Down to Business

Alright!
No more excuses. This is it. All of the children are officially back at school. No more fucking around. This is serious.

No more Perez all day, no more reading on the porch all afternoon. It's time to buckle down and start rolling the dough.

There will be serious writing going on, serious web site design, serious tufting and serious big pimping to sell all my shit and bring in the Benjamins.

No more Jack Johnson, John Mayer, or Coldplay. It's all NIN, Micky Avalon, and Dr Dre.

I've been biding my time since February waiting for this very day, so I had better show some effort, and have something big to cross off my list today.

So far nothing comes to mind. I'm frustrated, and stuck in the mire of 6 months of being a stay at home mom. I'm excited, but don't know where to start and what will produce the most results. My gun is still broken, and I lack any funds to start up my web site other than just buying the domain name.

So it looks like I will be writing. It's the one thing that I can do for free and all it will cost me to get it out there is a stamp and a free web site.

This is the day that I said I was going to start writing everyday. This was when I was going to start writing whether I had found an idae to run with or not. I'm
just going to write and write and hopefully get better and better, and again, hopefully, find someone who wants to read what I write.

Here goes nothing..........

Appliance Breakdown

Apparently the lifespan of the average appliance is 5 years since every single appliance in our house has broken this year except for the dishwasher which I expect to go at any minute now.

First it was the oven.

Then it was the dryer.

Now it is the freakin refrigerator. Of all the appliances I can't live without this one reins supreme. I just used the toaster over when the over was out and had to do without cookies and brownies. When the dryer was out I just hung the clothes outside, but the fridge?

I have an extra freezer which is now stuffed to the brim with tater tots and fish sticks, but the fridge side will not all fit into out picnic coolers. My condiments will all have to be replaced (which is probably not a bad idea with or without the fridge broken). My M&M's are warm, and I have 4 jugs of milk and no where to put them. Argggggh!

And then to make matters worse..... I finally got a rug up on the rack and started tufting this weekend, and then today when I went back out to start a whole day of rug tufting the speed control switch broke and would only work at 500 mph. This was the 2nd time I had used the gun since I bought it back in January. Thankfully I called the manufacturer and they are going to send me a new speed switch free of charge, but if it has to come from Germany it will take 3 weeks for the part to get here. Arghggggh!

Just when I thought everything was smooth sailing and the kids were back at school, the gun breaks and now I'm on hold indefinitely. Two steps forward and one step back is an understatement.

I'm going to have to buy some sage to try and drive out the evil gremlin that is affecting all of my appliances. Is there such a thing as an appliance gremlin? If there is he has moved into my house.

Tha Library

I'm going to update my thoghts and feelings on the library. I think in was back in March that I posted a tirade about the evil grossness of the library, but after months on going there to get my book fix I think I have changed my mind.

It's still gross, I have to wipe off most books with a Clorox wipe before I open them, but I think I have begun to understand that magical mystery coolness of the library.

I used to have a $300/month book habit. I would order with abandon from Amazon and walk out of Barnes and Noble with armfulls of books. I would wind up with some clunkers, some absolute trash, and a rare diamond. I didn't care. I had the money to spend and they looked beautiful on my shelves.

Now that I am no longer working I have had to find another way to feed my massive appetite for books. I started going to the library out of pure raw desire to have a new book in my hand. And I'm not talking about $15 paperbacks. I love giant Tashen and Rizzoli books with glossy full spread photos, a full 3 lb weight, and over 400 pages of high brow text. Those kinds of books are not in my price range anymore, but I have since stumbled upon them at the library.

The past few months I have come to know the shelves of the library as well as the shelves at my local Barnes and Noble. When I first ranted about the library I had yet to find the travel books, the history books, or even the fiction section. I had forgotten how to use a card catalog and the Dewey decimal system. Now that my mind has been reintroduced to this wonderfullness I can take full advantage of the library.

I can walk out with stacks just as big as the ones I used to buy from B&N, only now there is no buyers remorse, or credit card guilt. If a book is sucky, I can take it back the next day. If it is a good read, I can return it when I am done, if the book is a true diamond I will hunt for it on Abe Books and hopefully but it for $1 and know that it is worth every penny (plus shipping and handling).

I can't say that I will always use the library, but for now it is making me tolerably happy. As soon as I am able, I will be right back to my book spending habits, but I will proably still use the library to seek out only the really good books to add to my at home library.

Sacred Sedona

Sometimes I forget that just 30 minutes down the mountain is one of the most beautiful places on earth. Since I seldom leave my house during the week things can get very overwhelming what with the children and my dear husband working 14 hour days.
So this weekend we left the kids with grandma and took a night out. We didn't go to the movies, we didn't get dressed up, we just got in the car and drove down the canyon to Sedona.
For those of you not familiar with Sedona, it is one of the most magical mystical places in the world. The light is different, the air feels different and the sun feels different. It is a place that always feels "right". Besides the city itself, there are places in the rocks that are called Vortexes. They have a certain strange magnetic vibration. you can't feel it just by walking near it, but if you sit and relax and listen to the rocks, and feel the sun and the air and try and clear your mind you can feel it. It is easier to meditate near them than it is anywhere else.

