March madness has morphed into Assiduous April. I knew at the onset of March it was going to be busy. And then things happened…..all good things, but it seemed like all I was doing some days was adding to my to-do list instead of actually tackling any items on the list. I also found myself writing things down – I pride myself on not having to write things down. When I write things down, that means I’m overwhelmed, I have too many things going on and I need to slow down. I kept telling myself if I could just get through the month of March, I could get caught up. All of it. The house, other projects that got shoved to the back burners, time with friends, my garden…. Continue reading
Category: career
My latest idea.
I am excellent at ideas. And here’s my latest one.
A pickle subscription.
Here’s how I envision it working:
One. Customers preorder the quantity and type of pickle(s) you prefer in the spring. You would pay a small deposit and the balance would be due when you receive your pickles at the appropriate point of the season. Love my bread & butter pickles or want to have pickled okra and green beans for your Bloody Marys but don’t want to make them yourself? Did I hook your toddler on my pickled peaches? Then this is for you.
Two. Pickle of the month club. Every month, a different pickle is mailed out to subscribers. I’m thinking this would make an excellent gift. Not sure what to buy your parents or fussy Aunt Sue? How about a pickle of the month club subscription! The monthly package wouldn’t just be pickles, there would be recipes or menu suggestions (what to serve with your watermelon rind pickles or a pickled peach pound cake recipe), perhaps another homemade treat as well.
While I’ve looked into what it would take to make this a legal enterprise (a two day class offered by the state for starters), I haven’t crunched numbers on this one too hard. I hear quite a bit I should sell my pickles and I’ve come up with this as a way to do that but not extend myself too much financially or end up with too much stock on my hands. There’s still quite a bit of work to do to flesh this idea out, but this idea has been in the back of my head since last summer. Just last night, I could picture my little catalog of pickles that would go out, with pictures and descriptions of pickles. I’m thinking very seriously about doing a test run to a limited group this spring, with the idea that I’d be fully legal and ready to offer Pickle of the Month club by the holiday season this year.
So, tell me friends, what do you think? Would you be interesting in obtaining some of my tasty pickled treats, when you read the pickle of the month club idea did you immediately think that would be a perfect gift for certain hard to shop for members of your holiday gift list? More importantly, do you want to be part of the initial group? If so, make sure I have your email address.
Ant Music.
It has recently come to my attention that I am long past due for some sort of contact-style card, a business card if you will. Actually, I lie when I say it has recently come to my attention. I’ve known for some time I need a card of some sort.
I will spare you the long version of how I have put this off because what I really want to talk about is how I have spent the last 3 days, farting around on my computer, attempting to design this sucker myself. I have this image in my head of what it needs to look like. Blame that design background, the one I worked my way through college for, the one that I thoroughly enjoyed until I realized it wanted the same large chunk of time as that my Edie girl demanded. The one that still pops up in small ways, like, envisioning this new card of mine. That one. Throw in my ability to bluff my way out of many a situation where I really can appear to know what I’m talking about, when the reality is, I have no clue. My father used to always say, if you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bullshit. I live by that code. Well, that and don’t ever let anyone tell me I can’t do something because I’m a girl. Oh, and don’t throw like a girl. Which took me probably 35 years and watching my own daughter do it to understand what he meant with that last one.
In talking with various marketing and graphic folks, I heard over and over that I could design this myself. I bought into my own hype. I allowed myself to be baffled by my own bullshit. Hell, my own husband couldn’t quite understand that I had this idea in my head and I was trying my best to not just get it out onto the computer screen, I was trying to figure out HOW to make it happen on my computer screen.
It seems my photoshop skills are not quite what everyone else seems to think they are. I’m good at many things, but not at photoshop.
