3. Finish painting my chair.

When it comes to art, I have a terrible habit: I rarely finish what I start. My mom can list off a series of paintings, drawings, and projects that I haven’t completed.

Take the stained glass window that I created in an eighth grade art class, for instance. I completed three of the six window panes on the piece by May, promising my mom (who happened to be my art teacher) that I would finish the rest during the summer. I even wrote up a contract, proclaiming that I would complete it. It has been seven years, and I still haven’t fulfilled my contract for that window.

Today, however, I finished up a project that I started last summer. Mom had bought a rusty stool at a garage sale and had spray-painted it green. I had the bright idea to make another art project out of it: a reproduction of the Van Gogh painting “The Olive Trees” on the seat of the chair, hopefully to be completed by that day. But, once again, my ambition did not match up with reality. One year later, the only part of the chair completed was the yellow sky. That’s it.

I figured that it was time that I start completing some of the things I started. So I pulled that chair out of my garage today and started painting. I didn’t bother with matching my painting to the original this time around; it was more fun to be spontaneous. But you can judge for yourself how it turned out. It was just exciting to:

3. Finish painting my chair.


Before (with the trees added):



After: