I love being a mom. I love staying at home. I love being a stay-at-home mom. Sometimes though, you can get a bit crazy. Admit it. Staying at home 24-7 can randomly send you spinning out of control. I should know….I have occasionally spun out for 12 years now.
How out of control, you ask?
Like the time I decided to become a Stampin’ Up demonstrator. My husband was in dental school, we had two kids, received a $950 stipend and our rent was $700. We didn’t have enough money for things like nice toilet paper and brand named cereal, let alone a $150 demostrator kit. But I was hooked, and I was going to be top SU demonstrator, and I was going to win the pink Cadillac. (Or wait, maybe it was a tote bag.)
Then there was the time that I had randomly found Hand Painted Mosaic Tiles on eBay. What the…….????? My idea was born and it was sweet. Everyone would have kitchen sink backsplashes containing my creative musings. I bought oodles of ceramic paint, cleared out Home Depot of little tiles, and got to work. I actually sold some of them and possibly even paid for my supplies. But then we moved to Germany, my paints dried up in storage, and so did my dreams of being a world famous mosaic tile artist.
It gets even better. One day I went to a bead store with my mom. I’m creative and artsy. I did some research and bought a book called “How to Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be”. So why couldn’t I purchase a couple of thousand dollars in beads and start a jewelry business? My husband rolled his eyes as I slowly began to amass my stash of BEADS and Three Girlies designs was born.
Amazingly, within about 3 months my bridal and bridesmaid sets took off. I could not make them fast enough. In year one I made a little over $10,000 and was sitting in my trendy uptown design studio at my kitchen table, creating unique Hollywood worthy jewelry for the stars making the same boring necklace and earring sets over and over and over. I was an assembly line worker and a packaging company. Instead of figuring out how to outsource to China, I threw all my beads in a couple of plastic totes and shoved them up into a closet. Fast forward a few years and I start this blog. I definitely need a new camera and I NEED to hire a blog designer. I have no idea what I am doing but I am pretty sure that I could be world famous. For reasons I can’t comprehend, my husband is hesitant about buying me the $800 camera. I wonder why?
What is wrong with me???? If I had stuck with it, could I have been top demonstrator for Stampin’ Up? What would have happened if I responded to the e-mail from a custom tile company who loved my designs? Was there something to the idea I had of making a pitch to David’s Bridal, to create a line of jewelry for them? Again I ask, what is wrong with me????
So here I am once more, at the precipice of greatness……okay maybe not greatness, but I can tell it is somewhere important. It is somewhere important, because I can quit blogging and let it swirl into my ever spinning out-of-control tornado of unfinished projects, or I can just keep typing. And it doesn’t matter that my husband won’t let me buy an $800 camera for a few foodie posts. And it doesn’t matter that I get sick of cooking sometimes and so I blog about running or going out of my mind.
It doesn’t matter because this is me. I am a crafty stamper, an artsy painter, and a classy jewelry designer. I am a runner and oh I forgot to mention, a licensed hairstylist. I am a wanna-be graphic designer, a mommy blogger, and my husband’s biggest cheerleader.
They may seem like crazy endeavors, but there is a reason behind all that madness. I actually haven’t went insane all these years of staying home doing laundry. He might not know it quite yet, but my husband will love me MORE after he buys me the camera. (Heck, he might read this…I had to try.) For my girls, I am an endless example of, “You can be whatever you want to be when you grow up.”…..and I think that’s a pretty great kind of mom to be.
Hmmmmmm…..I wonder what I am going to be next?