The whole card design involves the image of a mason jar. As I just so happen to have some lying around, I thought I could take a photo of one, photoshop it and turn it into what I envisioned. I took a shot and after two days of playing with it, was able to get it somewhere near where I wanted it, although in no way shape or form could I tell you how I got it that way. But then I realized the tiniest detail was off and since I have that design background, I realized I needed to take some more photos and start over. And then I was worried that it was going to take me another two days to get it where the last one was, the one with a line that was slightly off that probably no one but me would notice, the one that I had no freaking clue how I got it to look like it ultimately did, but it would keep me up at night knowing I had put my name on something that was slightly off. Bad design at my own hands combined with incompetence. These are the things that I lose sleep over.
So I snapped this shot today. Uploaded it. As I opened it up in photoshop, Adam Ant’s Ant Music just so happened to play on the station I was streaming.
You might not know this about me, but I freaking LOVE Adam Ant. I’m a total child of the 80’s and Adam Ant is one of the most unappreciated artists of that era. Ant Music should have been an anthem. It’s one of my anthems.
So, I’m sitting there, opening this photo, singing along to Ant Music, which was followed by one of my favorite B-52’s songs, Legal Tender. By the time they were done, I was done. The image I had in my head was on my computer screen. Never underestimate the power of good tunes to get the job done. I don’t know if I actually learned something over the last 3 days or it was the music. Talk about singing a happy little working song. Whatever it was, it happened.
I suppose after all that, I should show you the image. But on it’s own, it’s rather blah. So you’re not going to see it yet. I’ve now fallen into the font rabbit hole, whereby I spend way too much time playing with fonts, choosing just the right one. It’s far less frustrating than where I just was, dealing with the realization that I don’t have the skills everyone thinks I have, which it turns out, I just might have actually. Maybe I should believe the hype. No, the font rabbit hole is far more comforting on many levels, mostly in that I know I know what I’m doing there. The bigger debate that I’ve been avoiding for way too long is now in front of me – and that is, exactly what to say about myself other than my name and contact information. I do so many things, I could cover a business card with words. How to narrow it down to make it be the sleek thing I imagine? And in that narrowing, how to make it eloquent? Because while “Goddess of the Universe” sums it up, it might come across as just a slightly bit pretentious and I’ve heard I should tailor it to what I actually do. Which is sort of everything, although I keep being told I should focus. But with opportunities popping up in every avenue, it doesn’t make sense to focus like all the advice I’ve given tells me. The universe says otherwise and ultimately, it’s the universe I listen to.
It was so much easier two days ago when I could just blame it all on the fact that I couldn’t figure out how to do what I wanted to do on the stupid computer.
Today’s Experiment.
I’d been kicking around the idea of putting together some cooking classes that weren’t just canning & pickling focused. For starters, it’s a very seasonable topic, sort of a one and done class done at various venues around town, but also because I do more than just preserve food. I preserve food because I like to cook it, because I’m passionate about knowing exactly where our food comes from and I want to ensure that my family eats local all year long. Really, canning & pickling is just the first step, one small part of my cooking puzzle.
So there I was, kicking this idea around, trying to find a focus (why oh why does everything seem to require a freaking focus already?!?!?!) when I got an email from a friend, asking if I was interested in leading a cooking class for his department as their staff retreat. Would I? I love when the universe sends me signs like this, I really do. Dave’s a regular reader, so he had a few ideas of what he wanted me to teach them, but after a few suggestions, he left it up to me.
The hardest part was finding a space in which to do this. Budget was key, which ruled out a number of places. If only my kitchen wasn’t so small and dark, perhaps I could teach more than one person at a time out of here. One of his coworkers was able to get a church kitchen, which actually could not have worked out better. It was fairly well appointed and was made for a small group to cook together.
As this was an all-day class and Dave requested we do several dishes together, I had them start with lunch, which was pizza. Once that prepwork was done, including making the dough, from scratch, by hand, we moved on to the big attraction. Gumbo.
I’m really not sure there is anything as well suited to team work as gumbo is. There is plenty of chopping to go around, there is roux to be made as well as broth. I walked them through how I like to do it – using as many burners as I can. At one point, we had the broth simmering, sauce for the pizza cooking, roux browning and the holy trinity sauteing to start the gumbo.
