Fresh Berries

A day late, but...

 

...Happy Birthday, Lucy!

 

 

You're two years old (yes)terday

and I still love you, despite it all.

Mom

Lately, there's been a lot of this going on...

 

Of course, at our house it looks more like this:

 

And I'm not the only one.

 

 

Two nights ago, we were treated to this amazingly rare sight here in Licking: northern lights that reached into Arkansas and astounded those of us blessed enough to see them. I credit Alex Roberts for sensing them, spotting them and sharing them. His article will appear at this link later this week.

 

Photo by Alex Roberts, science geek extrordinaire, and a darned good photographer to boot.

 

After this display, you'd wonder what else could be happening. Well, I helped a friend dress this loom, which just came into her life and of which I am insanely jealous...

 

 

...while my own weaving lies dormant in the setting sun...

 

 

...because I'm busy doing this:

 

 

...and this:

 

 

Outside, of course, there's a lot of this going on...

 

 

...and this...

 

And while this little photo essay doesn't capture the peripheral activities (such as interviewing people, writing articles and fielding lawsuits, sharpening translation resumes, attending 4 a.m. webinars and boning up on German, revamping diets and relearning how to cook, cleaning out the clothes closet and trying everything on), it does account for the more important things in life.

 

Which means that at our house you will find us, frequently and unapologetically, doing this...

 

...which I may yet do some of today.

 

Whatever you decide to do today, have a wonderful time doing it.

Wishing you blessings, from us at Moose Lodge

 

 

The undone pieces.

 

 It's an introspective day at Moose Lodge...but then, when isn't it?

It's not surprising that I'm a little more reflective than usual these days. For one thing, my 60th birthday is three months from today. (By the way, I'm welcoming this event with open arms because I've learned you may as well grow older with a smile. Your face will thank you in the end.)

Nevertheless, at almost 60, I'm a woman in transition, floating in a kind of weightlessness between the emotional events of the past three years and the new life that's looming on the horizon. My job is about to change. With all the good this will bring, it also means I'll soon be much busier at the office than I am now. So, while I'm grateful my situation is improving when many others aren't, I give thanks for the peace and quiet that is my life today.

And in the quiet, I can't help reflecting as I string my beads and watch the years pass by.

After a year and a half in this new place---learning it, navigating it, absorbing it, and accepting its ways---I've finally reached the point where I can begin differentiating myself from it.

For me, this means bringing things I've loved from my past into my present. Some of them are small. I've resubscribed to The Brattleboro Reformer, for example. This is the newspaper I used to read every day when I lived in Vermont. It's quirky and interesting, and it keeps me in touch with something important. And I'm ordering my favorite coffee in the world, a unique Vermont blend I've dearly missed. I don't live in Vermont anymore, but why shouldn't I enjoy those things I loved when I was there? They have, after all, become part of who I am.

Some, though, are bigger things. I've completely lost my sense of fitness and style. I have no idea how to be or what to wear. This will sound ludicrous to anyone who hasn't experienced it, but for someone who loves to feel good in colorful clothes, dumming down your wardrobe is unnecessary and depressing. Who is this old woman looking out of the mirror at me? The me that was always my friend seems to have gotten lost along the way.

So here I am, at almost 60, reclaiming myself, and I'm not reclaiming anything I don't love.

I'm skimming the past for those shining moments when I felt my best and looking to see what it was that made them shine. Some things that shine from a distance aren't so lovely when inspected up close. Others are surprisingly endearing. And enduring.

 

*

 

On the whimsical side, one of the things that has stayed with me since my time in New England is my love for the Red Sox. So please excuse me as I'm off to watch them try once again to squeak past the Yankees into the post season.

 

While I watch the double-header today, I'll be working on one of my unfinished necklaces, probably this one:

 

It's a bit of an experiement and the jury's still out. I call it The Not-Round Necklace. On the front are stone beads, and the clasp is a round copper snap that complements them very well. The wavy ends are not part of the design but rather what I'll be sewing in today. One of these days, I'm going to have to make something with ends waving around. There's a wildness I really like, if I can figure out how to keep them from just being annoying.

 

*

 

In the meantime, from Moose Lodge on this gray, introspective day, Fuzzy Wild Thing says goodbye.

 

 

Introducing...The Necklace

Yay!

So, here it is: my first sale for Fresh Berries Beadwoven Art! It was delivered to the birthday girl and I'm free to share.

However, that's not where the story ends. It turns out that this particular design doesn't fit the birthday girl's wardrobe or lifestyle. The solution is that she will send it back to her mother, who will keep it because SHE loves it, and the birthday girl will get something more suitable.

Me? I'm delighted that the necklace is finding a home with someone who will love it and wear it.

There you go.

 

*

 

Today, I covered the Licking Mill Festival for the newspaper. It's raining like nuts and the weather chased all the vendors inside, but this annual celebration of the historic mill here in the middle of town was musical and colorful nonetheless.

Here's the mill at last year's festival, when it wasn't raining:

 

 

And today, inside, The Sunny Side Up Band from Licking and West Plains with some GOOD bluegrass:

 

 

And a peek at the quilt show upstairs, a penny a vote:

 

 

*

 

You might be excused for thinking this blog is about anything but writing a novel.

