These days my heart calls out for color. Bright vibrant colors speak volumes to me and these three were at the top of my list. I bought more but these are like Mary Poppins. Practically perfect in nearly ever way! I have a new product heading to the shop and I think you will like them. Yes, I have more than one for the shop! Yes, I am so excited about it.
The house has been really quiet this week as our high energy kid is at camp this week. She is the one that keeps us talking and busy. She is fun and exciting and makes life that way too! While quiet is nice and allows me to think in complete sentences, I miss her. I miss her chatter and vibrant personality. Thankfully, she comes home tomorrow. I need to go and sew some more as the photographer promised to take some pictures for me tomorrow.
Did you realize that discouragement can be a valuable tool for your business? It forces you to do three things, look inward, look outward, and make decisions. Today I am discouraged. It has been a long week of work and family. Somethings have been great and other things not so great. I have prototyped manyseveral about 12Â new items and very, very few have worked out. I have had a great time with my family. This is awesome. So, why am I discouraged.
I am tired and not just tired but weary. We are still recovering from that bad cold. I have put in 2 – 8 hour days at the sewing machine. My house is messy, because I have put in 2 – 8 hour days sewing (funny how it works like that). I have stretched my thinking and planning by being creative and trying new things. I have failed, gotten up and failed again!
Tired
Messy House
Failed creatively
Here is the looking outward part!
I haven’t left the house in several days. I keep comparing myself and my business to other people and their businesses. Blogging has been really, incredibly hard the past week or so.
I am tired and I haven’t left the house in several days. Â This is simple to fix as I need to make a supply run and run some errands.Comparison is a horrible thing, not fair to myself, not fair to others. It completely sells everyone short. So the only comparison I should do is to see how far I have really come. So, I need to track the business and see if it is growing, stagnant, or failing. The writing part will come easier when I get out and about. Feeding the creative juices is critical and rest is a part of that. I will take Friday off and have fun with a close friend. I really feel much better except for the tired part. I think I can beat that with an early bedtime and some much needed rest. The failing part on making the prototypes is simply to go back and make things that I know how to make!
P.S. You will notice that not much was said about the messy house. I will take care of that in small bits and pieces of time, which makes it easier to swallow.
Date night….was wonderful. It is years since planning a date was a simple as a phone call. Planning date nights was as complicated as planning a cross country move and required just as much cash to pay a sitter. I was also not quite comfortable leaving the kids for long as they were mischievous. Last night was a wonderful time; listening to live Jazz and eating Mexican food with my brother. He lives out of state and it could only have been better if more family had been there.
This was parked out in front of the restaurant. Street legal and ready to go! The music was played by Grady Nichols. You can find out more about him here. http://www.gradynichols.com/ It was a lovely night to sit and listen to jazz.
I have been sewing quite a bit this week and my new fabric came yesterday. I can’t wait to show it to you.
It has been a long week. Everyone in house has been sick… I mean everyone. It is some kind of toxic cough thing that spread like a wild fire. I was one of the last to get it and it is just dragging on and on. I haven’t done much with any crafty stuff this week but lay around and try to get better. I did put this fringe on…
It is so incredibly soft and fluffy! It was exciting to feel like I accomplished something.
I took some pictures of yarn, but that is about it. I have thought a lot. I have thought about getting up and doing something but then I decide that it is ok to rest some more. I think I am headed back to the couch and crawl back under an afghan and do some more crochet blanket planning and other thinking and possibly take a nap.
I wrote this about a month ago. Believe it or not everything that I was worried about has been handled. All of the things that I thought were worthy of worry are now solved, resolved or handled. Shall I share the outcome of each of these worries.
I am starting to push the panic button. In the next month we have a ton of things happening.
The college girl comes home with all of her belongings  She is home and everything is great!
Sr. recognition Sunday at church for our graduating senior Done and over!
High school graduation for our youngest son Graduated!
Our 26th wedding anniversary Celebrated and wonderful!
Memorial Day, a day which we now try to put flowers and remember those who have passed away and those who have served in the military. Done
I need to get a child ready for camp
send her to camp
I have two kids needing to find summer jobs They both found jobs on their own without my interference!
feeding all of the people that will be here this summer I have two extra cooks and meals are getting accomplished daily!
find out about my foot in the boot and what needs to be done. The boot is gone. I am mobile and taking up the rhythms of life again!