If you take it step by step, you could spend all day making a pot of gumbo. As much as I think it’s worth it, I also love doing as much as possible all at once. Even that though, takes prepwork, and teamwork.
Although Dave did try to do a big chunk of it on his own.
Lunch was absolutely delish if I say so myself. We did a roasted butternut squash, sage and goat cheese pizza (which Dave had requested after reading that post) as well as a plain cheese pizza. Just yesterday I read a piece on Beyond the Flavor about Michael McCarthy of Dr. Ho’s Humble Pie making pizza at home and couldn’t help but notice his oven was much hotter than I set mine – 550 vs. 450. Inspired, I decided to experiment with that temperature and honestly, I have to say that that cheese pizza tasted just like one you’d get a pizza shop. I’m still patting myself on the back for using that bit of knowledge – so much so that I came home and have already started the dough for dinner.
Thankfully, no one else in this house had pizza for lunch, so there will be no lectures on their part about how pizza twice a day might not be healthy, not to mention boring. At least she got over the whole no cold pizza for breakfast thing.
I digress. After we feasted on our pizza lunch, we headed back into the kitchen. There, I showed them how to make the easiest and most divine chocolate cake ever. I love sharing that secret – that a handful of ingredients, assembled in 5 minutes and baked for 30, can fool everyone you know into thinking you are a baking genius.
One of the downsides of cooking around your camera, is that sometimes you get stuff on the lens. It does, however, lend a dreamy quality to the picture, doesn’t it?
We finished the day with biscuits. I got to expound on a bit about my biscuit theory and shared with them my whole grain version, even throwing a little bit of lard into the equation. After putting a few of our biscuits in the oven to be sampled, the rest were divided and packed up, to be baked later in the day at home. After all, who wants to spend a day cooking only to have to go home and do it all over again? Not only did everyone take home biscuits, they had been instructed to bring along tupperware and so everyone took home gumbo after sampling the finished product. It was declared a success and while I am still mentally critiquing myself as to what I can do better, I also changed some things on the fly that turned out pretty good. That’s the secret to good cooking (and life really), is being able to adapt without flinching. It’s all in the instincts. Can you convey that in a cooking class? I sort of think I did.
I got a real name tag.
Over the years, I have acquired a small collection of various name tags from different events I’ve attended. By various, I mean, the names are various. You see, I don’t always let a proper invite keep me from a party and some of the events I’ve attended over the years have had everyone’s name tags printed and laid out ahead of time, not allowing you to walk up to the door and get in if you haven’t made plans in advance. Which means if you are spontaneous like myself, you find yourself picking out a name and going with it. Only once have I ever had anyone actually question the fact that I was not who my nametag said I was, because they knew the real ‘me’ and I was 20 years younger, several inches taller, noticeably thinner and a completely different race than the other version they knew that went with that name. I found that telling the gentleman I was undercover for a very important investigation and that I would appreciate his cooperation, as it may or may not have to do with national security, I was not free to divulge anything further than that, in fact I may have said too much, helped quiet him.
In crashing parties, one must act with complete confidence and authority.
Last Thursday evening was the holiday party for the local weekly that I’ve done some projects for this past year. Despite the fact that I’d been up & down all week with the upper respiratory bug going around town, I felt we should go and make an appearance. Besides, I was feeling better that day, surely I was on the mend. (When they say that bug is a 10 day to 2 week bug, they aren’t joking, btw. I was most definitely not on the mend, but that’s a completely different tale.)
As we walked in, there was a table with a guest list at which you were supposed to check in. There was also a small collection of name tags which were clearly for people who are affiliated with the publication throwing the party. Among the name tags was one for me, with my real name on it. Even better was a title – “Green Expert”, a nod to the fact that I wrote (and partially photographed) their Green Homes and Living special edition this past fall, although in no way do I consider myself an ‘expert’ in being ‘green’. Honestly, of the 18 pieces in that, 8 of them are some of sort of interest or project of ours around the house. All I really did was write about us and just tried to make it not sound as personal as I do in this space.
