Yesterday was a very sad day. Our G-Dog, the cat, passed away. He leaves a big hole in our daily lives!
Just Life
Resolutions or Goals?
Happy New Year!
As the New Year fast approaches, many are busy making resolutions, or reviewing the almost past old year. This year I’ve decided to try a new approach!
To me there is a difference between resolutions and goals.
Resolutions usually involve an abrupt change in behavior (such as losing weight, stopping a bad habit etc.) but doesn’t break these changes into steps or prepare to implement them. It’s just saying that starting New Year’s Day I am going to ………….!
Goals,on the other hand, involve making lists, prioritizing the objectives, listing the steps to meet these objectives, and having incremental ways of measuring how close you are getting to the final goals.
Goals sound like a lot more work, but also more apt to succeed in obtaining the desired result. It’s not an overnight test of will-power that if you fail you quit, but more of an endurance test, to see how close you can come to making permanent changes (in life-style, habits, or business)
As you may have gathered, I have started preparing my business goals for 2016! It is a growing list of sub-topics (or how I plan to achieve these goals), but most of my actions will be toward these three main headings:
- Continue to build web-site
- Increase Inventory
- Increase Sales
- Now I need to get out of this list mode! Maybe I do need to add one more-LEARN MORE computer skills! If anyone can help please leave me a comment and I will edit this to finish it the way I had planned?? I’ll leave it to another day to maybe add some parts of my sub-lists:)
Wondering Wednesdays-#5
Wondering Cat Wednesday!
G-Dog (yes, that’s the name he came to us with) is wondering when a cat is supposed to sleep?
He’s curled up on his favorite end of the couch wondering when the flashing light is going to stop?
Meanwhile I’m wondering when my camera is going to work well enough to take the pictures I want to make the posts I had planned. The memory card stopped working and I lost a lot of the pictures I had…(lesson learned empty camera often!) Now something else has come up and I won’t be able to start shooting new ones for a few days.
I’m also wondering how people manage to plan and write posts drafts ahead so they have something to fall back on when life and plans don’t coincide? Once I write something I want to post it before I rethink it too much? Anyone else have these problems? And rethinking this, why aren’t I still talking about our cat? Maybe I need a cat nap?
Wondering Wednesday #4
On my introductory Wondering Wednesday lisamariagardiner left the comment “A bit deep and meaningful but I’m seriously wondering what the future will be like for my children x” I don’t have answers for you, or any of us, but I will try to express my thoughts on your topic, a topic that really affects all of us.
As the world seems to grow more unstable it is difficult to predict what the future may bring. Many changes that they will see are beyond our control…I think back to the changes my grandparents saw in their lifetimes–in transportation; from horse and buggy to man walking on the moon—in world events; WWI, the Great Depression, WWII, etc. My generation learned to use a manual typewriter in school and now struggles to navigate the world wide web! And with the “Cold War” didn’t really expect the world to survive until the turn of the century! Worrying about these changes, that the ordinary person has little if any control over, can be very non-productive.
As parents all we can do is prepare our children to become self-sufficient, to think for themselves, to care for themselves, and hope they make wise decisions with the tools we’ve tried to impart.
We have to realize that we can’t lead their lives for them, and that their choices may or may not be what we would have chosen for them, anymore than some of our choices were what our parents wanted for us. We may want stability while they want exploration and adventure. Their “ideal job” might be something that we would hate doing. But we must learn when to support their choices and when to offer help if it is needed.
And on a different note; I’m wondering where time is flying to? Wednesday is here and almost gone and I didn’t get any new pictures taken (but the infinity scarf is off the needles, still needs the ends finished and blocking before I can show a pic.)
And as always, I welcome your comments about what you are wondering about?
Wondering Cat World
Cats are very self-contained and don’t share their thoughts all at once. G-Dog is especially private, so this may be a continuing series. Also he doesn’t read a calendar well with one bad eye, so this wondering Wednesday post is a day early!
Here he is wondering why registers are only warm for part of the year?
favorite cool weather spot
Can he manage to soak up enough heat to last through the summer?
Ahhh! Comfort!
Farewell, but Not Goodbye
This may be the ending of Blogging 101, but it is just the beginning of active blogging for a lot of us.
I once heard a lady say, “There are no strangers in life, only friends we’ve not yet met.” Since that time the internet has developed to allow us to meet many more future friends. Stay in touch, continue writing and sharing. These are the building blocks we were given, along with some tools to connect them. How we use them is now up to us!
A special thanks to Michelle, A.I., and Chrissie for their help and guidance during these past weeks. And thanks to all who have taken the time to read and comment on whatever others have chosen to publish.
To keep expanding and learning makes life interesting.
So here’s a post/toast to everyone on leading an interesting life.
Blogging Event- Writing Cats
This is my response to an event I found on writing cats.
We happen to have an “Old School Writing Cat” who prefers to start his ideas with pen and paper. He grew up chewing on pencils:)
Every so often he does have to “Take a Paws”!
Retirement or Just Plain Tired
This last Spring I gave a month’s notice that I had decided to retire! After more than five years as a part-time waitress at a local restaurant I knew I would miss the regulars who had become friends over the years. But after having my craft business on the back burner for over twenty years, we decided it was time to bring it to a boil.
Inspiration to follow our dream
I don’t know how I ever had time to work! We displayed and sold at about 20 shows this year. For most 2-day shows we were gone 3 days, for 4-day shows we always set up the day before. That left 2-4 days between shows for drying tents, making more of low inventory items, washing dusty table cloths, etc. I repeat, I don’t know how I had time to work even a day or two between shows.
Son’s corner
Hand painted scarves and wood burning.
Needle felted ornaments
Soy Candles
Husband had his own tent.
My boss called in September, to see if my shows were over and if I might want to work a day or two each week during the off-season…… I “nicely” turned him down while wanting to shout “I’m retired, I don’t have time!” This while thinking of the shows I had left, including the 3 hour workshop I taught at one on processing flax into linen. Still have two 1 day shows to do and a blog to learn how to run, as well as two on-line shops to stock!
Last week I finished spinning and plying these yarns 
two ply hand spun merino wool
Now the 18 skeins are waiting to be labeled and listed or added to show inventory.
I also made a few batches of soy candles. I carry over 100 different scents.
Free smells of Soy Candles
Need to dye more roving, unique colors done in small batches, that I can replicate but not duplicate:)
Rainbow dyed roving and top.
If you are a knitter, crocheter, or weaver, you will understand my reference to the slight differences in dye lots. You may also notice that my skeins vary in yardage. This is because I wind all of my skeins with no knots, but may have several skeins of the same colorway or of coordinating colors. This gives you better quantity choices depending on the size of your project. I love playing with colors and seeing the differences made by combining various colors, in dyeing, in spinning and in plying.
In the future you will see many of our craft show products pictured in sections of the gallery. This way you can browse and if you can’t make it to our shows, I can list it for your purchase on my Handmade Artists shop, if it’s still available. My on-line shop listings aren’t taken to the shows with me to avoid selling the same unique item twice at the same time.
I’ve only mentioned a few details of the fiber and craft show part of our business and already feel this post is way too long. In the future look for more information about my husband’s art
Husband’s Art
Husband’s Art
my son’s needle felting and wire wrapping, 
Art Doll and wire wrapping
and my wood burning and other endeavors. When creating a business, it’s hard to know where it will lead.
We welcome questions and suggestions of what you would like to hear/see more about, so please leave a comment.
Mulch and More Crafts 