When the dust settles

I have been waiting for quite some time now to finish the sanding of my timber floors.  The job was started about 14 years ago with the first bit of carpet coming up.  The majority being the stairs, hallway, lounge and dining rooms were done almost 10 years ago.  The 40 year old carpet finally came up in the three bedrooms about 8 months ago.

Today, the sanding has started.  #1 son has been working at it all day long along with a young friend of mine from church.  A has just gone home after 7 hours working with #1 son.  He's coming back tomorrow to help some more.  He is such a blessing, as is #1 son.

It would seem that one room is almost completely done.  That is the room that will be my craft room.  I had a look in there this morning  before the dust started flying and thought, "I should cover those."  That is as long as the thought stayed in my head too.  Until I went in there later to start sweeping the dust off the floor and walls and windows and..... turning around I remembered my thought as I saw this.......

 and this......

 

and this.......

I think I'll be spending quite some time in that room in the next day or so.  *Sigh*

In a state of flux

I am feeling a huge pull to start doing something with all the stock from my shop that I've got sitting in boxes under my house.  I want to start getting it out so that I can sell it or use it.

Along that line is the thought of actually trying to sell stock from home on a more permanent type basis.  How could that look?  Maybe a blog page show casing goods?  Maybe E-bay or Oztion?  Maybe Etsy for pre-made goods/kits?

It comes back to having to wait though.  For someone who doesn't know the background this is going to sound bizzarre to say the least...but I have to wait for the floors to be sanded and polished.  Once that is done I can then use the three mostly empty bedrooms in my house.  One as MY bedroom...it will be so nice to be back in my room, the second as a guest room and the third as my craft/play room.  Then the rooms downstairs can be used for displaying and storing my stock.

Just to throw a cat among the pigeons or a spanner in the works or to just annoy me there is a strong possiblity of baby boy returning home to live.  In which case I don't have the rooms downstairs.  So I then need to come up with some other plan.  *sigh*

I'm also trying to come up with a name for this little 'business' venture.  Any suggestions?

Internal interrogation

I've had a particularly stressful week.  Some fundamental mistakes have been made...by me over the last 6 weeks of my new job.  I have noticed some and have corrected my proceedures to stop these mistakes being made again only to find yet another mistake etc.  I am hoping and praying that I have found all the cracks that things can slip through now but I don't know how many more of these mistakes are going to be found.

Now while I have been finding and correcting I've felt bad but still reasonably confident in my ability, however, others are also finding the mistakes and little things have changed as well as a dressing down in the office by the boss in front of everyone else. (He's like that!)

I'm now struggling with my confidence.  I am any good at this?  Have I ever been any good at this?  Was I too proud and now having to fall?  Where is the line between being confident in your abilities and being proud and boastful?  Where is the line between being humble and self deflating or even worse appearing like you are fishing for compliments.

I'm noticing that my stress levels at work are increasing daily with the whole stomach acid, chest tightening thing happening.  It is time for some serious prayer I think.

Week end away

Last week end I headed to Gympie about an hour and a half north of me.  There lives my very good friend L and B.  I haven't had much of a chance to get away to L and B's for eons...not since I bought the business.  I was open every Saturday.   Now that I'm working Monday to Friday again I intend to spend more time with them.  L loves to card make and scrap book.  B loves to cook and he cooks a fantastic steak.  I'm still drooling over the perfectly cooked 1in steak that was my dinner on Friday night when I arrived.

We had a lovely evening enjoying the food and a couple of drinks.  Was a wonderful way to relax.

The next morning however, was when the fun stuff began.  We spent the entire day in the air conditioned craft room crafting.  L was working on some scrapbook pages.

And I did some crochet and cross stitch.  I finished the scarf that I was doing for my sister.  I think it looks great.

The cross stitch is a long way from finished but I did get B's help with something.  Several months ago before the shop closed I commissioned a young friend to make me some frame stands.  These are just a V shaped arm with a bolt and wing nut to hold a tapestry frame.  I needed holes in my tapestry frame to attach the frames stands.  This is where B helped.


It is such a great little device... allows you to set it up at a table or on the arms of a chair and just stitch away.  I will say that ending off is a little more annoying as you have to turn it over and around to be able to get the right direction for the sew under.  But this annoyance is so minor compared to the freedom it allows.  Working two handed is great.

I just have to come up with a way of being able to easily see my patterns.  An A4 stand isn't big enough as I blow up the patterns onto A3 sheets for easier seeing and marking off.  I'll have to think about this problem a little longer....unless someone else can think of something.

It is so nice to just be with a good friend and do something we enjoy. 

Lamb chops and salad WITH beetroot

What more could an aussie girl want for lunch on Australia Day?  I have just had lunch with a friend celebrating Australia Day.  The fun thing is that this friend was born in the USA and still has a very strong accent but she loves being an Aussie and it was HER idea.  I'm a born and bred aussie and while I'm extremely proud of being an aussie I've never really celebrated Australia Day.  Maybe I need to change that from now on.

Something different

I just saw a great idea.  It's different.  And I like different sometimes.  Recently I found a blog that piqued my interest and have been following.  This is the latest post from Thrifted Treasure. 

There is something fun going on in Blogland, here's how it works...

- I will make a handmade gift for the first 3 people who comment on this post.

- I have 365 days to do it in...

- What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise!

The catch is you must participate as well:

- You must have a blog and before you leave your comment here, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going.

Many blessings

Thick as a brick

I've been silent on here for a week or so.  Mainly because life has been fairly hum drum.  Nothing much happening between working and sleeping.  However, there has been a hidden story line going on. With the end of my business there is the inevitable 'clean up' of everything.  The most major of these of course was firstly getting a job and now paying off the debt. 

Recently the bank called and we had a good chat.  Out of that came the paperwork. 

I had two weeks to complete a stat dec giving my current financial situation and a proposal on how I would like to pay the debt. This totally overwhelmed me.  I just looked at it and thought about it... and looked at it some more.

Finally, realising I had to send it no later than last mail yesterday I started doing something with it on Monday.  It is in the mail and should have been received today.

The interesting thing about this is the automatic behaviours within myself.  I have been in situtations like this before where I come up against something that 'scares' me in some way and I procrastinate.  In my mind it grows and becomes far greater spectre.  However, the moment I make a start on it the spectre shrinks and shrivels until the job is done and is 'suddenly' non-existant. 

Why do I do this?  Why do I not learn this lesson?