This has been a crazy year for me. After getting super pumped up excited to do great things in my shop at The Maker’s Summit my life got crazy. Pretty much immediately.

First, I went for a huge promotion at work.

Then, while I was waiting to hear back about it, our realtor called us. We’d been wanting to sell out house and move to Minnesota for several years. He told us that we had three weeks to get the house on the market, the neighborhood was hot.

I withdrew the application and started looking for jobs in Minnesota. I pulled Spiraling Forward down off etsy completely because I had to pack it up.

We put our house on the market the first week in July. We sold it 10 days later. The next week, we came to Minneapolis, looked at 30 houses, and bought one. 6 weeks later, we closed, Lily started Kindergarten, Austin started a new daycare and I stared working at a new Whole Foods.

It was a whirlwind.

Then, because, why would we ever want things to stay normal…we decided that the retail life wasn’t working for our family anymore. I’ll probably do a post on my personal blog about the decision sometime. At the beginning of November I put in my notice.

I’ve been officially a full-time writer, maker, mother and wife for one full week now. I thought I would get a lot more done this week. For one thing, I still have that LONG to-do list from The Maker’s Summit.

• I want to re-write all my listings
• I want to take all new pictures
• I have at least a dozen pieces that need to be finished off and listed.
• I want to write how-tos and make videos for the blog
• I want to pitch to media

That’s just a sneak peak. I’ve kept the shop “On Vacation” until I can get all of these things done.

And then I realized: Yes, the shop can be better. My titles and keywords and tags need to be improved. I have a great new mannequin and need to do new pictures, especially of my longer pieces.

But as long as there are no available listings, no one can see any of the cool stuff I have.

The jewelry is done. It is what it is, and I love it all, or I wouldn’t be selling it.

So, I reopened the shop, with the listings as-is. I don’t know when I’m going to have time to make all the changes I want to make, but I am working on them, slowly and steadily.

Thank you for your patience. Thank you for your support. This shop is a constant labor of love and under construction, so if you have suggestions, I’m all ears.

 

Today was the first day that I really felt like I no longer have a real job. I got up and took Lily to school, then went to a coffee shop and wrote for an hour. When I got home, I was exhausted (I don’t sleep well), so Chris was nice enough to let me take a 15 minute nap. When I got up he went down to his office and I took over Austin. By which I mean, I turned off the TV and told him to go play while I grabbed my laptop and settled in to the corner of our couch and continued to write.

You see, this morning, I thought I was about 4000 words away from the end of the book. I had the scenes all planned out.

But it got longer.

And longer.

I wrote for an hour, got Austin lunch (he was hungry at 10:30am) wrote for a while longer, and then took him to the library. I tried to write there, but the words weren’t coming. When we got home, I wrote for a while, then played an hour-long game of Sorry! (I won) and then wrote for a while longer. Austin and I took a 30 minute nap (two naps in one day!) after which I wrote again while Austin played. Then it was time to get Lily and make dinner.

So…total words written today: 5755.

But wait! Did you know I’m doing NaNoWriMo? Yeah, sometimes I forget too. Because I’m trying to finish the 4th re-write of the book I’ve been working on for the last two years, while also actually trying to entirely draft another book. That one isn’t coming along so well, but I’m still shooting to finish the draft by the end of the month. I have a really good outline, so I know where I’m going. I just need to spend the time to get there.

Oh, and btw, Your Pilates Life is almost done and about to be published. I realize writing all of this I need to update my writing page. It’s on my to-do list, I promise.

 

Spiraling Forward is coming back. Soon. I promise. I’ve been making new jewelry, I’ve started doing custom earrings. I’ve got a new mannequin and I’m excited to get better pictures done and re-launch my store.

It’s taking a little longer than I wanted. I talked about why on my personal blog. Click here to read it. And I look forward to being up and running again soon.

Today is my first day as a full-time writer, maker, and mother.

I haven’t been on this blog since March. Life has been busy. We decided to “explore the idea” of selling our house, something we’ve been doing every six months since we bought it in July of 2010. As recently as March we were told it would be 3-4 years before the market would come back enough for us to sell without going in the hole.

And then, for reasons no one understands, our neighborhood got hot. Really hot. Our realtor called us and asked if we could have it on the market within three weeks.

We did it in two.

It sold a week later.

The next week, we drove to Minneapolis, looked at 30 houses in two days, found and bought our dream house.

I grew up in Minnesota and have wanted to move back here to be closer to my family for approximately 10 of the 12 years I lived in Tennessee. But it was still hard move when we moved from Franklin, Tennessee to Minneapolis, Minnesota, the last week in August. I transferred from one Whole Foods to another, going from the Franklin, Tennessee store to the brand spanking new store in Downtown Minneapolis.

Two weeks ago we realized that the retail lifestyle was no longer working for our family and I put my two weeks notice in. We gave notice at Austin’s daycare. And now we’re here at home, ready to pursue the careers that make me happy. Writing. Making beautiful jewelry. And being a mother and wife.

When we moved, one of the first things I had to pack up was my office. So, Spiraling Forward has been “on vacation” since the beginning of June. I have set several re-launch dates, the most recent being November 15. Last Friday came and went and I wasn’t ready to re-launch. Then, last night, I heard that John Mayer is accepting applications for artisans to sell at his shows. I knew I couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

So, this morning, my first day home full-time with Austin, I got the camera out and settled in for a long day of photography, editing, and writing. My Etsy store needed to be up and going before I could to the application for the show.

By the way, the show is this Saturday, and, due to lack of space, exactly zero of my display items came with me.

No worries. I can get it all together this week if I’m accepted. It’s Monday, I’ll know if I’m accepted Thursday or Friday. Show is Saturday. Totally doable, right?

Wrong. My camera battery is dead. We have searched high and low and we can’t find it anywhere here, which makes us think we either left it at my parents’ house when we went up for their wedding, or it got lost somewhere between here and Tennessee.

So, no pictures today.

No application to sell at the John Mayer show.

No mad dash to get my Etsy site back up.

No freaking out Friday and Saturday to get a display together.

I’m disappointed that I won’t even have a shot to sell at the show. But I also am thankful. Now. I was super frustrated and almost crying this morning. But when Spiraling Forward re-launches, I want it to be beautiful. Ready. Refined. I don’t want it thrown together with half of the tags, titles and descriptions that I’ve known need to be re-written for almost a year now. I want to take what I learned at The Makers Summit last year and put it to use.

So. Hopefully soon. Maybe next Monday I’ll be writing the Maker Monday post I thought I’d be writing today. Maybe it will be a few Mondays from now. I don’t know. I do know that it’s going to take me some time to do it right.

And I’m just getting settled in to my new life.

I hope you’ll come back and check out this journey with me.