Y'all having fun yet? I sure am!
J is for JUGGLE
It has taken a balancing act for me to carve out time to follow my creative passions. Sewing, crafting, this blog even, all take time. Balancing a budget, knowing how much to charge customers while valuing myself, and accepting a reasonable amount of work, all takes some juggling.
I've been a teacher for the past 11 years, but in May of 2023, I stepped away from the classroom so I can spend more time at home with my two babies (see H is for Hudson and coming soon: N is for Nora!). I have a few part time jobs to bring in some income still, but I would love to take this breather as a time to grow my business! Along with the quilts, memory bears, alterations, and other things I've featured on here....did you know I offer sewing classes? If you're interested, please fill out this form!
Now, we all need more time for fun things (like sewing classes) and more time for ourselves and our families. Curious what your #1 time saving service
would be?!
If you could have ONE time saving service (money is no object), what would you choose? Maybe you are lucky and already have it - ain't no shame in outsourcing
0%Chef (any meal...and does the grocery shopping)
0%Housekeeper (that's just...there...all the time...)
0%Driver (for you or your kiddos!)
0%Assistant (schedule doctor appointments, meal plan, etc.)
K is for KYLE.
I would be remiss to make a list of anything important in my life without including my wonderful husband! To be blunt, he puts up with a lot of crap from me! New ideas, passing fancies, new hobbies, saying yes to too much, impulsively putting holes in walls, staying up too late to finish a project… the list goes on!
But he is a huge supporter of my creativity and understands that sometimes I need to do things in a not-very-logical order to help my brain settle down. We call that “Give A Mouse A Cookie” in our house. For example: I say I am going to go into my sewing room to make [project]. An hour later, Kyle comes in to check on me and [project] is no where in sight. Why? Well, I went into my room for the purpose of [project]. But in order to have room to work on [project], I needed to clear my sewing table. While clearing my sewing table, I found some beads. The beads needed to be put away. Well, I don’t have a bin set aside for beads, which naturally means I need to take everything off of the shelves to find a spot to put beads. While everything is off the shelves, I get a phone call from mom asking if I “could just whip up [item].” Of course! But now I have to put everything back on the shelves so I can get to the spot where the materials are for [item]. That gets done, but while looking for materials for [item], I spot the pile of supplies for [project].......which was the entire reason I went into my room in the first place.
Tired reading all of that? Me too. But welcome to my brain. And my life. And, by marriage, Kyle’s life. So he loves me, puts up with me, wears matching shirts when I tell him to, is an amazing provider & daddy for our kiddos, and appreciates my crazy! Love ya, babe!
**Side note: trying to find my favorite pictures of this guy? Way too difficult. And my goodness, we have had lots of amazing adventures!!
L is for LABELS.
I label everything. I mean, everything. Fall of 2019, I helped create a MakerSpace at the school where I was teaching. We bought and built shelves before filling and labeling bins with goodies for the students to build with. And those shelves and bins were all labeled, with words and pictures, by yours truly. I did it in an effort to help students have autonomy and ownership over cleaning up when they were finished. Everything has a home, and there’s a home for everything. My teacher colleagues thought I was a little crazy…..until it’s Spring of 2020 and we’re on a teacher Zoom call Happy Hour. I was sitting in my sewing room (“my room”), and had my shelves of craft things behind me. Everything was organized, sorted, and – you guessed it – labeled. It brought the conversation to a halt and I had to get up and show off my bins. See, friends? It’s not just at school. Home looks like this too!
Specific to sewing, I have special labels I put on projects. I found them on Etsy, and they come all the way from England, but they're so nice! They make my projects feel a little more official too!
Comments