I’ve had a good bit of encouragement lately from friends and family telling me I should just write a book already. On what I ask and they all say, on just being me. From what I’ve gathered, one should have a certain niche, a focus if they are going to pitch anything that’s going to be published. If this blog is any indication, I’m all over the place – baking one day, canning the next with mentions of knitting fail, dinner fail and girl scout troop craft fail. I’m more of a B+ personality than I am a type A. I’m the underachiever of the overachievers, the overachiever of the slackers, not excelling at any one thing, but rather, doing a few things pretty okay. Sometimes making everything perfect, staying on top of every little detail is just way too much energy that could be better used doing something else, like having a glass of wine with a friend or better yet, curled up with a book. How does one go about putting that into a proposal for anything published?
Not quite eighteen months ago, I was laid off and pretty quickly decided that I was going to just figure out a way to make a living out of being me. Since making that decision, I’ve been much happier with my every day life, although cash flow can be a bitch. I’ve made some things happen, I’ve had some things land in my lap. It seems that in casting a wide net, I’ve caught a number of things that I’m pretty okay at – writing, teaching, cooking at the top of that list.
When I started this post, I had every intention of talking about the party last week, how I danced with the guy dressed like a Christmas tree, because really, when there’s a guy dressed like a Christmas tree, you need to do something with him, right? Instead I had this moment where I realized that there was some link between the fact that I have a collection of fake name tags to the fact that I had a real name tag with a title that I found amusing to the fact that I am still very much trying to figure out what I want to do when I grow up. That this idea I keep hearing from people as something I should do – write a book – somehow needs to come to life. And somewhere, in that link, is the theme.
Breathe.
The last two weeks around here have been busy. Pat’s been overhauling his boat – which has been much needed but generally put off with all his other duties for some time. This past weekend’s Clean Water Act’s 40th Anniversary Celebration and Rally in DC with the Waterkeeper Alliance and plenty of his fellow Riverkeepers about gave him the excuse he needed to just buckle down and do it. He had a volunteer help strip it, but he did the final sanding and then priming and painting. He finished it up about 3:30 Friday afternoon, just as it was time for him to head up to DC.
I meanwhile, was up to my ears in a free lance project that you will hear more about next week, as well as attempting to sort out details for my next pickling class, doing my home cooked meals to go and picking up some catering as well as back waiting shifts for a friend’s restaurant, trying to bump up our cash flow, in addition to my regular wife & mom duties.
I turned in the last piece of my free lance project this morning, having done most of it last week, writing 4 articles in a writing frenzy last Friday. There is much relief, although I still have things to wrap up, emails to respond to, an inbox to clean up, a hard drive to clean up, a desk top to find under a mass of clutter…and that’s just for that project. The house isn’t in too bad of shape overall – moments where I need to procrastinate I found myself cleaning.
My uncle’s memorial service was this past weekend. It had been pushed back and pushed back for a variety of reasons and Friday afternoon I realized I just wasn’t going to make it. I was still finishing up one article and after the rush of the last few weeks, I wasn’t looking forward to making a mad dash up to Baltimore and back. I spent the weekend here with my girl, intent on chilling out. We had some nice impromptu fun with friends and neighbors, including dinner one evening. At the time the service was being held Saturday, I was down in the chicken coop, shoveling out the bottom layer of composted leaves and chicken droppings to put some on my garden. I think, wait, I know my uncle would have appreciated that, as we had many a conversation over the years on our shared love of gardens and chickens and how much better my garden would grow if I had my own source of chicken manure.
