CIRCLEVILLE, Ohio (WCMH) — In the midst of this pandemic, we all know someone who may have lost their job or had to find a new place to live, or they got a new pet, or had to move-in with someone in quarantine, or started a business in order to survive.
Here’s one better: meet someone going through all of these.
The sound of a dripping faucet has become a calming noise for Torie McCollum in her new fixer-upper.
“I actually didn’t really have a path. I was actually happy doing, you know?” she questioned while laughing.
McCollum was working with an interior designer.
“They called and said we’re gonna have to let you go, we just don’t have enough business to keep you,” she recalled.
“We just pulled the drop ceiling down because the ceiling had some cracks in it, still not fixed,” McCollum’s partner Clay Lind said, showing off the house that admittedly still needs a lot of work.
Lind worked in construction when building plans stopped in March. That just happens to be when he and McCollum were moving out of a one-bedroom apartment and closing on their new Circleville fixer-upper with their new puppy Honey.
“Was there any fear of, ‘OK, what are we going do to afford all this?’” Lind said while he laughed.
“I was going to say, ‘No,’” Torie said while she smiled in disagreement.
That’s how these opposites have survived quarantine. McCollum put her foot to the pedal.
“I got a pottery wheel. I got it used on Craigslist and started making stuff in my basement,”
she said as she molded a coffee mug on her pottery wheel.
They have a bird named Kiwi, too.
“I just love birds. I just love ‘em,” McCollum gushed as her parakeet flew freely.
She has discovered she also loves freely spinning her pottery wheel.
“Pretty much everything I’ve learned doing this is practice. Just trial and error,” McCollum said as she produced what she hoped would be another item to sell.
Mugs, bowls, and plates are selling via a basement-based business-in-progress on Instagram…Lost Petal Pottery.
“Everyone thinks when a flower loses its petal, dying but really it’s just dropping its seed and going to grow again next year,” McCollum said smiling, recalling how she came up with her business name.
Lind became certified as a full-time firefighter. He works 24 hours at the Firehouse and 48 hours working on his house.
“Sometimes I’ll end up painting things multiple times because she changes her mind,” he said as they both laughed.
Even while working through the pandemic, they look to the future and McCollum hopes to make a living by creating pottery.
“I love making pottery, I do,” she said. “I love it.”
Sometimes not knowing the path, as the faucet drips into a mug she made, puts you right where you need to be.
“I’m ok! I made it through,” McCollum said with a sigh. “And I’m really happy.”