Well, last week, I hauled out my manuscript and fiddled with it. This morning I got started again for real. I cut and pasted, condensed and expanded, and rewrote Chapter One. I can't express how good this feels---which I actually should be able to do, being a writer and all.

I'm happy it's raining today. And I hope it rains tomorrow, too. Rain makes me write, so I figure the more it rains, the sooner I'll get an agent.

Since I can't show you a picture of my writing, here's a look at the setting. Lots of beach, lots of hills, lots of Sonoma County.

 

 

 

And please, if you're the photographer of one of these pictures, let me know so I can either add your name or take the image off my blog, whichever you wish. I use your photo as inspiration when I write, and I thank you.

 

*

So long for now from rained-upon Moose Lodge.

 

 

A preponderance of beads.

This is a little something I'm playing with. It makes me smile.

Here's the full view, as far as I've gotten:

 

 

The loom is Don Pierce's Larry the Loom. I like its size and adjustability, and the fact that working on a white background is nice. With my other looms, I always end up putting a black or white board behind the beads so I can see what I'm doing.

I'm having fun with this piece, but I think that when it's done it can only be worn with white clothes. The beads are semi-transparent. That gives the piece a kind of glow when you see it in person, but any color that's directly behind it affects the color of the beads.

So far, I'm calling it Heavenly Sky Necklace. If it stays a necklace, I'll fit it with a cosmic silver clasp, like a moon or stars. Or maybe I'll just hang it in the window when I'm done.

 

*

Red Toe Shoes is coming along as well. About two more inches and she'll be done. She's hard to photograph because the beads are glossy and reflective. After all, she's meant to be dancing against the sky!

 

 
 

*

 

Just so you know, I don't just bead. I also eat. I made myself a Pumpkin Cheesecake today, low-carb. Here's a picture of dinner.

 

 

 

And here's a goodbye from my furry assistant on this cozy, overcast day at Moose Lodge.

 

 

Getting a grip

Not my strong point.

I can't count the times I've drawn diagrams of my life, or what I could see of it, with arrows and bubbles and captions, trying to pull in the squiggly ends to make some kind of sense so I could move forward without wondering what I'd forgotten that was about to ambush me from a dark corner.

I keep trying to hold life in my hands. Oversee it all, not be surprised...at least, not to the extent of being knocked off my feet.

Once, at the fresh new start of a long-term relationship with a man I eventually married, I shared with him a peek at what he could expect. I brought him the current diagram of my life. My entire week as I envisioned it, with blocks of time highlighted in neon and his name penned in.

If he'd had any sense, he would have turned tail and run. Instead, he put up with my diagrams for years to come, until even I could see they were pointless.

Why do I do this? I think I've learned.

One day, in my early twenties, I declared to a friend over lunch that I made art I because I had to. He dismissed it as dramatic bosh and I felt pretty silly for having said it, but really, it was true, and I didn't need to feel silly about it at all.

Some people are driven to build, some to fly, some to heal. I'm driven to write, to draw, to paint, to weave, to make...whatever. My famous diagrams of life are a valiant battle to carve out the room and time to do it.

Years ago, I had an uncharacteristic job at a reinsurance company in Switzerland. One day, a co-worker told me I was lucky to have painting in my life.

"'Lucky, my ass,'" I said. "I work hard to keep painting in my life."

It wasn't by chance then, and it's not by chance now. Still, a death grip is not the best way to keep something alive.

Yesterday, I walked across the street from the newspaper office here in Licking to the museum to snap some pictures at one of their painting workshops. This one was being led by Lanie Frick, local painter, instructor, horsewoman and all-around nice person.

Lanie's workshops are happy places. People have fun there and learn at the same time. And it's wonderful to see the folks, some self-proclaimed artists or crafters and some not, who make the time to keep color alive in their lives.

We all prioritize the things we love. We give them attention and feed them, and then they grow. If we let them die, they do. That's what I've learned. Focusing on lack of time creates greater lack of time. Focusing on art creates more art.

That's my theory and I'm sticking to it.

 

§

 

One last word: My necklace is on its way to the birthday girl. As soon as I know she's received it, I'll post a picture.

In the meantime, I'm playing around with Fresh Berries...

 

 

...but that's a story for another day.

 

And the biz never stops

 

Sometimes it's nice to have a pretty picture for no special reason at all.

 

§

 

Been working like a maniac (a very calm and focused maniac), but in between beads, I'm peeking at sites about craft marketing. Two links I found that look interesting and helpful: Craft Business Blog and Craft Marketer.

Lots of information and inspiration in both. I'm especially intrigued by a blog entry entitled Tell Your Craft Business Story. Crafts and stories--my two favorite things!

I've just about finished the necklace I've been working on to fill my vey first order for FRESH BERRIES Beadwoven Art. Still waiting on the clasp, so tomorrow I'll go on with Red Toe Shoes, which is quickly becoming a sun catcher. Pictures to come.

 

§

To all of you on the esat coast, my thoughts and prayers are with you this weekend. Having lived through the great tornado swarm of the spring, I feel what you're going through. Take care and may God bless.

