On Storms and Paying it Forward

Leonid Afremov on Etsy
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It's storming again as I write this. Yes, AGAIN! This has been a rough month storm and rain-wise. If you remember the bread and butter business is in Construction, rain makes for downtime lots of downtime. Downtime means the bills run late because you need to work to make money. Which actually brings me to todays topic believe it or not.

I’m sure I mentioned I’ve taken a part time job recently. Our expenses have increased just enough that it was becoming a strain on the hubs, especially with the weather we've been having, and I wanted to help take some of that stress off. I've also been going a little stir crazy cooped up on this hill all by myself for so much of the time.  So, I’m working as a cashier at our local Dollar General. 

My In-Laws insisted I was going to hate working there, but I am really falling in love with this job. It’s a lot of hard work I’ll admit. Stocking shelves between customers can get to be a heckuva  work out. I was working on sky boxes (we keep over stock on the top shelves) the other day and I joked it was the best leg work out I’d had in a long time - up and down the ladder all day long! 

My customers, though, are the reason I love this job. They are just amazing people. They make me smile on days I don’t want to. They make me laugh when I think there is no more laughter. They love one another and me. I get teased for being short and for no reason at all. I even have customers who will come along behind me and place things back up on the top shelf after I’ve pulled them down to restock shelves. Best of all I regularly get to see acts of kindness and pay it forwards that genuinely warm my heart. 

I have missed this so very much! What I see of the world lately on Facebook isn't so nice. It's political and personal, angry and sad, and that wears on you, it wears you down and I was feeling it. It took its toll on my marriage too. I can't tell you how much I needed to have my faith in humanity renewed and my customers have done that in a big way.

Be kind to one another, commit random acts of kindness and pay it forward. The love and compassion you share has an amazing ripple effect. Those acts touch many other people as well and that’s a VERY good thing. It's what makes my job a joy, thank you!

I haven’t made anything new lately, but that doesn’t mean I’m not making. Amazon sales have remained steady and I make to order most of those. Once I get my routine back in order I’ll get back to new goodies again I’m sure. Those “leg days” are kind of whooping me lol

Thanks so much for stopping by!

We'll see you next time!

Just Keep Swimming!

Along with all the hand made goodness that has been consuming my life for the last couple of months I’ve decided it was time to give myself the gift of a lighter smaller stronger me.

I’ve always been very hands on in the construction of our house. When we started building it was really no different, I was very hands on and adamant about being environmentally conscious with the products we used. Having a big house made it even more so important as it’s a bigger footprint to be responsible for.  I even went so far as to source standing dead timber for our logs. 

Not wanting to use any more chemicals than absolutely necessary I opted for borate treating my sill plates over the arsenic filled pressure treated lumber for the basement. This meant my personally coating each piece of lumber with borate and while I was flipping 16 foot boards so I could coat the other side I tripped over a stack of boards the builder had set behind me. I went down, now maybe I would’ve been able to save myself had I not been holding a 16 foot board but all I could think of at the time was not braining myself with it so I held on. I held on as I felt the pop, I held on as I felt the burn. I held on as I hit the stack of lumber and slid sideways to the ground. 

My knee has never been the same and every time I’ve tried to get back to the gym or start running again my knee would tell me about. I’ve always been all out and gung ho so at first I thought I just needed a little more time to heal. Then I started gaining weight and the extra weight made it ache and I’d try to get back to the gym. Creating my own special downwards spiral. The more I tried, the more it hurt, the more I didn’t try, the more it hurt.

After several false starts - if you’ve been reading my blog for a long time you might even remember reading about some of them. I finally decided I needed this to be about the long term, slow and steady. No more all in or go home. That attitude had me going home and not achieving my goals - I don’t like not achieving goals. If I was going to make this happen I needed to allow myself to go at a slower pace. But going at a slower pace meant I needed some accountability, some one to keep me on track and give me a nudge every so often.

Every night as I drift off to sleep I think of the things I am grateful for. Special blessings of the day, some ordinary, some small, some big, reminders of the many things and people who are the good in my life. Sometimes I release things to the Universe, leave it up to God’s hands if you will. On this night I decided to release it and just do but I could use a little accountability to help me along. The next morning I had an e-mail from Bill Phillips on being over 50 and getting back to the gym, a challenge and a FB group to help keep you accountable. Believe it or not I had to take a couple days to think about it! My own personal GodWink as my friend Chris would say, and “well I just don’t know”…. I asked my son if he might like to be my work out buddy, he was my best  buddy when he was 4.  He and the kiddo had been working out together in the University gym but she graduated and he didn’t want to go alone so he’d been working out in our gym in the basement and hinting he needed someone to help keep him on track too. Make that a double wink.

