The beginning

One Week Ago...
Here I am bored as ever and stuck at home in a wheelchair.. again. This time 'round I am determined to find something to do with my time till I can go back to work again. I struggled with what to do with my time alone here at the house.

Then I get an email from my little brother, Brandon. "Why don't you try whittling?". I thought to myself, 'wow that is a good idea'.

Where do I even begin? I surfed the web for hours upon hours trying to figure out where do I even start. All I had was an image of an old man on the porch with a carving knife and stick with a smile on his face. Surely this cannot be that hard to figure out.

I got a general idea of what tools I needed to start things out.. but what was I going to do.. whittle or woodcarving? I didn't even realize the difference between the two.

Whittle: use only one tool: carving knife.
Woodcarving: using several tools: carving knife, gouge, v-tool, and several others.

Well I wanted to do both.

So a few days later I found myself at the Woodcraft store up on the north side of Indy and with my list of basic tools and materials to start this adventure I carry on and find my goodies. Well, lets just say that I gave my list to a nice young man and he went out on his own adventure finding my goods. Meanwhile, I am in the back looking at all the different types of wood. I pick them up, I feel them, I carefully look over texture, their grain, their possibility to become something at some point.

My order is ready for check out and on my up to the register I am stuck there going down the aisles with eyes all wide looking at the tools coasting by as I ride up front. I think to myself, as I sit in awe of all the little things I want, this is what my Dad has to feel like every time he comes in to one of these stores. I smiled.