What it takes

I realized I don't talk very much about how this all started, you know, the obsessive knitting, the crocheting and then the business, market, Etsy shop, blog, all of it. But as I was taking pictures of this new necklace (which I even managed to list in my shop), I thought back to that hot day in June four years ago, when, with a bit of frustration and all the courage I could muster, I marched out to the pole barn and said to Kevin out of the blue, "I'm just gonna do it. I'm just gonna make a bunch of stuff that I like and try to sell it at the farmer's market in the city", as if he was against the idea somehow. And that's really how it began. First with a very small dream, but mostly with a healthy dose of courage I didn't even think I had and the support to slowly put it all in place.

I taught myself to knit while pregnant with our second child, seven years ago, from a book that I bought at Ben Franklin. I bought needles and some awful acrylic yarn and struggled and fumbled with it for months during my son's nap time, all while watching coverage of the towers coming down and the subsequent war.

Crochet came two years later, again, learning from the least expensive book I could find at BF. I started that venture in the car ride on our way to the beach for a vacation. Each time the experience was memorable, probably because of how hard it was not only to learn, but also teach myself from two dimensional pictures. Anyone who has done the same probably shares my sentiment.

It still seems highly improbable, this whole hobby, business venture and obsession with making and selling when I look at it from a distance. When I stop to think about it all I am at my very core so grateful for that little dream, thankful for the healthy dose of courage I didn't know I had, and astonished at how great life can be in the smallest ways, the ones that don't attract fame and glory, but those that give back and enrich and make humble.

I'm sure the ice is at fault

I woke up in a panic at about 5 a.m., positive that my whole world was caving in and that I needed to fly downstairs, get on the computer and check my credit score. Luckily I realized right away it was just a crazy dream, that someone in a rental company had kicked Kevin and I out of a vacation rental because he said our credit was terrible. He was so mad at us and was throwing our stuff around the room with a disgusted look on his face and I was mortified and just so squirmy and uncomfortable I wanted to run for cover. I fell back asleep only to wake later hugely relieved that yet another preposterous dream was just a dream and I had no reason to be all tense and angry about something that didn't happen. Whew. You know that feeling, where you just think over and over, it was just a dream, thank goodness, just a dream.

I'm quite sure my moods fluctuate with the weather and I've had enough of the ice and rain thank you very much. They say now we may have thunderstorms this afternoon. What is this crazy place? So I'm blaming the dreams entirely upon it, the winter weather and ice. Or perhaps the idea of putting an addition on the house has something to do with it. No, on second thought, I'd rather blame the ice.

Although the day had a rocky start, things have smoothed out, the planets aligned themselves in just the right way and I've been able to finish an order that was taking me way to long to complete AND put the third coat of paint on the shelves. There are definite stages to painting. I find at first it's hard to get started, do the prep work and get in the right mindset. Then once I start and I'm happy and having fun, listening to favorite music, excited to have pretty painted shelves, then by the time the third coat comes around I start thinking, this is like knitting the second sock, or even worse, the third. But now they're done, they're done, they're done. Tomorrow we (Kevin) can screw in some hooks and we'll load 'em up. Of course there will be pictures.

It's a good day for...

Dreams and crochet. I'll explain later, if you have the time to read.

My setup with Betsey looking on:




I'm making headbands and belts, trying to build up the inventory for market season. I hope to be able to go to the Charlottesville Market one day in April before the Goochland Market opens in May. Here's one of the finished belts, I'm putting it in the shop later tonight.





Back to the part about dreams. In my daily blog reading jen lemen's post yesterday really resonated with me. She speaks of the internal struggle between "responsibility vs. dreams" and "my head vs. my heart", and the great divide "masquerading as common sense". That last part is so brilliantly put.I often think my dreams are still in the future, yet unattained, but today I was able to remember and realize that I AM living my dream. I'm living the dream today that I had a few years ago. In a few years I hope to be living the dreams I have today. Too often I think because I'm not making as much of a salary as I would if I was working full-time in PT that somehow my dream hasn't come true. As far as I know dreams and money really don't have anything to do with one another.


Other dreams have come true as well, and they are marriage and family, both of which are happy, healthy (physically, emotionally, spiritually), and loving. These are big, ongoing dreams that aren't always easy to come by, but here I am living them as well. Again, no money involved.