So! Here we are about 5 or 6 weeks in, my scale hasn’t budged much but my measurements are shrinking, my clothes are fitting looser, my face is slimmer, I have a lot more energy and I’m a lot happier. My knee only hurt until I realized, it was the wrong knee and it was all in my head - just a little psychological self sabotage, a body at rest tends to stay at rest until a greater force comes along to change that.

But, a body in motion tends to stay in motion. Quoting Dori, Just keep swimming!

My 25th anniversary is coming up this next year…. I’m thinking Jamaica sounds like just the place to be for that! 

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming swimming swimming!

Have a great week! Thanks for stoppin’ by!

We’ll see you next time!    I think it’s just about time for our annual Hand Made Holiday Series!  

Ramblings on...

We used to have this exact alarm clock on the night stand.
Works a charm to get you up especially when it's on the
other side of the bed!! lol 

It's clear it's an election year coming. The discussions out and about are getting deeper and have more substance than the idle chit chat that flows through FB most of the time.

It's a very good thing when they stay civil. It's really interesting to see the way other peoples minds work and what really clicks for them.

The only problem is I'm an introvert so while I love the discussion they can be a bit draining emotionally for me. They steal my day away and my energy.

I thought I might deal with this by starting my day with some outdoor time, do a little weeding and some watering out in the garden. Then take a couple laps around the house, sounds like a great plan right? It is! Until you realize how out of shape you are!! It was only about a half mile but the humidity popped up and I was so ready to head back inside lol

Since I had sold several pairs of earrings the plan was to shower and head into the studio to replenish stock but then I checked FB and I got caught up in a couple discussions. The time got away from me again. I need to set a timer or a limit or something, I really do.

And of course B'Sue's blog hop is coming up in just another couple weeks. Thankfully I finally have an idea for what I want to do, I was really beginning to wonder. I just have not had the urge to create for the hop at all and it's been kind of unnerving. I have ideas I want to play with, they just aren't for the hop. sigh This never happens, normally I'm all over it! Make make make, I like a challenge! I think I'm going to be ok now that I have an idea to play with though!

I just need to actually get off the computer and Get In To The Studio...........

The kiddo has been feeling the same way too. Good news though, we finally found a kiln for her!
She's excited and I'm excited for her! I'm so looking forward to seeing her really take off now! She's been getting so antsy since school started up again. She really needs some hands in the mud time. I'm so glad she's finally going to get it!

Thanks for stopping by!
We'll see you next time!

Making Time for MORE Playtime

Before Facebook there were forums, forums filled with people who liked the same things. I belonged to several forums, the community feel was really very nice. We fed upon the energy of each other. bolstering and encouraging and reaching higher and loftier heights. It was an amazing ride.

Then along came Facebook and what amounts to the slow death of forums. Groups replaced forums but the community feel just isn't quite the same. At least not for me. I see a whole lot of that's MY design and very little of let's all play with this design and see how many ideas we can come up with. No real camaraderie to speak of. Oh there is an amazing amount of support but no real push to play and move forward with the idea to try this instead of that, oooh I'd love to see it in this color, etc etc.

I miss that.

I miss the ever-present push to do better, to improve, to master.

Please don't get me wrong, I love playing and exploring the many myriad ways metals move and twist and morph into the visions in my head or sketchpad. I love learning new to me techniques. It just makes me sad to think I was playing with an idea and did nothing more with it. It makes me sad to see someone else go further with it in the direction I wanted to take it. Not because they did it, but because they remind me of what I DIDN'T do.

It also makes me glad I spent time just playing this last month and I've realized I NEED to spend more time just playing and experimenting and plain old enjoying what it is I'm doing, no matter what that happens to be.

I think I might just share some of those playtime experiments here. A little What I'm Playing With does seem to be a natural extension of What's on the Desk don't you think? Me too!

Hey! If you're stateside, today is Election day, if you haven't already, GET OUT THERE AND VOTE! Your voice does matter!

