First off, apologies for the latency in blog upkeep. My newfound freedom afforded me the luxury of some planned and unplanned travel, first to Victoria, BC, then to Cabo San Lucas, MX and lastly to Copper Mtn, CO. Three countries in three weeks! And my fourth scheduled for next month — the long awaited Australia trip!
I know the travel sounds crazy for someone who has just quit her job and is planning to pour all of her savings into a new business, but a) the trips were prepaid (from when I had income!!) and b) isn’t that the point of being self employed and living life to its fullest?
I can’t help but have a bit of guilt, though. After nearly a decade of deadlines, deliverables and dealing with corporate BS, I’m like a caged bird that’s almost forgotten how to fly! I just have to remind myself that I deserve this, and that after October 16, it’s likely I won’t be vacationing again anytime soon.
So, what have I done on the work front?
Well, I’m a little bit in limbo until I finalize my lease. I’m hoping to have a signed contract by end of month. Until that’s complete and I have a storefront address, I can’t order any inventory or even receive the new catalogs from my art supplies distributor, I can’t renovate the space, buy furniture, make hires, etc.
There are some things I could do, like start the website, start printing images for the image library, shop discount art books, talk to workshop facilitators… but I kind of want to be in the space to really get all of that going as well.
What I have done is: tested the store name via web survey (BTW, ‘easel living cafe’ won by a landslide but I’m feeling it’s a bit Martha Stewart, no?), engaged with an architect to confirm my kitchen build-out expectations, set up appointment to meet with plumber to get firm quote on kitchen build-out, bought new camera, received scaled floorplans and sketched several floorplan designs, and bought Accounting for Dummies (no I haven’t read it yet, I’m not that bored).
So I’m slowly inching along. I’m not worried though, this tends to be my nature. I need to feel the pressure, feel it’s real and then go full charge. My body probably knows I need the rest now to ramp up for all that’s coming down the pipeline. Still, it’s a little boring!
I’ve been in touch with my old agency for freelance gigs but they’re a bit slow right now. I’ve also been looking for renters/roommates to help with the financial situation. I’ve been thinking about doing some new business for Lettuce, but it’s difficult because I really only have 2 weeks before Australia and then once I’m back, I’ll be immersed in Create Blank!
So I think I need to be content with being content right now, and understand that waiting is just a natural part of the game.
And there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the moral of the story…
Now, a quick antidote related to the post title: “the universe”
So 2 days ago I set out to resurrect my blog and decided to update the “About” page. After all of the esoteric content that I’d written previously — “Create Blank is inspiration, Create Blank is a third-place, a home away from home…” I wrote, “Okay, seriously, WHAT THE HECK IS CREATE BLANK?” and then proceeded to provide a detailed description of the four service offerings, how they’re structured, promotional activities, you name it.
So then, all of a sudden, my hand twitched and hit the click pad, a double-twitch, and would you believe it, the mouse was hovering right over the “delete” button. It all happened so quickly and then I was left staring at the login page for wordpress. When I logged back in, the page was completely gone.
Ughhhhh! It sucked so bad! The whole time I was writing, I was thinking how great all this content would be for the website, that I could pretty much use it verbatim… Even the esoteric part, it was a perfect mission statement! I was SO frustrated, devastated, drained… I spent an hour trying to recapture the content through every search engine’s cached web pages to no avail.
But then I started thinking, just about how it all happened… the random twitch, the perfect placement of the mouse. What the hell? Was the universe trying to tell me something? And so I’m resolved to think that yes, the universe was protecting me from publicizing all of my ‘trade secrets’ or something of that nature — this devastating disaster of technology happened for a reason.
Maybe it softens the blow to come up with this conclusion, and maybe there’s no meaning behind it at all. But I sure am happier thinking that things like this are wrapped up in some form of destiny, fate, what have you, however unfortunate and twisted it may feel at the time.
Positive thinking and faith. I think these will be key to keeping me moving forward and finding success. Remember, practices your virtues on the small speed bumps and you’ll be more prepared to apply then to the big hurdles you face as well.
