Daybook

I stumbled across a lovely blog earlier today: Better Than Eden and found a post (yesterdays, in fact) called ‘Daybook for a February Afternoon‘ and I really liked the idea of it. I don’t know if this is ‘a thing’ in the blogging world that I have just never seen before, or whether it is Mary’s original idea, but I love it and want to do something similar here. Perhaps it will help me blog slightly more frequently…? Mary, I hope you don’t mind. 🙂

 

outside my window…
Well, I’m currently killing time in my office before a midwife appointment. (I didn’t see the point in travelling home to travel back here in an hour when the appointment is literally across the road…) so I can see hundreds of teenagers milling about supposedly going to their fifth lesson of the day. Lots of them, however, are choosing to stand around chatting, which given that it’s raining I find peculiar. The view from the window is usually pretty dull, although there is a window above me which is beautiful on sunny days.

thankful for…
my job. I love my work. I’m looking forward to going on maternity leave, but I really do have every intention of coming back for a couple of hours a day to do what I’m good at with people I enjoy spending time with. I am so blessed to have a job that I enjoy.

thinking about…
what God has in store for the next few months for me in terms of ministry. I’ve had a tumultuous journey in this regard in recent days. I’m still mulling it all over.

learning…
about ‘Religion in History; Conflict, Conversion and Coexistence.’ I should probably be doing degree work now instead of blogging… having the page open counts, right, even if I’m not looking at it…?

creating…
a blog post.

going…
to the midwife appointment which is a week overdue because I was at the Leaders Conference last week.

hoping…
for the birth I have envisaged in my head. And hoping that my husband will catch up to this idea. 

wondering…
how to remain motivated in times of lethargy (which for me are persistent)

reading…
I should be reading course material, but I’m not. On my bedside table at the minute I have two books. One is Rebecca which I have yet to start and the other is The Baby Book which I am finding interesting. 

praying…
for guidance and wisdom (aren’t we all, always?!)

hearing…
my playlist on Grooveshark which is a very eclectic mix of all manner of genres. 

eating…
whatever I can get my hands on! Specifically, at the minute, it’s a buttered hot cross bun which I should have eaten in my fictional lunch break.

a few of my favourite things…
old fashioned milk bottle sweets, normal-and-earl-grey-mix tea, getting snail mail (which I got at work today!! Somehow my Auntie managed to send me a letter to my work address…)

plans for the rest of the week…
clear the ‘nursery’ and get it painted, start the prep for my final two essays for my course, do some more of the crochet blanket I started a while ago. 

That was fun. A blog post in 20 minutes. Boom!!

the shop has gone

😦

I know that closing the shop is the sensible thing to do, but somehow I feel sad about it. I worked really, really hard to set ivylou.com up and get the products made and photos taken and descriptions written. It seems sad that it’s all gone, in just one email to the site host (create.net – who are great, if ever you want to make a site/shop for anything. No, they didn’t pay me to say that.) I feel like I’ve failed. Other people manage to make from-home-craft-businesses work, why couldn’t I? My initial guess is that I didn’t put any money into advertising, as a couple of people said I should. Quite frankly, by the time I’d put in the cash and time building the site (not to mention the massive backlog of craft stuff needed to make the products) I didn’t have the energy to research and dole out money on advertising, that had no guarantee of working. I also didn’t keep the blog updated, which seems to be the success of most other crafters I’ve followed. I guess I got bored. I wanted the orders to just roll in (obviously) but I wasn’t passionate enough about it. 

Having spent the last several weeks sorting out our ‘nursery’ (read: ‘room full of junk’) I’ve been sifting through craft stuff, products I made for the shop (still have over 200 cards!!) and kind of lamenting my lack of enthusiasm. I’m actually a very un-motivated person. I have ideas, I start them, and then I don’t finish them. Take the proof-reading course I started three years ago. I’ve got one module to go (which, technically, I’ve already completed and posted, Royal Mail lost it for me..) but I can’t find the impetus to finish it (again). I really should, given that I’m about to be on maternity leave for at least 9 months, and it would be a good way of earning a little bit of extra cash, if I wanted to. But at this rate, I’m not going to have the motivation to earn the cash! I guess that bothers me. My life could be so different if I actually saw stuff through. If I stuck with my guns, maintained momentum, stayed motivated. Not that I’m unhappy with my life, please understand. I’m VERY happy. In fact, I’m the happiest now I’ve ever been: I have an amazing husband, a fantastic job, a lovely cat, I live in a nice flat, my family is close by, and I have a tiny peanut on the way in a pregnancy that has gone remarkably smoothly. I am happy and thankful for what I have. But I know that there could be more, if only I could stay motivated.

So the shop is gone. And as I sit here thinking, on my lunch break at work, I know that it’s for the best – I’m busy at the minute, let alone with a baby to care for too. If I couldn’t manage it in the last two years then I’m certainly not going to be able to manage it in the next few. I have a job, a house, a degree to finish, and soon an infant. Life is full and something had to go. It’ll save us money (hosting etc) and it’ll make me feel better, I hope, that there isn’t something I should be doing that I’m not. I have enough of that in my life as it is. So now, I just need to learn to be content with making what I make and doing what I do for the benefit of those immediately around me, not strangers in the ether. I should be ok with that, right?

ivylou.