I guess I am discouraged by the busyness of life. I need to take time to remember that these busy times are sweet family time. We will once again all gather around the table and share stories, insights and food. It seems that my family places importance on food as it gathers us all together.
Yes, we do place importance on food as it is hard to get all of us together at any other time.
I hope you and your family find some sweet family time this summer!
We worked really hard this weekend. Two of the kids mowed the yard which is huge and the other one helped me to create these goodies.
Strawberry jam and Jalapeno jam…
and we also made some pickled peppers. I have never made them before and was a little nervous. The color isn’t as good as I had hoped for but I will know better next time. We still have apricots to work with but that will have to wait for another day. Why did we have so much produce? We picked up our order from Bountiful baskets. We had ordered in  a flat of strawberries and then our regular order came with a huge amount of sweet peppers.
Once again we are here. It seems only yesterday that he was this big.
Such a funny little guy. In the top photo he is three and the bottom photo he is about 5 months old. He is now almost 19. I will never forget seeing him face down in the sand pit with his brand new glasses on his face. I will always remember “Sometimes my Mom lets me have three pieces of cake!” at about four years old as he conned my cousin into two large pieces of cake. I will never forget his cello breaking at a summer music camp! I loved watching you come into your own as a high school student. There is not much left to say, but Congratulations! You have a strength and fortitude that astounds me. Thank you for being the funny guy, the punster, the artist and quiet guy. I can’t wait to see what happens next in your life and where life takes you!
It appears that my plans can change in 5 minutes or the length of time it takes the Dr. to say you may have torn your tendon. So, I am no longer looking forward to sewing for the comic con as I was thinking of doing. I can always do the comic con later. The good news is that I will get a lot of time sitting with my foot up which is always good for the crocheted items in the shop! I have been working on some little things but I will surprise you with them next week.
My family cleaned the flower beds out for me this past week. They worked hard as the beds had been neglected over the past year.
Here you can see the rose bush and the sage that grow by the front door. We need to put some weed blocker down and then cover it in mulch in an effort to cut down on the grass growing back. I had a lovely package yesterday that was exciting and cheerful at the same time. I received these beautiful yarns in the mail from my friend Rose. Rose does lots of fancy knitting and these are (probably) a small part of her destash. They are all shades of brown and orange and I can hardly wait to get started on them. I have some ideas and they are percolating while I work on some other little things.
We also saw a wonderful exhibit of recycled items called Come on down by Lisa Hoke.
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This collage art was about 30 feet long and the colors covered all the colors in packaging that you see on your grocery store shelves. There was a video at the beginning that talked about how she created this art work. Â She worked in 2 or 3 foot sections to make it easier to work with. You could watch a time elapse of her putting the collage on the walls of the museum.
It is awesome incredible artwork full of life and color. She has friend and family save their recyclables for her. It is a great example of creating with what you have on hand.
You can see a panoramic photo of the installation on her website as well as her other collage work here:Â http://www.lisahoke.com/pages/newInstallations/74.html
We spent the weekend away from our children. It has been about 10 years since we planned to spend time away from them with a purpose. The intensive child rearing years can be overwhelming. We got stuck in just planning to get them to adult age and had not planned beyond that horizon. The end of child rearing and the speedy approach of the empty nest is now only about 3-4 years away. So, it was more than time to spend time talking, dreaming, planning and thinking what we would do in the future. We visited the Oklahoma City Museum of Art and saw the Ansel Adams art exhibit and also the Dale Chihuly Glass exhibit.Â
We weren’t allowed to take photos in the Ansel Adams exhibit, so I don’t have anything to show you of the beauty he captured in his photographs.
I have been wanting to see the Chihuly Glass exhibit for years and years. It was incredible and the photos I took do not do his work justice. The blown glass is enormous and he created with bright colors. Imagine the bright colors of my crochet blankets only glowing. Each piece of glass appeared to glow from the inside.
This is a boat with giant  glass marbles. The colors were intense and bright. The same range as the colors in the photo below. This is a ceiling installation in a hallway. The colors in this photo are more true to life.
We also saw a wonderful exhibit of recycled items called http://www.okcmoa.com/see/exhibitions/come-on-down-by-lisa-hoke/
