this picture.

Behold the outfit that inspired my blog.  

Its a hand-me-down from Phone-a-friend’s 20-year-old daughter (wow, that’s a lot of hyphens for one sentence).

But also, I’d like to use this photo as an opportunity to introduce myself.  I pen the blog under the name Violet, but y’all know its not my real name.

Hi, I’m Heather.  This is my blog.  Thanks for reading it.