We often go down there with our ipods and sit and try and regroup and recharge as my husband calls it.
I've never been a very religious person, but I was raised Lutheran and spent a lot of time in churches growing up. I love the beautiful church architecture and I appreciate them for their history and their architectural beauty, but I have never felt at peace inside of one.
I feel closer to god and to the universe as a whole sitting on a rock in a vortex in Sedona than I ever have in a church. I don't think there is anyplace else on earth that has that feeling for me. It is such a spiritual place. If we don't go down at least once a month we start to get jittery and angry. If Sedona is the center of the calm warm universe of positive energy, then Flagstaff is the exact opposite filled with tension and negativity.
After sitting for 45 minutes I felt like the weight of the world had been lifted off my shoulders. I felt like I could go home and be with the kids for another 2 weeks until school starts. I was questioning my sanity before, but felt inspired to work again after.
It works like a drug to me. After the horrible week I had I felt like a new person.
If I was smart I would just schedule a once a week meditation session on my rock and I would never be angry or upset and always have the energy to get through the tough weeks.

Positively Miserable

I just can't be positive all the time. Today is a real downer. It's not just today, but today I'm feeling it more than ever.
Life is supposed to be about constant change and a surprise around every corner. I could sure use one today.

All I see before me is a monotonous spread of days just like the one before. Frosted Flakes, treadmill, business books, yell at the kids, take kids to something to try and entertain them, salami sandwiches, work on my rugs, afternoon snack, read a book, try and find something to make for dinner, dinner, baths, solitaire on the couch while watching Chelsea Lately, Carl gets home, put kids to bed, watch Carl eat dinner, put Carl to bed, read until after House Hunters.

This can't be all there is. Should I feel the security of the sameness of it all?

I feel tired of being a mom 24 hours a day for the past 9 years. I feel tired of never seeing my husband. I feel tired of not having any money. I feel tired of feeling tired.

I just get the feeling that this everyday nothingness is not what I was put here to do with my life.

When will things get better? When will there be surprises and family vacations that are more than a 6 hour car ride away? When will I enjoy life again? Life was not meant to be a day by day struggle just to stay sane.

ARGGGHHHHH!

It's probably just my hormones, but I'm allowed a day or two a month to wallow in my less than stellar life.

It's nothing that a $25,000,000 check couldn't fix instantly.

I'm gonna step out on a limb and say that at this point in my life, money could indeed buy me happiness. It wouldn't fix all my problems, but it would definitely make the most bothersome ones go away.

Great Recession Update

There have been a lot of bad signs of the horrible economic times in town this week and it's almost getting a bit overwhelming.

1. The 1 and only Blockbuster video in town was seized by the bank last week. Customers and employees showed up to find the locks changed and the store stripped of everything. Apparently the owner defaulted on a $160,000 loan and the bank seized the assets of the store to be sold at auction.

2. The house down the street has gone into foreclosure. It sold in 2007 to a family from California for $900,000, but they just up and left one day and it is now owned by the bank and on the market for $500,000. That is really going to jack up our property values.

3. Another house down the street had a huge auction over the weekend selling the entire contents of the house. I don't know the particulars, but it didn't look good.

4. The bike store/ coffee shop/ snowboard rental store down the street from my office downtown is suddenly empty. We drive by every day and on Friday everything was gone and there was a huge for lease sign out front.

5. There are 2 more office for lease signs on the street my office is on. Another engineer is moving out, and someone else. That puts my chances of sub-leasing my space at slim to none.

6. So far this year there have been a total of .......7! housing starts in Flagstaff. Seven permits in 6 months. That is insane. No one is building.

7. We were turned down by every bank imaginable this last week for our new truck purchase. We finally found a bank in Minnesota, but every local bank wants nothing to do with us. Even American Express, a company we've been with for the last 5 years won't help us. It's ridiculous how banks have stopped lending on even the most mundane things.

I'm usually very optimistic, but this is starting to look grim.

The only consolation is that the shipping business is rocking. We are so busy.

Carl, who has been working from 5am to 7pm for the last few weeks, is seriously rocking a David Beckham physique. I guess running around all day in 80-90 degree heat lifting 50-150 pound boxes while running is a great workout. Who knew? He's starting to get hit on by all his late 20's to early 30's customers at the mall. He has become the "hot delivery man" to all the store managers.

I am sad to say that he currently weighs only 9 pounds more than me while I rock a Renee Zelwegger in Bridget Jones Diary or Drew Barrymore in Never Been Kissed type of physique.

I'm looking for a sign of good things to come, but I'm not too hopeful yet.

Tangible Evidence

It's working. I'm actually moving forward on my rug designs. I have 10 designs for me to tuft here in my studio and 10 designs to send to Nepal for hand knotting.

I've almost finished choosing colors for them all. I've contacted Nepal and I've ordered their color swatches. I've gotten my own FedEx account to make it easier to ship things back and forth to Nepal. I've started making my own tuft samples for my 54 colors that I already have here in the studio.

The next big steps are to get a rug up on my frame, start taking pictures for the web site, send my 10 rug designs to Nepal to get my 10 1'x1' strike offs to check the colors, then finish the web site with photos of the strike offs, and then start showing everything around.

I'm planning on taking a couple of days once school starts to go down to Phoenix and visit the high end rug showrooms and high end interior designers to show them my wares. Of course letting it slip that I'm an architect should get me right in the door, the rest is up to my rugs.

I'm getting excited. It really did work to just stop all the busy work and get down to what it was that I really wanted to do. The writing has taken a back seat, but that's okay. I feel good about moving forward with my rugs. If I am absent here it is because I am getting shit done and no longer writing about what it is that I want to do, but actually doing it.
Isn't that always the key to getting things done? It's so simple it bottles my mind.