I started woodworking in 2016 by carving signs with a router for work, and continued with it at home. My inspiration came from watching Tree house Masters, and saw Pete the owner carve a sign to put over the door on one of the tree houses they built. I wanted to make some signs to put up around the house with short sayings to remind us to be thankful for what  we have, and a few funny ones here and there. My favorite funny one was, FEAR NO BEER.  We still have the sign. From there I purchased a table saw and a few other things, and started making picture frames. That's when I found out that there is very little to no room for error when cutting angles. I kind of went crazy making picture frames, and to this day there are about 10 picture frames in the workshop that are unfinished. After picture frames I wanted to expand my ability, and started making various things that I thought would be nice to have. There were quite a few things that were requests from my wife, but of course I was happy to make them since I was hooked on woodworking. Probably the biggest focus was cutting boards at that time. My first cutting board was a black walnut cutting board that we would use at home. Most every family member has a cutting board that I made, and sold a few here and there. After a while of making cutting boards and odds and ends here and there, I wanted to expand my woodworking ability even more. I thought that making some cabinets would be a good challenge. I made some shop cabinets for myself at work, and really enjoyed the process. ​ In December of 2021 my parents bought a small wood lathe from one of there neighbors, and gifted it to me.  It is a Central Machinery 10x16 that is from Harbor Freight. I was pretty intimidated at first due to how fast the lathe turned, and realizing that having pieces fly off the lathe at that speed could be bad for your health. Once I got the courage to give it a try, I watched some YouTube videos to try and safely get started. Once I could somewhat efficiently carve on the lathe, I was hooked. It did take some time before I made a piece that I could say that I was proud of, but what a great feeling to have something turn out like I had planned...........kinda. I kept watching YouTube videos, and was seeing new things to try and make, and finding out the various techniques to use while using the wood lathe. I am completely YouTube trained, and learned things by trial and error. A lot of trial and error. A wood lathe is not something I would recommend learning how to use by trial and error. There has been many times that my wife has helped my stopped the bleeding lol. I did end up learning, and learning pretty fast due to having to much interest in wood turning. I can't count the number of YouTube videos I have watched to learn, and get ideas of things to make. To this day I still watch wood turning videos, and still want to learn more. I have since upgraded my lathe to a Record Power Envoy. Not top of the line, but it all the ability that I need. I still have the Harbor Freight lathe that my parents bought for me, and use it as my pen making lathe. ​ I love to make and build things, and wanted to be able to share my work with people that can appreciate the art of creating wood items, and the usefulness of them. My goal was never to try and get rich with wood working, but to be able to sell some items to upgrade tools, and buy new equipment. If I am able to become even a somewhat popular name in wood working, and sell well enough to provide more for my family, well I'm certainly not going to complain. ​ I take pride in using materials from trees that are already down, and I'm able to salvage the use of the tree instead of it laying there and rotting. Unlike quite a few wood-turners I don't shy away from bug kill trees and cracks. I believe that those things give me the natural opportunity to add character in the form of filling cracks or holes with epoxy, or even sawdust and CA glue. ​ If you have made it this far, I want to thank you for listening to my story and my love of wood working. My wife and I look forward to sharing our crafts with you, and we always look forward to connecting with people that enjoy crafting as much as we do.