Growing Used to The Idea and Inspired too.

Week two and I am still getting used to being home..
I made a new address sign this weekend. Our old one disolved in the rains last winter.



I am getting really inspired by my garden and hopefully next week I will have a project based on all the pretty flowers. In the mean time it is great getting things squared away out there...a little at a time..



Weed wise, we are in the absolute shit. We let the weeds go to seed last year and some more got away from me this spring and summer due to sheer multitudes . Now I am guessing we are about two years behind in having some sense of civility out there. I have to limit my time in the garden becauase I get obsessed.. (I could do that full time too...Grow stuff..)



I guess I am going to need to meet it half way and let it be just a little bit wild.. Wild Garden.. Have you ever seen one? Where I grew up was a quaint gold rush town. small and sleepy.. Sometimes there would be an empty lot where a house had been torn down and there would be a lilac and a rose bush, some fruit trees and bulbs that would sprout and bloom in the spring.. all brambly and twisted..like a ghost planted them. A garden with no house to tame it. Just an old rusty gate where the rest of the fence had fallen down.


A garden in the woods probably should be somewhat that way anyhow...

wip it up into a frenzy

Here is a big batch of stringless gift tags almost ready to be sold..
Silly, fluffy, glittery, fun stuff.. soon off to a bookshop..
I hope, I hope...

What I am really working at are the Etsy photos of the finished necklaces,
which I have been taking and retaking then reformatting.
I am hoping my little Etsy store will be looking much more lush by Monday.
But what with tomato picking and end of summer beach parties coming up this weekend,
I will have to keep cranking tonight to make that happen.

And I still need a decent banner.. Maybe that will be my Sunday project.
(hands rubbing gleefully together...)

Re-Inhabiting my Life

So this week has been so great.. But not that crafty. (so far..)
So you get a picture of my mascots.. and it is a teeny bit blurry to boot.

Instead of tearing forward on the craft trail, we tore apart Jacob's room and basically remade it. We hauled everything out. Sorted it, tossed some of it, stored more of it, donated a fair amount, and then we reworked the funishings. He was done with his loft bed but it was easily cut down to a regular style bed. We added 2 more shelving units, for his myriad of collections, and then everything was moved back in. That took 2 and a half days.. but we are all much happier having done it.

I was going to post pictures of the room transformed, but while it is a tremendously cool environment to inhabit.. It really doesn't photgraph too well. Suffice it to say there is a lot going on in there.

I feel like I need to do that almost everywhere. I keep find pockets of stuff that hasn't been dealt with for 2 or 3 years. It was interesting to watch him get reacquainted with stuff he has not seen or thought about in recent memory. It very much felt like a metaphor for this whole process I am going through. Picking up different ideas that have had importance, deciding if they will work in the new framework. Liking or letting go.. sometimes liking, but letting go anyway, to simplify and make managable this future I want to create. Trying to prioritize my days without a giant job in the middle. (Okay ... I am still quite giddy about that.. May as well be, the other option is scared shitless.)

We have plenty to do though! Once we got the room together the next day was "Middle School Orientation" and an actual visit with our friends, Michelle, Hayes and Carlo.. I got in some serious baby snuggling and that was so very great.
Now, finally almost a week home and I am working on something for my visit to Craft Lab and I got a new glass cutter, so I did have to try that out. And it works.. Hurray. New Tools=Inspiration.
I hope to be soldering tomorrow.. and sewing.. and gardening.. and reading cool blogs.. and posting a WIP pic.. and finally getting the necklaces on Etsy.. And maybe I will clean up MY room... Phew!

and then on Saturday we are picking tomatoes!

Beautiful!

BIG Thanks.. and Back to The Craft

First, Just Thanks!
Thanks to all my friends who left encouraging messages and thanks to all the new people who stopped by and left encouraging messages.. ( It was so great to go see what everyone is up to.. Beautiful Blogs all different and great....) I really loved seeing what different people picked up on in the post. And Selena's offer to advise?? How cool and generous is that??

I am practicing to be in the $99.00 Thrift Challenge she has posted on her site as well...



Here was a trial run:


$15.00 (and there is cute dress, so short that is really just a shirt, that I was so excited to wear I put it in the wash before the photo.. )(duh..)

And for the actual craft: Here is a bag I made from a previous thrift score of a lovely vintage curtain.. Very Scarlett O' Hara..
It is an Amy Butler pattern I used before I just LOVE it.. I have no need for this bag but it called out to be made..




Anyway.. Thanks again to all.. I have to go to work.. 2 days left..

Yee Haww!!!

The Cost of Money.

I am taking the plunge.

I am choosing more time and less money.
I am quitting my "cool" job as a visual merchandising manager.
My Last Day is a week from Friday.
It was my dream job.
And while there are still so many things about it that I love..
somewhere in all the mix, it became something else.

Things came to a head when my husband expressed his concern that my job was going to make his job much harder..
(And it will. Holiday in retail is an all-consuming proposition.. And it happens at a time when he also needs to put in longer hours.).
The middle school, that my son Jake starts in two weeks, has no after school program (What? Are they adults now?).
And we haven't had every room in the house clean at the same time, in like, 6 months.

Those things were the catalyst, but really there are so many costs involved.

