Hand-Tatted Teal Daisy Necklace

I'm beginning to make more necklaces to match the earrings I have been making now for over a year. So this is the newest necklace. I like the way it lays in an asymmetrical pattern. Then also, I am playing with different colors ways for the daisies. It's exciting to try something new and different. I never in a million years would have thought my love of lace making would lead to this. 

Walk into the Mist

Things are changing for Fibers Studio! So many plans and starting a brick and mortar shop hopefully this year is at the forefront of this journey. I'm very excited, but at the same time all this change makes me a little nervous. Like the unknown of cost and having to estimate everything out for the business plan. I am literally walking into the mist!

I came up with this little phase while having coffee with my dear and talented friend. I was waiting on her and there was a wall where I could play with words. Interesting how I picked these words isn't it?

Seriously though, a light hearted seriously, I am ready for this change. Like I have written so many times before, this journey has been taking time because I couldn't just jump and change all the sudden everything in my career and home life. I had to take small steps to get there making slower transitions and really thinking everything through. I've mostly been a quick transition gal. This is a new pace for me! I've made loads of mistakes also, but that's good because I need to and I don't mind them. It's how things are and I can't make everything perfect. Plus, I don't want to. I am accepting of mistakes.

I do though want to bring my love of art and why I do what I do to my community. I want people to come together to create for a cause that needs it or simply create for themselves. I want to teach and run a shop that reaches different age levels and interests. I've been coming up with several ideas and concepts the last few years. I need to do more research on loans, ask friends that have or have had shops what they recommend, and talk to the small business organizations out there that provide assistance for such adventures. That's the next step of my five year plan. I am on the 4th year and this is the year for the big jump. Wish me luck and if you have any advice please comment! What would you do? Really!

Refresh, Rethink and Renew

Oh winter. It's still here although it feels like spring today. I've been reorganizing my life lately. Slimming down responsibilities, focusing and honestly trying to get past bumps along the way that have trailed with me for too long.

I tend to take on too much. It's one of my flaws. I have often wondered why and thought I was just an overachiever. Well, that part is true to some extent, but I have tried before to slim down the load and focus just on one thing always to come back to too many pans in the fire yet again. This just leads to me not doing as good a job as I want, then I beat myself up and fall back into old routines that do not nurture me well. So, this time it took me a year to slim down to just me. I dumped volunteer jobs, board positions and a career path that had become undesirable after twenty years.

Looking around I found a lot of the things I love left behind, unfinished and basically untouched for years. At first I was really sad and it got me down a bit. I became overwhelmed by what wasn't done, what I left for something I didn't even like and then realized it's time to start over.

What is different this time is I am dealing with those things I never wanted to face. Things deep down, tucked away out of site for no one to see or me to think about any longer. Just like an alcoholic, drug addict, or anything of similarity I ignored some things in my life by putting it away. I took on so many things that I wouldn't have to think about it. Does that solve those things unfinished, unwanted, buried for you to ignore? No, it doesn't solve a thing. In fact, it just makes things harder in the long run. In my own way I just kept ignoring those things that I really needed to deal with.

I decided recently that it was really time to take a good look at me. I have been seeking help for over a year now and digging through my past. The reason I finally realized I needed to tackle this old news was because it never truly went away. Something would happen and my emotional reaction was so over the top it didn't make sense. I didn't realize I was reacting the way I was until I stepped back and really looked at what I was doing. I couldn't find by myself what was the cause of such a disproportional response. Logically, I could understand what I was doing and it made perfect sense, but emotionally I was no where near where I needed to be. Little things would spur this reaction on. I couldn't let things go, I couldn't stop thinking about what happened or I couldn't leave it at the office at the end of the day basically.

Sometimes we as people just get through our days. We do what we must so we can make it to the next day. We set aside hurtful events and just go on never really dealing with what has happened. Not taking time to really deal with trauma, hurt, loss, etc. will only prolong the hurt. I have been going back in my mind trying to connect those things that hurt. It has been a long, long road and I am no where close to the end, but I do know the more I am willing to work on this the more I remember. I have blocked years out. Not months, but years. I have gone on thinking I just need to get through, but somewhere along the way I just didn't do what I needed to. I didn't deal with the situation. I didn't ask for help.

Finally, after decades of just getting on with life, I am honestly dealing with the loss, the hurt, the trauma and trying to find that key to not let those things get me down. I am facing the fear. I am letting the emotions come forward. I am crying. I am forgiving. I am going forward so I can be the mother I dream of being and the artist I know I am. I am getting my emotional response to equal my logical response slowly over time. That's really it.  I now know how to ask for help.