Moving... forward

That's it.  My word.  One little word.  I'm in desperate need of getting my life back on track and I think I took the first step this evening.  I've never been a particularly positive person, hanging onto mistakes and silly things for years, replaying small events over and over and wallowing in the inevitable outcomes.  However, having a kid, losing my job, and this recent move have put me in a tailspin I haven't been able to get out of.  From childhood, kids were never in my definition of myself but my career was.  My career never happened.  Instead, I've had a string of jobs that have never amounted to anything and I never cared for but at least they were jobs.  That was all turned on its head last year when I found myself unemployed and a stay-at-home mom.  Soon after I was laid off, I took my son to Panera for lunch and we were surrounded by people who were obviously on their lunch breaks.  I felt so out of place and lost because I felt I should have been one of them, not the mom laughing as her kid ate his first unsliced, unpeeled apple.  I was happy with him but still uncomfortable in the situation.  It took a while but through two playgroups in our neighborhood, I met several other moms with kids the same age as mine, some unemployed, some older and so on.  I got very close with them and we usually spent several days a week together at the neighborhood lake, pool, playgrounds, etc.  Then we decided to move.  I knew it was going to be hard but I've been so depressed since we got here that I have a hard time getting things done and creativity is so far from me it's laughable.  I've been trying to catch up with a local mothers' group but it's just not going anywhere right now.  I'm mentally, physically and desperately emotionally stuck where I am.  I've been trying to convince myself to move but I'm still glued here.  Hopefully, that changes soon.

I've been looking at Brave Girl Camp but while it looks, smells, feels, sounds unbelievably fantastic, it's also a several-day, hundreds of dollars trip and they're sold out for awhile.  That just ain't it.  They're also doing an online 6wk "Soul Restoration" seminar starting in Jan (1/11/11) for $100.  I may be signing up for that.  What I DID sign up for was Ali Edwards' "One Little Word" class.  Big Picture Classes offers quite a few creative classes and Ali's is one of them.  The basic gist is to pick one word that defines what you'd like to do/accomplish/move towards in the new year.  The class is supposed to have monthly communications inspiring, motivating, reminding, etc. you to move toward that goal.  In the end you've spent 12mos. working on it and there's some sort of journal you've created in the process of getting there.  I think the idea of it is brilliant, the monthly "check-in" useful, and the journalling process important.  I chewed on several words: Positive- I simply need to be more positive.  Kinda vague to me.  Peace- I think I need to come to peace and terms with who I am now and lay the past to rest.  However, I think I need to move further than just that.  Direction- I need to come up with a direction for my life.  This may be too much to bite off in one sitting given that I don't have a clue right now.  Focus- I need to find it in my life.  Motivation- I need more but I think this word is almost a negative reminder to myself that I don't have it.  Move/movement- felt kinda weird- am I going to dance?  walk?  SO.  After all of those, I realize that I what I really need to do is simply go forward and it feels like that word covers so much of what I was trying to cover with the others.  I need to move forward, think forward not back, look forward and focus, etc.  So forward it is.  Go forth and prosper, to infinity and beyond, and all that good stuff!  btw.  If you decide to take a Big Picture Class, I'd love it if you use me as your reference: A35A8576.  No, I'm not trying to give you a sales pitch because I really don't know how good the classes are, but if you do, we'll each get a 10% discount on the next class.  Every little counts!

2010's Christmas Cards

I knew I wouldn't be getting anything done creatively in Nov. so I started my Christmas cards at an all-day swap right before we left NJ.  Unfortunately, I was only able to get them about 70% of the way there.  I was hoping to send them out the first of Dec. since many people didn't know we'd moved.  In the end, I was just happy to get them finished and out before Christmas.  I think I made 54 total cards with 4 different designs.  I get bored quickly so I kept the same image but changed the cards up for variety.  They all use SU's Dasher stamp and then a mix of Certainly Celery, Cranberry Crisp, Bravo Burgundy and Kraft (or Crumb Cake as they call it now) paper, DSP and ink.  The glitter is Martha Stewart's.

Meet Me on Monday

1. What are your New Year's Eve plans?
Getting ready for New Year's Day mostly.  We have friends from NJ who will be down visiting her parents (who happen to live in the same town we do now) so we're having the whole clan over Sat.


2. How tall are you?
5'6", give or take.  Since the hubby is 6'6", I wish I had a few more inches to my name (NOT around the middle though!)

3. What is your favorite pudding flavor?
Tapioca or chocolate depending on the day.  A REALLY good rice pudding (hold the raisins please) is a good thing too.

4. What room of the house do you blog the most in?
Probably my craft room.  Hard to say.  This is only the 2nd time I've blogged in this house but I imagine this will be the place.

5. What is your best physical feature?
Probably the curl in my hair.  While it's got a nice % of white hairs, it does have nice natural curl most of the time.  I can actually get a Bo-Peep curl on occasion.

Been a bit longer...

but I'm still alive.  The munchkin is in school.  I'm still trying to find a circle of new friends to even come near to the group of ones I've left behind and desperately miss on a daily basis.  I know it takes a while but ouch.  We survived Christmas.  We were going to host but MIL couldn't take any time off this year so we went to visit again.  DS is 3 1/2, this was his 4th Christmas and we still haven't had one at home with him.  Next year, we stay.

In any case, the real reason I FINALLY got back to this is that I just HAVE to share something with you.  Last Monday night, I decided I needed to order myself a Sally Jean necklace.  If you haven't seen these, take a half hour or so and dig around her site.  Great, fun, snarky things there that I love.  I actually stumbled onto the site a few years ago when doing some packaging research for MyM&M's and have checked back in every once and a while to see what's going on.  For some reason, last week I was looking at Sally Jean's and decided that I needed to get some of her things for personal inspiration, AKA a kick in the pants.  While the site said it would be 2-3wks to ship, the two pieces I ordered actually shipped a day or two later and were here waiting for me today when we got back from our trip.  They could have been here Fri. for all I know.   However, the thing that really got me was the packaging.  The outer mailer was your typical small padded envelope bag.  But get a load of what I found inside:

I just had to share.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and your New Year is bright!