The beautiful side of the business

 

These are the straps of the necklace I've been working on. It's completely woven now but I left it on the Boomerang for safekeeping.

When you run a one-person business from your home, you wear all the hats there are, and right now in this business there are two: the craft hat and the business hat. I strive to stay balanced between the two, but this weekend I put one on and didn't take it off. Four days, nothing but beads. Call me cross-eyed but happy.

The next step is cutting the whole piece off the loom and sewing in those lovely warp ends, all 172 of them (86 top and bottom). I actually like sewing in warp ends. That's when a piece gets its wonderful finished look and the odd dropped bead is picked up. Everything is perfect. And it gets a clasp.

And then it's done!

There will be more business to do this week, things like target markets and strategies, but I'll be back at those loose threads just as fast as my fingers will carry me.

Have a good Monday!

 

The most important element of my business: Thought.

Many beautiful images, like a mountain peak or a beam of light, capture the idea of single-mindedness. But I like this one because it's intentional and clearly human made.

The painting is called "Magic Circle." I don't believe that intentional thought is magical in any way, but the "magic" of a magic circle alludes to an important eternal principle: the concentration of thought to bring things about.

In this sense, I've been drawing my own magic circle this week. Everything I've done has been with my goals in mind.

I've read and written about this principle many times. This week, the hook deepened.

One more lesson: persevere.

§

Not by the way, there are two sides to intentional thought. It is well to remember that every thought is a prayer, and there is One who hears that prayer.

Here's a poem I got from a book called Working with the Law by Raymond Holliwell. An old-fashioned illustration of how it works.

 

Thoughts Are Things

 

I hold it true that thoughts are things;

They're endowed with bodies and breath and wings;

And that we send them forth to fill

The world with good results, or ill.

That which we call our secret thought

Speeds forth to earth's remotest spot,

Leaving its blessings or its woes

Like tracks behind it as it goes.

 

We build our future, thought by thought,

For good or ill, yet know it not.

Yet so the universe was wrought.

Thought is another name for fate;

Choose then thy destiny and wait,

For love brings love and hate brings hate.

 

Henry Van Dyke

 

§

 

With this in mind, I'm off to start fulfilling my first order. Hey!

Greetings from the Bas-Kat.

 

This is how many ideas I have. So what?

 

These are sand dollars I collected on the beach in Mexico. I would walk next to crashing waves every morning and pick up shells and sand dollars as I went.

In Ensenada, sand dollars wash up on shore in the hundreds after a storm. The abundance was so great that some mornings it was all I could do to carry them. Of course, I had to pick up each and every flawless one, just for fun.

This is how many ideas are swimming in my head today.

 

§

 

You may have noticed that I changed the descriptor under my Fresh Berries blog title from "Rambling writer..." to "The blog behind the business..." That's because it's time to stop rambling and start focusing.

Today is a red-letter day.

I was thrown a challenge this week. It was a simple observation: "I don't think you really want to be successful."

Ouch.

Well, Durga, look around. If our surroundings reflect our states of mind, then I would have to agree. There are signs of contentment everywhere in my life, but not many signs of success. This is not good.

I knew that trying to convince with words would never work, so I resolved to demonstrate that yes, I did indeed want to be successful. This is what I did:

First, I started rereading (for the umpteenth time, but this time practicing it) Wallace D. Wattles' little book, The Science of Getting Rich. It is an amazing and powerful text.

Next, I shifted my thinking to envision the business side of what I do, not the art or craft. This was not as big a step as I thought it would be, but what a difference it made in my world view.

Here's the thing I realized, and this may be true for others of you crafters out there who also want to sell but have never connected to the marketing frame of mind: I will always make things. It's like breathing for me. I don't have to worry about that. It doesn't kill the art to place it in a business framework. Artists have made money with their art for centuries. The challenge is to embrace the unfamiliar business limitations as an artistic challenge and use them to create something new.

Simultaneously with this shift in thinking, I got my first paid commission for a bead item: a necklace intended as a birthday gift. Meeting the requirements of my customer is teaching me things I cannot learn in any other way. It's Business 101---but hey, you're never too old.

§

 

After all that, I signed up for Ryan Deiss's Digital Marketer Lab, which includes his Idea Incubator program. If you want to watch a video of what he's about, click here.

Many online marketing advisors and teachers have never sold anything except marketing advice. Ryan says this and I know it's true because I've bought things from them. Almost all of it is hot air. But I believe that Ryan's knowledge is based in experience and I value that.

I don't think I'm the kind of small business that Idea Incubator invests in, but what great information he offers! Clear, concise, and insightful baby steps to discovering the nature of my business and how to market it in a changing Internet environment.

So I've narrowed my plate of sand dollars down to two:

FRESH BERRIES Bead Art        and        Durga Walker, Author

Narrowing down was a feat in itself. But I'm learning.

§

 

By the way, did you know that sand dollars grow on the ocean floor, standing on end until turbulent seas dislodge them and deposit them on the shore?

 

If you want to see more beautiful images, scroll through these.

 

Have a wonderful day, and remember to take your ideas in your hands.