It was good to spend some quality quiet time with Edie this weekend. She seems to be making the transition of new school/new soccer team/bff moving to Guatemala fairly well. She began last week complaining that one of the boys in her class from her elementary school had stopped her in the hallway to talk college football – the horrors! I reminded her that she spent most of last football season talking football with this young man (as well as basketball during that season) and that he was probably in the same boat as her, dealing with new school, he was probably looking to talk to any friendly face he knew about anything he could and with her, he knew their common denominator was college football. I was pretty tickled to discover that by week’s end, she had gotten over the horror of a boy (!!) talking to her in the middle of the school hallway enough to give me the scouting report and matchups for this week’s games. When I asked how she knew, she just shrugged and admitted to having talked to said boy all week about football in the hallway as if it was no big deal. I was quite happy to hear it.
This week is already shaping up to be busy too, although not as frantic as the last two- meetings, get togethers or work just about every night, with a final editing session before my little project is sent to the printer. I also have some big house projects planned – Edie’s room is getting a desk, but I need to refinish it first, which is prompting a basement clean out so I have space to work before I make over her room. I also have a glimmer of an idea for a whole new business, because I don’t have enough irons in the fire, clearly. Last night I dreamt I was pregnant and in labor and we had to get to the hospital before the floodwaters stopped us. This morning I looked up what all those things meant in dreams – apparently dreaming you are pregnant is a sign of creativity, and dreaming about floods can mean rebirth or unhappiness. Hmmm. I can’t quite figure out what the two of them together mean. Thoughts?
That was a good week.
Thanks everyone, for all the love for last week’s posts. Last Monday was most certainly a very good day, for when I had gotten home from that estate sale, in my inbox was the notification that my long awaited piece in Women we Love was going to run on Wednesday. As if that wasn’t enough, there was also an email saying that Bingo Night that I had put together at school the previous Friday was the biggest Bingo Night our PTO had ever had, with a record breaking fundraising total. I was feeling pretty darn tooting proud of myself.
This Monday was a little different, as I woke up to discover we were out of coffee. Oh well.
I got a good number of congrats on the success of my business with the “Women We Love” piece and while I am thankful for the good wishes, to be perfectly honest, the business still has quite a ways to go. There are certifications and licenses to be had and recipes, packaging and delivery methods to be perfected…..it’s a little overwhelming at times. And always, that little voice in the back of my head asking, am I really up to this? Learning to shut that voice up is a job in itself. I just keep putting one foot in front of the other and see where the road takes me.
After months of ignoring invites, I finally joined Pinterest this morning. I keep hearing it’s a time suck and I really do not need any more of that, but I’m hoping it will help organize all these recipe links I keep saving in various folders on my computer. Perhaps a little bit of method to the madness? One can only hope.
I think I might make these for my Valentines this year. Last year I made them in full size muffin cups and they were downright decadent. I’m going to go for mini muffin tins this year, so we can eat them in one pop. We do celebrate Valentine’s around here, maybe not in a full blown chocolates, flowers & jewelry sort of way, but it is a special day for us.
In the meantime though, there are bathrooms to be cleaned and floors to be mopped and I swear, laundry breeds while we are sleeping at night. Just when I think it’s caught up, I’m wrong. Sigh.
Girl Power.
I’ve had my Girl Scout troop working on a small business badge in which they’ve learned about starting a business. This week we had a panel of guest speakers, Martha Stafford of The Charlottesville Cooking School, Robyn Jackson of The Civility School and Alana Woerpel of Alana’s Interior Decoration come talk to the girls about their experiences in being self employed. Most of the girls already know them as mothers of friends and classmates, but I think they saw them in a new light at our roundtable discussion. It was a great meeting and it wasn’t until halfway through that at least one of the girls (mine of course), realized my ulterior motive in working on this badge. (I’m not sure anyone minded though.) They had empowering things to say to the girls, telling them that by nature, women multi-task and so therefore are perfectly suited to running their own business, among other things. They all started by working from home, and in this, I realized I have an advantage in Pat working from home most days. The three of them talked about how when you work from home, you tend to miss officemates to bounce ideas off of (and just chat with!). While being home with your significant other all day every day can have it’s challenges, there are some pluses, and we certainly bounce ideas off each other. Poor guy has to taste test everything for me and make sure I put enough salt in. (I always seem to forget the salt.)
