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Health, happiness and being creative

The past several months I’ve been dealing with health issues, specifically a cancer scare. I’ve bern more svared for myself in the past two months than any other time, waiting for the phone calls from the hospital for weeks, living a month at a time between doctors appointments. I had my annual pap in march, a biopsy in april, and now am waiting till june to get the CIT’s removed. Ive been terrified, confused, crying and angry all at once, and its exhausting. So I decided to take control of my happiness. I researched the type of procedure im going to have done. I researched what exactly my options were, what exactly I have, evertything to give myself more knowledge and thus control over the situation.  I told myself over and over that I would be in good hands with the doctor. My husband has been a tremendous support to me, helping me stay positive and not letting me wallow too deeply in pity. He’s even taking a month off of work to help me out after my procedure. 
Since that first call from the hospital i’ve been depressed and basically uncreative. That

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yay for sales! Happy dance!

IMG_20130110_160648Last night, in the wee hours while i slept, I had my first ever repeat customer for either of my online shops. I had sold this lovely person a voodoo dolly broken heart keychain sometime last week. Link here: https://www.etsy.com/listing/120032480/voodoo-doll-broken-heart-keychain I made it, and sent it to the far off lands of Germany, and prayed that it got there in one piece. Well, I’m assuming that it has as last night he ordered not one, not two, but THREE items from me! That’s right! THREE items, which is amazing and the biggest sale, not montetarily, but quantity, that I’ve ever had. So he broke two of my firsts! Yay for this awesome man and yay for me! I’m not only international, but I’ve now got repeat customers. 😀 Now I have to get cracking on making two voodoo doll necklaces, and another keychain!

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Tiredness, good books and angelic daughters

My dryer broke down a few days ago, and while it’s an easy fix, it’s not one I can do alone, and until my husband has the time to help this weekend, I’m doing without.  Two of three screws that held the barrel in position sheered off. So I’ve been drying our laundry in the kitchen. I strung some string across the room in front of the stove, turn the oven on to a low temperature, turn the ceiling fan on full blast and proceed to turn the laundry over on the line every hour. It’s been to rainy and wet to do this out doors. My husband also doesn’t get home till after around five, when the suns heading below the horizon, which makes for difficulties as well. By the time his uniform is done washing, the suns down completely, and I’m left staying up till 2 or 3 rotating his laundry because only the laundry in front of the stove gets dried, which means usually his delicates are last to dry. I’ve been doing this all week, and let me tell you, it’s annoying and exhausting as I’m up  at 5:30 to get my son ready for school. It’s gotten to the point where I’m so tired that I don’t feel that I can go to sleep and wake up again. So I stay up and up and the morning hours drag on, I help my husband get ready for work when he wakes up at 4:30, he leaves at 5:15. I’ve stayed awake by reading the Howls’ Moving Castle book series by Diana Wynne Jones. I had no idea the books even existed till last week when my little sister told me of it. She and I have a shared fondness for the animated movie Howls’ Moving Castle. So in the hours and minutes in between finishing my “wifely” chore and the time my husband and eldest child wake up, I filled my noggin with amazing stories of wizards, eldest sisters, flying carpets, true love, and curses and spells. Needless to say staying awake after everyone’s off about their day and my youngest child, a quiet and precocious little girl who has a fine understanding of people’s actions and behavior, is incredibly hard. My baby girl is truly a quiet unassuming girl when she feels like it, and just by looking at me she knows I’m exhausted. So instead of asking for 20 different things and complaining about breakfast not being what she wanted it, she just looks at me, runs to the bedroom and gets my throw blanket and pillow and places them on the couch. My five year old daughter is mothering me, and doing a very convincing job of it. Her chocolate brown eyes are sympathetic, understanding and wiser than they should be. “Mommy, Take a nap. I promise I wont get into anything. I wont answer the door, I’ll just color and watch cartoons.  You’re a good mommy. I love you”   In those words, she helped assuage my fears of being a bad mother, letting me know that I had raised her do what is right, and that her intelligence and understanding are something any mother would be proud of. I took a short nap, keeping an ear on her and the cartoons, and was woken up a short while later too the sounds of knocking. My babysitting charge had arrived! Now to start the day.

My Goals for the day are to get the kitchen clean, exercise for at least 20 minutes, and finish up the three crafts i had started on Monday night.  I love working with sculpey clay, and have been making roadkill charms and pendants for necklaces, as well as monster eye hearts for valentines day. i have a set of lips to fire and paint as well. I’m hoping I will have the energy to do everything I set out to do, and am praying my husband is understanding if not all of the house is clean.

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Creativity unblocked and time management as a mother and wife

My new years resolution this year is the first one I have kept past the first week. It’s to learn time management. Setting specific times and goals each and every day that are easily achievable and help me to get myself on track. This hasn’t been easy, I’ve slacked a couple of days, specifically on the weekends.

I’m easily overwhelmed and stressed, I have a hard time focusing on anything for a long period of time if it’s not engaging my mind. I craft and create, I read and paint. That’s WHO I am. I’m generally a horrid house wife. I loathe cleaning, I love cooking, but the house is almost always a mess because I could never be bothered to clean it. I wasn’t happy cleaning, I wasn’t enjoying cleaning, therefore I didn’t do it. Let me just say right now, that as a wife, my husband and I always had different views on how the house should be. He wanted it spotless, I would squeek by. It lead to a lot of arguments and disagreements between us.

So this year, to make myself more productive, and my family happier, I came up with a resolution that I felt I could keep. Time managment. I would set aside a specific amount of time each day where I would clean. Did you know that if you clean for an hour each day, and tidy up each night, that your house can be presentable within three days? I set a two hour cleaning regiment for each day. My house isn’t perfect still, but i would no longer be ashamed to have my friends or family over. To keep myself happy while cleaning I set up a playlist on youtube of my favorite songs(8 hours worth of music), set it on shuffle, and sing, dance and clean until my alarm went off. Two hours passed so quickly that it was hardly a bother, and the house looked fantastic! In being able to do this some how unblocked my creativity. I have created and sold more in the past two weeks than any other two week period since I have been active in my shop on etsy ( http://www.etsy.com/shop/nothingbutamother ) and rebelsmarket http://www.rebelsmarket.com/rebelsbooth/nothingbutamother

I think that because I’m so much less stressed about the presentability of my home and my husband is so much happier, my creativity has bloomed. I actually have more time crafting and painting now even with the two hour’s of cleaning. There is less arguing, less stress, and a happier relationship with my husband, which of course makes for a much happier me. So happy crafting, and happy cleaning!