Want to know what is on the ballot here? They want the right to do whatever they want to do even if we voted on it. So not cool......  They also want to make the whole state wet. I live in a dry county.  Dry? Yup, no alcohol, gotta drive to the next county over if I want to buy a bottle of wine, made the kiddos 21st a real big deal for her. We made a special trip to the liquor store on the county line a half hour away.
What's on your ballot? Does it matter to you? Why?

Thanks for stoppin in!
We'll see you next time!

A New Year, A New Old Strategy

I read somewhere that you can only keep so many balls in the air…… actively keep up with x number of friends, businesses you like or hobbies, work, and family. I’d say this is the modern take on you can only keep so many irons in the fire. But I have to say I think it really is true. The actual number may vary from person to person but I know that personally, for myself, the more I use social media sites, the older forums I used to visit get less and less attention. The more groups on FB I become a member of, the less I use Wind Dancer’s page. And if by some wild miracle I do manage to keep up with all of that, my family misses my face.

I like my family, my kids are on that verge of taking flight and I don’t want to miss out on what little time I have left with them in our little nest. So I’m thinking a little streamlining is in order. Not so much a cutting of anything... I Like, REALLY like, the circle of friends, family and acquaintances I have managed to surround myself with.

I just need to get back into the habit of managing my time a little better. I had a pretty good routine going for awhile and I seemed to have slipped back into old habits - actually, I think I overloaded my plate a little and haven’t quite figured out how to juggle it all. I need to categorize and prioritize and schedule. Oddly enough (or Coincidentally?) I’ve had several e-mails arrive lately touching on this very subject. I know it’s January and I usually do this in late August or May, I’m either early or late but that doesn’t really matter. What needs doing, needs doing. And as evidenced by my recent e-mails, doing in January just means I have lots of company in the doing, right? Right!~

It wasn’t that long ago - or maybe it was - my morning was cup of coffee, get the kids off to school, hit the gym, second cup of coffee, quick pick up around the house and THEN e-mail etc. Book keeping and Errands before picking kids up. I could sit and make while they did homework and we could talk about our day.

Look at how productive that was! I’m pretty sure a very large part of all that productivity had to do with all the energy I had from morning work outs….. not to mention the set schedule.

The nice thing is when we built the house we included a gym - once I finish cleaning up my studio (I still have several items that need relocating) I am moving on to the gym! I've managed to fit in some morning work outs. It’s been awhile but it has really felt good to get moving again. As does that little burst of energy that comes along after a workout. I think I just might have it back on track in no time!

To reinforce what I had just typed - serendipitously, this showed up in my e-mail…….

5 Morning Rituals to Keep You Productive All Day Long

Most of us work long hours: 40, 50 or even 60 hours each week. But chances are, given distractions like online entertainment, office snacking habits and ill-designed time management, we're only churning out high-quality work a portion of each day.

Here are five practical steps to incorporate into any morning routine to optimize your time at the office and maintain productivity all day long:

7 minutes of exercise. Yep, not 10 -- just seven. Why? It's short enough that it won't impact the rest of your morning routine and long enough to shake off any residual sluggishness from the night before -- including that extra glass of wine.

There are endless fitness routines to turn to, but the one I like best is called the 7 Minute Workout (and yes, there's an app for that). In just seven minutes, it works all major muscle groups with 12 total exercises.

Start your day out green. Sure, we've all been told that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and it's pretty easy to reach for a bagel, bowl of cereal, egg sandwich or cup of yogurt to get your metabolism going.

While all of these options are fine choices once in a while, you'll be shocked at the morning lift you can get from a green smoothie. And healthy juicing requires less time in the morning than toasting a bagel and slathering it with low fat cream cheese.

I go quick and easy, blending (for about a minute): one apple, one banana, one orange, a handful of spinach, half of a cucumber, any juice or coconut water on hand, a few cubes of ice and some flax seed. It's cheap, easy and energizing.

Pick 3 wins for the day. While you're waiting for that smoothie to blend, get ahead of the evening's conversation with your significant other -- you know, the one that starts, "How was your day?"

Decide on the three things that you'd like to accomplish in the next 12 hours in order for you to feel like the day was a success. Sure, not every day will be an epic win, but strategizing in this way will help to move the ball forward.

Block your calendar to achieve wins. One of the most common mistakes people make at the office is not turning to-do lists into time-bound, effective project lists. I've found that people who have mastered this hack are far more likely to deliver tasks on time.