My troop can at times, be a wild pack, but I have to say, they sat there and listened for the better part of an hour, with their fidgeting kept to a minimum. If you had seen them just a few weeks ago, you’d understand what a feat this is. Last year Mrs. Jackson helped us earn our Manners badge, so I credit her presence with their good behavior. She really rubs off on them. (Don’t you want to come help with my troop every other week Robyn?) I got great feedback from the moms who dropped in for the meeting, as well as moms that let me know afterwards how much the girls got out of our working on that badge. Some of the girls even let me know, they are ready to take that knowledge and make it happen – can’t we please start our businesses? I know if I let them loose, they will do it too. I’ve not yet told them the timing of the food drive I’ve committed them to, which is the same time one of them wants to do a market, over the holidays. I somehow suspect some of them might actually be able to do both, but I may drive their parents crazy in the process…. a compromise may be in order, with their market to be in the spring perhaps?
I love my girl scouts. Some weeks, yes, I cannot wait to get home and have a glass of wine and decompress from our meetings (There was the time that not only did I forget to drop someone at their house, but I neglected to even shut my car door, in my rush to get home and have a nice glass of wine.) Some weeks I’m pretty sure none of them regard a word that comes out of my mouth. But then we have weeks like this past one, where they hug me goodbye and let me know how much I’ve inspired them. And it makes all the other weeks worth it.
Jumping In.
So, a while back, a friend suggested that I just start cooking dinner for my friends on a daily basis. Tell them what’s for dinner, a price and then tell them what time it will be ready to come pick up. Cook like I cook for my family. And that this could be, should be, my job.
I didn’t pay it much attention, but then when I got laid off last May, I thought about it some. I kicked around a few ideas as to what to do with myself, other than work for someone else for a living, and this one kept rising to the top as the most well, everything, with feasible at the top of the list of pros. So I spent some time this summer talking about it, reading about it, from a slew of incredible food blogs getting ideas about food to books on starting my own business, my own home based business, my own catering business and writing a business plan, among others, but really haven’t been quite sure exactly where to start.
I’ve talked to just about every chef I know about this. A few told me to just start cooking and figure it out from there. I really wanted to have a set, written business plan, I wanted to be organized and thoughtful about this, but after debating this fly by the seat of my pants approach, which, honestly, is how I seem to end up doing everything I do most of the time anyway, I decided to just do it. Really, just jumping in and seeing what it took, at least once, might really be more helpful. Yes? I have an outline in my head. I have a vision. I know I have to start from somewhere….. but in the process of that, I find myself getting caught up in the minutia, I find myself getting overwhelmed and stalling out. And a number of thoughtful people told me to just jump in and do it. People whom I thought might know what they are talking about.
So, yesterday, I had my first test run. I emailed some of the people I’ve babbled to about this over the summer with a dish (black bean/spinach/goat cheese enchiladas), a price and a pick up time. RSVP please. I had 6 families sign up. I had a few others interested but either missed the RSVP cut off time or weren’t sure about goat cheese. (Something I learned – to note when I’m willing to make a substitution for something like goat cheese.)
I spent my day cooking and figuring out some of the how. Which at times was work, but at times, wasn’t. I don’t measure things when I cook – I eyeball it. To take that method of cooking and make it not only precise, but to quintuple it was a challenge. I did okay. I got some things wrong, but nothing too major, nothing I couldn’t fix. I got a feel for what my kitchen and equipment could handle. There’s alot of math involved and I’ve always said I hate when math is on the quiz for the day. So many details to figure out. I’m not sure what my next step is. Keep going, of course.
