Things coming together slowly

We have never really had a place to do our crafty things.. that is not to say that there has never been a time that we have had places but it never seems to last, some other need for the space is found and we have to give up or share. A year ago we got a shipping container and the plan was for it to be part our crafty area and part storage for the garage (so the actual garage can be used for working on cars/trucks/motorcycles rather then just holding things)
Over the last year we have worked on it little by little and it is starting to feel like our space!! we have started to empty out Saga's room so that she has a room to use and I got to unpack a bunch of my boxes from the bus (a short bus that needs repair that has been a storage area for us) Unpacking was a roller coaster of emotions for me. I got to see old friends (books) that belonged to my great grandparents and that made me smile. I also found a book with my baby cards/announcements in it that made me cry. The page I turned too was the one with my fathers artwork on it. The announcement he designed that was never used.. something about me making my arrival a month early and a kind soul at church making the announcements for my parents (or something like that). As it has not been that long since his passing it hit me like a ton of bricks. so I set it aside and kept unpacking. before I knew it I found a book that made me smile again. Now we have moved most of the books to their new homes and filled a 8 ft long and 8 ft tall bookshelf that was made for us (and the top shelf for paperbacks is 3 deep...) and finally most of our books are out where we can get to them.. there are still a few here and there that need homes but we are getting there.
I can tell I am the daughter of book worms, I judge the homey quality of a place by the books... Hehe
We have also started getting our crafty stuff out there and organized as we go so that (gasp!) we know where things are!!! so now when we need something we know where to look and all that...
I do not have any pictures of it and part of that is that we have been so busy working on it and partly because my phone is being a turd and not saving pictures half of the time... grrr.. gotta nurse it for 4 more months..
So I will put in a picture of the Rose I kept from dad service in MI. I dipped it in wax several times and Honey made me a stand for it. The Oil lamp is just the perfect setting for it (My dad was a history buff, and one place we lived growing up we had to use them). I also put the Shell from Bampa (also passed) with it. This remembrance sits above my head as I sleep.. So they know I will always remember them, and keep them close to my heart..

Dreams, continued

I can never say it too much. We have big dreams. I have dreamed of owning a company called Wear Creations for as long as I can remember. I don't remember what the first incarnation of the idea was, but at one point it was fashion design. Another time it was crocheting. And wood working. Now that Wear Creations is a legal business, we are working hard to grow it to match our dreams. These dreams may not seem huge to most people, but to us they are. The first one is for the business to make a profit. Then we want to make enough to pay a few bills and save money. Just enough to help out around the house. Save money so we can buy a nice piece of property and start a homestead. After living for so long from paycheck to paycheck.  This would be huge for us. And slowly but surely we are getting there. Stay tuned for bigger and better things to come.

Learning

Over the past few weeks Lisa and I have been reading books about learning as Tryggvi is getting on to that age (he will be 5 this year!) and Saga will not be left behind...
What is fun is what we are learning about ourselves and what we have yet to learn. and how we need to start with us and show the kids that learning never stops. before you know it they will be on board with learning. If we do not start with us then the kids will not see learning as life long. We both want them to have a love of learning like ours where we never want to stop.. the catch for us is not lean not to push them but to guide them (first and foremost by showing the example).
As we have started to spend more time in our books (both fun reading and learning) we are seeing that the kids are wanting to spend more and more time looking at books and wanting us to read to them all the time!! this is wonderful!
the next step for us is to start a routine (gag) so that the kids know what part of the day we are on and what they can expect.. and this age mostly play and being read to, with chores and other needed things tossed in.
I know as we learn more and more we will post more on this as we are still in the learning process also.
One of the largest challenges we have with that is not us but others. Those that want the kids to be reading (or close) by now.. this makes our challenge helping them to understand why we are doing things the way we are. We are not the best at trying to explain it.. but we try. Tryggvi is not ready to read, but going over the alphabet once is ok, maybe twice if he is interested.  He is still having issues with simple numbers and some sounds, so we try to help him with those when he wants to (and a little other times). He is not SLOW or behind he is being a little boy just like he should. He does not need to focus on things for a long time yet! His brain is just starting to make some of the connections needed to focus for more than a few seconds. We need to make the most of each teaching opportunity. This means learning to stop what we are doing when that moment arrives. not always easy to say the least. but the kind of education we want our kids to have is one that is better than the one we got at that age (not trying to say ours was bad, but that we want to build on it).
Over all I think that we are well on our way to teaching leaders and thinkers.. I look forward to continuing to helping them develop.