It's simple: For each of the big things on your list, block off the amount of time on your calendar that you estimate the task might take -- and then add 33% more time just to be sure.

If a project is multi-day or has dependencies, break it up into digestible chunks. Use one block to plan and a second or third block to accomplish.

This simple method will help hold you accountable and immediately help you refocus on the tasks you've prioritized when you do get distracted. Too often, we let one distraction steamroll an entire morning -- now you don't have to let that client email derail you from your winning plan for the day.

Power up after lunch. Take the 15 minutes right after lunch to refocus on the day -- a kind of professional meditation. Get away from your computer, turn it off, go sit in a conference room and determine what you have on tap for the rest of the day.

Think about how the list you set in the morning is shaping up. Are you ahead of schedule? Behind schedule? You'll find that these 15 minutes help you identify how you got derailed, what's causing you distractions and help you to rediscover a rhythm to be productive all day long.

Give this simple formula a try for a week and I think you'll be pleased with the results. Here's to a more productive 2014!

I don’t remember who posted it or from what group/subscription it came but here’s the link:

http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/230734#!

Have a great day, Week, Month, and Year!

Thanks for stopping by today!

See ya next time!

Up, Down, Turnaround....

Oh up, down, turnaround, puts me in the mood.
Oh up, down, touch the ground, in the mood for food.

Gotta love the Pooh Bear!

My goodness, what a week it’s been! Ups and downs and just plain busy!

I won the Beads n Blessings Artistic category!! Yay! UPS returned my prize package, boo!
Seems they couldn’t find my house - there are only four houses on the street, mine is the last one and they found me just fine to deliver the kit, go figure. Thankfully the Gift Certificate was delivered electronically. On the advice of my friends I used it to buy something I really wanted but haven’t bought until now. Are you ready? I bought a pair of Tronex Razor Flush Cutters! I really needed a pair of flush cutters and these are on par with the best, I am so excited! I kicked in some of my money and also bought a gorgeous strand of Russian Serephinite. I can’t wait for them to get here!!

I started using my iCal to remind me of the various things I need or want to get accomplished in a day, and to tell me it’s time to stop doing one and move on to another. That’s working out very well! I seem to be getting so much more accomplished in a day - does not seem to make any difference in the I don’t feel like doing that right now thing though lol

After saying I was going to get back in the habit of exercising for the last year, I finally did it!! Added my exercise schedule in the iCal, and boy had I forgotten the energy boost you get from a good work out! Of course since I’ve gotten out of shape, that boost is followed by an intense desire for nap time! Luckily for me I’ve started inventory on my beads and such and can use that quiet time to enter the strands into my spreadsheet and still feel productive. I missed yesterdays work out because I forgot to set up the alarm. But that’s ok, the first couple weeks are all about establishing a routine and it’s expected to not be perfect - nothing really is anyway, right? Right!

Our other business is booming right now, we’re backed up and the work keeps coming in. We’ve had an early heat wave - heat index has been in the triple digits. For my European friends that about 35c if I remember the conversion right. 0 is freezing and every degree Celsius is approximately 3 degrees Fahrenheit. On one of the hottest days my husband had work lined up for the trackhoe and dump truck. Both are air conditioned and it should have been a fairly easy day - the air conditioner went out on the trackhoe in the first hour and on the dump truck in the next. That poor man looked so beat when he finally came in for a late lunch. I felt so bad for him, but he turned right around and picked up the parts he needed to make repairs and got right to them, in the heat of the afternoon! But he’s got a/c again!

This weeks piece I’ve been working on is a gold filled filigree cross. It’s really coming along beautifully and I’m quite happy with it. Just one more piece of filigree to add to the back, so it’s as pretty as the front and it’s all done. Finally got a decent pic of Sabina’s matching earrings yay but I haven’t gotten started on that matching cuff yet. I know, bad girl!! But I’ve been working on the cross - *biggest best smile*

We’ve been building our house for the past seven years. We’ve been living in it for over a year now. Makes it interesting to find things sometimes as there’s still quite a bit boxed up. We’ve just received notice from our insurance that they’ll no longer be covering us since the exterior still needs work. We have two months to get the front balconies and rock work done. That’s the bad news, the good news is that’s the incentive to FINALLY get it done! Yay! On that note, I finished texturizing the last wall in the laundry room! It is now ready to be primed and painted in the next few days. Told you I’ve been busy!!

'Til next time!
Dana