Waiting

I haven't posted in a while, because I have been waiting..... waiting to actually do something to write about..... waiting for inspiration to hit..... waiting for things to be magically wonderful.

This picture shows a shelf near the ceiling in my room, with the lovely gamp of colors from Lunatic Fringe. I bought this set of cones years ago at a conference, and have moved them around every time I reorganize my stuff. I keep thinking I'll do something wonderful with them, but just like the pristine tablets of paper and nice new sharp pencils that I don't want to use up, the cones sit untouched, if a little dusty, on my shelf.

I know I'm not alone in this. When I was trying out different blog names, a number of them were already used - by blogs that had one post made several years ago. Until you actually post, the future words are all brilliant and insightful.

I guess I'm waiting for the painful stuff to pass, and then everything will be okay. Maybe the answer is to use the painful stuff, to let it inspire me, to transmute it from ickiness to something wonderful. Maybe. I do know that I'm tired of waiting.

Why I Am Fat

I have solved one of the major mysteries of the universe.

First, let me say that I did accomplish something this week - I did do the spreadsheets for the business idea - complete with a worksheet for startup costs, one for estimated monthly expenses, one for sales projections. Buzz kill, that financial stuff. When I was done, I realized I was nuts to even consider trying to start a retail business, given that I have no experience in the area and I might need to work myself to death just to make enough to live on in southern California.

Friends consoled me with alternatives..... but the rapid stream of "but but but" in my mind was almost louder than the lawnmower outside. I had a stunning realization. I have no desire to run a store at all, I simply wanted a business that would let me be around fiber and have some extra space for a studio. Surely there's an easier way.

In the meantime, I put an entry in my to-do list to use my inherited cone winder to wind a cone of a combo yarn, then wind a warp and get to weaving. Alas, resistance is not futile. Not being sure how to use said cone-winder, I have found a myriad of ways to divert me from the uncertainty...... a trip to the library for a book by Anais Nin (amazingly, I've never read any of her books) and one called The Rough Guide to Blogging (because no activity is easy enough not to require extensive research first and even a cool looking book called DHTML and CSS Advanced because this stuff is very neat even if I have my doubts about returning to programming. And just in case I got too close to actually doing anything, there were the furtive trips to the kitchen for snacks. One little container of applesauce. Righteous and healthy. One large spoon of Nutella. Oops. Or maybe two. The source of belly fat is unbirthed creativity.

On a lighter note, no pun intended, here's a photo of what I see in my bedroom sanctuary when I wake up in the morning.

Fearless

I've been playing in fantasyland lately........ and it all began with a web site I Stumbled Upon - www.yarniapdx.com. For the last few years, I have not been working fulltime - I've been doing a wide variety of volunteer jobs, but it is time to figure out how to generate an income and become a contributing member of society, rather than a parasite. The search was vaguely dissatisfying - I didn't really want to go back to my previous career. Then I encountered the above mentioned web site.

So, I ... well, I allowed myself to wallow in a fantasy of creating something similar here. I even drove around checking out potential locations. The store that inspired me sells custom created yarns by the pound. "What if I create custom yarns that are sold by the yard rather than by the pound? And hey, maybe the weavers wouldn't want to make custom yarns at all - just be able to wind off exactly what they need for a warp. That would give them a wide variety of fibers and colors to choose from without having to purchase and store a huge stash of cones themselves. "

Normally, a combination of fear and logic would effectively and quite rapidly squelch this impulse. But no...... this one has persisted. The idea has been rolling around in my head for several weeks now, and hasn't gone away. In fact, I've started a business plan, and checked out a bunch of books from the library since I have no experience in retail. I've fantasized about what I could offer besides yarn - including allowing customers to sell their creations on consignment, and having a classroom for teaching fiber classes.

The basics of the business plan have been easy to put in place. Now it's time to work on financial statements, and that will be a challenge. That sort of stuff usually gives me serious headaches, so I will need to push through my resistance and reluctance if this is to happen. It may be that I'm nuts and this won't really happen.

Strangely enough, the topic at my Unity church this week was Spiritually Unstoppable - not letting fear or negative people stop you in your tracks.

"You can conquer almost any fear if you will only make up your mind to do so. For remember, fear doesn't exist anywhere except in the mind."
~ Dale Carnegie

I just hope that this dream will find existence somewhere other than just in my mind as well.