Dreams

I know I've said it before, it always bears repeating. We have big dreams, both for Wear Creations and for ourselves.  The more we talk about these dreams, the more we plan and work on making them come true. So much has happened in the last year, but it is stuff we have been talking about and working on for several years. It just reinforces our ideas that we can do so much if we put in the time and effort to make it work.

4/22/16 For some reason part of this post was gulped by the word fairy... will get it fixed soon...

Love in different ways

I have always had trouble falling asleep @ night, growing up it was a curse as my dad did not understand how someone could stay awake after their head hit the pillow.. now I am naughty and spend time on the internet/ my phone when I am trying to will my body to sleep. The other night I came across this picture..

It started me thinking about my history with love and how true it is that love does not die, but sometimes it does not get replenished or reciprocated. But while looking @ my last break up I can see that the love was there from both of us, but the other could not see it. That then got me thinking about a book. This book has changed the way I look at relationships. Both romantic and not.. I have learned from this how to be a better friend, lover, and person.  I had read it before, but I have learned this 2nd part just in the last few months.. that is all people involved in the relationship must be on board with learning how to show love to others... because if one person is working on the relationship and the other is not then there will be little to no forward progress. 
The book is the 5 Love Languages. By Gary Chapman. It talks about how we all feel love in different ways and most of the time your language is not the same as your spouse. 
Over the last few months we have sat down and read it aloud in the evenings (not all but semi regularly) while we have not gotten far in the book, we are all seeing how growing and learning  can be beneficial for all of us.. and how the kids are going to see us learning how to show love in other ways, they can see how family should work.  Not saying that we never fight... but that we are always working on our relationship(s)

Anticipation

For the last month or so, Ellen and I have been waiting with bated breath. Finally this week we got the email we had been wanting to see. Handmade by Amazon has opened the Accessories department.  Since this is the category that most of our work falls under, we are going to be busy getting everything up in the next few weeks. We have most of it up on our website, but this way we should be able to reach a wider audience.
As I look back at the last year, I see how far we have come. Our personal lives have been really rough, yet Wear Creations has become a much more solid reality. It feels like the universe is compensating our personal losses with business success. That success doesn't make up for loosing our fathers, but it does provide a kind of balance in life.
So our exciting news this week will be followed by an announcement soon that all of our bags, shawls, and other stuff is available on Amazon.com. So stay tuned.

Change...

With all the "firsts" Lisa and I have been dealing with, and will deal with for most of the year.. it got me thinking about change. Change can be hard! But without change we are not growing, without growing we are dieing. The last part of that comes from my great grandmother Danie. She always said that the day you stop learning is the day you start dieing, as I have grown up I can see how true that is. As a kid learning is a given, you are always learning. Then when you finish school you think you are done learning, but the real learning is just starting (more about learning/school in later blogs.. as both Lisa and I have thoughts about that)
What has been sticking with me the last few days is how change is painful, fun, stressful... the range of emotions that it causes. Loosing our dads is the unpleasant side, watching the kids grow up is the fun side... we both want to keep working on learning and growing so we don't stagnant and start dieing. The things we have done just in the last year have proven that we are doing just that! In the last year we have done a lot with our business (not making money as much as learning) we have done things outside to improve our house. We have done a lot of work to the inside of the house to improve function. We almost have a functioning craft room. We have put in time and energy to spritual learning (and always feel like we need more time on that one). We are always putting in time and energy to helping the kids learn. We are putting in time and energy into relationships, both romantic and non. All this has changed us, but I think we are better people now than a year ago...

What started my thinking on this..