I met with someone from the local chapter of SCORE today. I set this appointment up a few weeks ago, as a self imposed deadline to do something on my big idea. I had grand plans of having a fully written business plan by now, instead, I’m just trying to figure out what else I need to do, besides keep cooking. There’s a whole legal, business side to this that I need to get a handle on. And while he did help with that, he also gave me the same advice I’m getting from a few different corners – just cook. Start small and just take it from there. Figure out my plan, but right now, it’s okay to just put one foot in front of the other and see where the path leads me.
After spending the summer brainstorming a name with everyone we saw, Virginia came up with one a few weeks ago. Dinnaah. Dinn-aah, as I’m calling it. Once I had that, I felt much better about moving on. I’m going to cook as if I’m cooking for my family, so it’s local, seasonal and mostly vegetarian, with any meat that we do serve being local and humanely raised. I might even include some of my own produce – yesterday’s dish helped with the avalanche of peppers I have going on. I’m going to keep it small and try out different recipes and see what works, what doesn’t. I think I’ll need another stock pot and maybe a back up fridge. Yesterday’s first run was met with much applause and praise. Thanks Robyn, for the huge shout out on Facebook that started a little buzz this morning. I definitely feel like I’m moving in the right direction. There are going to be mistakes, but that’s life. I want to find a way to make money and have it be something I enjoy. This just feels right, no matter how much I get lost in the details. So, I’m just going to cook.
Yesterday I got a good feel for how things could work in my kitchen. I definitely need to take some time and get myself organized around here, so it will be a slow start at first. I’ll probably only do dinner one or two nights next week. And I need to figure out our Wednesdays, because I somehow have lined up the most inefficient schedule imaginable for a certain someone and will need to figure out how to juggle that along with serving dinner to not just my family, but others. But, hopefully, by the end of September, I can be be serving dinner at least 3 nights a week. That’s a good goal, yes?
Day 3, Purge.
Day 2 of being unemployed found me full of anxiety and self doubt. I’ve had a few interesting offers and I am fighting the feeling that I need to jump on them right away. I want to take some time, figure out exactly what I want to do with myself and make sure I’m making the right decision.
This is the 4th time in 7 years I’ve been laid off. I know the part-timer is always the first to go and I really prefer to work part time, so I guess that’s the downside of it. When Edie was born, I did have plans to go back to work full-time and then just found I couldn’t. I couldn’t bear the thought of someone else spending all that time with her while I was at the office. Couldn’t stand the thought of what was I going to miss out on if I wasn’t around her. I began to look at things in our life as how much would I have to work to pay that bill. Things like car payments, cell phones, cable tv, were all measured in, do I truly need that? No, I was quite happy to drive my car until it needed too much money sunk into it to stay on the road, almost 16 years. While there might be some great shows I’m missing on cable, we just don’t watch that much tv and quite frankly, I didn’t want my child to regularly watch most of the garbage on the Disney Channel. The fact that she had gotten comfortable turning on the tv and tuning it to that channel by her own toddler self was one of the deciding factors to let go of cable all those years ago. And you can stream just about everything online these days anyway, so as long as you have a decent internet connection, you can get by. Honestly, the only time we’ve come close to caving on hooking cable back up has been during college football season. Thank you ESPN, for streaming so many games online and fixing that dilemma for us.
I am sick and tired however, of getting laid off. There is still a blow to the ego, despite knowing everytime that budget cuts have to be made. There is still a feeling of I’m just not good enough. I’m a walking textbook on our state unemployment insurance policies. I am sick and tired of having to reinvent myself, of having to conduct a job search all over again, again wondering how long is this job going to last.
It seems everytime I’m unemployed, many people around me tell me I should figure out how to make money at just being me. I cook, I sew, I’m creative, if Martha Stewart can do it, why can’t I? I made a small effort at it a few years ago and it went nowhere. It was during Edie’s toddler years, when after getting laid off twice in a year and becoming extremely unsatisfied with my choices, or lack thereof, of decent, affordable, love-my-baby-as-much-as-I-do-options in childcare, I decided to heed what I thought was a message from the Universe. I went back to waiting tables at night, so I could be home during the day and tried to operate a home based business while being a stay at home mom. When she started school, I went back to having an office job. Which lasted for 2 years, until I got laid off. I spent that summer pondering how to not go back to work and while I came up with some great ideas, I just didn’t go anywhere with them. Instead, I got myself another part time job that has yet again, ended in a budget cut. A cut of my salary.