For Instance, I feel like a hypocrite with my recycled paper and my biodegradable soap,
while I am driving two or more hours each day to work.
(I haven't even been able to watch "An Inconvient Truth"..
I am afraid I might be the guest star.)
The hours ( I wake up at 4:45) have me falling asleep before my 10 year old (great for the marriage),
and make ride sharing impossible.
Lately, I find I grind my teeth in my sleep and when I wake up my face hurts.
I haven't been home for Halloween for 3 of the last 4 years.. and I love Halloween.
I can't even tell you how messed up Thanksgiving is, with me working all night long the night before.
I work Christmas Eve.. and the day after Christmas.
I don't have time to have dinner parties or visit my friends (or even my mom).
Our alleged social life is in the toilet..
And it costs me about 1000.00 a month in child care, gasoline and lunch money.

It has become abundantly clear that something has to give.

To be really honest, I wasn't really satisfied with the stay at home mom thing either. I did stay home with Jake until halfway through his first year of Kindergarden.I was so happy to get back to work. Staying home was hard for me and it was hard for my husband to understand that it was not a constant joy and delight. To compensate for my lagging self esteem and the fact that I was isolated and lonely (we also moved every 6 months for the first 2 years of Jake's life, so, no close friends in the neighborhood..) I tried everything I could think of to make a little scratch and give myself a different kind of sense of purpose than I was getting from PBS, Oprah, making mac and cheese, and the challenges of potty training.

I crafted. Repainted furniture. Made Pillows. Gardened voraciously. Re-did other peoples yards for them. Painted a mural. Catered. Sold kids clothing at the swap meet.

It was all pretty restricted though, because of Jacob's nap schedule, and the overwhelming need to accomodate a little person.

I am curious to see what I can do Now with Extra Time. It occurs to me that things are really different.
We don't do TV anymore. Jacob is almost 11( while not an adult .. much more self sufficent). We bought our house (all that loan qualifying is behind us..). I have had some success selling things I have made and learned a lot more about retail business from my day job.

From here (The Brilliant Far Off Land of Optimista) it looks wide open... I could do Etsy and craft fairs. I could teach classes. I own my own domain name but haven't had time to finish my website... I could write a book.. or articles for magazines. I could do freelance window displays for small stores.
I like the idea of having my own small business and learning all that goes along with that.

Certainly we are looking at a huge financial adjustment. Buying our own insurance, cutting costs and all.. Maybe the stress of "making the ends meet" will trump the stress of "trying to have it all"..

But if that happens, I can always go back to work for "the man" again...
I know where the Mall is.

Hah hah Hah..it 's a Blah Blah Blog

It sure seems Everybloggy is talking about blogging and Reality VS. Image and all that fine, high fa-lootin stuff.

My friend Michelle is talking about it.. and my "super bad" blog buddy Alice is too.. and several other folks I have spied on from time to time are also writing about it.

So far be it from me not to put in my two cents:

I am an adult.. and at the ripe old age of 37 ( and 3/4) I have been around the block enough to know
that most of the people who have those super beautiful blogs are either Martha Stewart style insane ( hello, she's crafty and she sleeps only 4 hours a night.. with no infant influence) or, are only telling us what they want us to hear.

Big Deal. That is cool with me..
I don't want to know what people don't want to share..

When I look at those sites, am I occasionally intimidated by the appearance of glossy and breezy perfection? Hell yes. There are some great photographers, making killer stuff and their sunshine-y lives with their adorable kiddles seem so reflective and lovely and all that. If it is the whole story, that is so great for them. Personally, I suffered from chronic depression as a stay at home mom. I had severe migraines. My husband was gone for 12 hours a day. I was lonely and mad.

Do I think people really want to read that stuff while I post pictures of the hand stitched felt photo albums I made for my sisters? Sure, maybe. But I don't think I would owe total strangers the whole story unless I felt like spilling my guts. (Not to mention, the internet 2.0 wasn't really up and running, such as it is now, 7 or 8 years back... So I didn't really have that dilemma..)

When Michelle turned me on to all the craft bloggers.. did I hate them because they are beautiful?
Sure, maybe for a day or two.
Like I said, I was intimidated...

It was a lot to absorb. These bloggity people are so damn talented. I felt like a craft hack.
My day job takes so much time and energy that, basically, I craft because I have a compulsion to do so...
(..and no conscience about housekeeping What-So-Ever.)
That doesn't always give over to brilliant and detailed craftiness.

Certainly, my crafting causes problems. It becomes all consuming. It makes a tremendous mess. My husband gets jealous of my soldering iron, or computer or even my felt.

So why make one more "Me too" craft blog when all the rest look perfect??
Not because I was intimidated and had to prove myself, or because felt I had soooo much talent that I needed to share.
I blog because I like to craft and I like to write and because it is really great to not be creating in a vaccum.

And why don't I talk about the mess and the guilt and the crap that comes with being compulsive and creative and VERY VERY busy?? I do whenever I feel like it.. but it is more fun to celebrate finishing stuff. I don't avoid the unpleasantness to look slick. Nor do I assume others are.
I blog because I relish that the people I have been in contact with because of my blog (and their blogs) are talented and inspiring people.

I love Laura 's blog because she is so honest and her honesty is funny, and sometimes painful and brilliant. And she uses song lyrics for her titles and that is so cool.

I love Alice's blog because her craft is impeccable and she has a delicious independant edge to her.

I love Ulla 's blog because she apparently sees everything... and she is a modern day muse.

I love Stephanie 's blog because she writes about all kinds of goodness... and she makes a mean craft.

I love Simmy 's blog because it makes me wish I lived next door to her...or wish I was one of her kids.

I love Michelle 's blog because I am lucky enough I know her and I like seeing what she loves enough to write about.

I hope they all keep blogging and share whatever they care to.
Blah Blah Blog.