I did however, come up with the idea of starting a blog, because I knew whatever creative, self-employed steps I needed to take, a blog would be an essential part of going about it. I got sidetracked by that whole stomach tumor thing, but once I got through that and started making things again, I started this little blog, in hopes of just keeping my creative spark alive. Over the years, I’ve started many things, but not finished them. I have a huge pile of unfinished projects upstairs, some of them I promised friends years ago.
Through a good bit of the work I’ve done in therapy, as well as some of the other work, reading and research I’ve done outside of therapy, I’ve realized that it’s completely par for the course for people who’ve had mothers like mine to leave a trail of unfinished work, to not try as hard as you could. To have a good bit of self doubt. To think that you are always going to fail, even when everyone around you thinks you are the greatest thing since sliced bread. I don’t see the talent I have and I definitely don’t take credit for a good deal of my accomplishments. I truly am my own worst enemy. I am working to overcome this, but some days, like yesterday, it’s a struggle.
A few months back, I discovered a new to me blog, thanks to the posting of it on Facebook by a friend. I immediately loved it. The last few days, as I have struggled with myself, wondering, what am I doing to do now? Can I really pull off something where I figure out how to do things without actually having to go to an office several days a week? What exactly is it that others see in me that is so great, this blog had a few posts that just spoke so directly to me, that I began to think it was a message from the greater Universe. So, after reading this and then this and finally this, I realized I needed to start by first of all, cleaning ‘the happy corner’ as Edie calls it. The corner of our bedroom upstairs that is home to all my creative supplies. I spent the day cleaning, purging and organizing things. I used to save every cooking & design magazine I subscribed to and while years ago, I realized I turned to Epicurious when I couldn’t remember what old issue of Bon Appetit a certain recipe was in and finally got rid of all those, I still had a good 5 years of House Beautiful, Southern Living, Southern Accents, the old, dear, departed Mary Englebreit’s Home Companion, Martha Stewart Living (and Baby), taking up valuable space. I went through them all and put them to the test by which I now allow myself to buy a magazine – are there at least 3 articles or projects in there that capture my attention to warrant giving up space? Two big shelves of magazines, at least 6 stacks of them, have been reduced to half a shelf and 2 stacks. I also purged a big stack of old craft books that I’ve received as gifts over the years that just didn’t do it for me. I sorted through all the little bins I toss bits and pieces of things into, I cleaned out and organized the drawers I keep supplies in, I purged things I’ve been hanging onto thinking, oh I’ll use that. You know what? I haven’t and I won’t and if I do feel the need to use electric scissors, I’ll just go buy a new pair.
It felt cathartic as hell to do all that. I feel rejuvenated and just so I wouldn’t reconsider, I dropped all the books and magazines off at the recycling center this afternoon. (The place where I was going to drop off the craft supplies wasn’t open, so I left that bag in my car. Hollar if you want a pair of unused, new in the box, vintage electric scissors. Or any other crafty stuff….). I spent the day considering my talents. My current reading list are “The Martha Rules” by Martha herself, “Inspiration Sandwich” by Sark and a little self help book I picked up a while back entitled “It’s Your Life, What Are You Doing With It?”. I’m making lists of what I think is feasible, I’m setting up coffee and lunch dates with a variety of friends who know or do some of the things I’m considering. There’s a few of them. I have a short attention span, I like multi-tasking, it’s really the only way I can think and work to be honest, is by doing 10 things at once. I fail miserably if I’m only doing one thing at a time. I also thrive in chaos, thanks to my childhood, so maybe I can make this work this time. I have the support of my dear husband and many friends. What do I have to lose?
Chicken Wire & Paper Flowers 