This Past Week

A Quick Update:

Life has gotten busy for me the past few days.

WORK:

Thanks to the fundraisers that the PCF Team on Etsy put together for my family and I, I had plenty of orders to mail out!

I would love to be able to work strictly from home, but I need more money so I've been looking for a job. Looking for a job has proven to be extremely difficult. I can’t even tell you how many jobs I have applied to over the past few months. Every day I send out any where between 1 and 5 resumes. And now I have finally started getting job interviews! Only 2 so far, but if I don’t get either one of these jobs at least I know that it’s finally hiring season again!

SCHOOL:

Even applying for college funding hasn’t been easy. I know that getting funding is definitely a lot easier than working to pay back student loans, but I had the impression that all I would do is send in some paperwork and it would be done. Apparently not. I have to send in a lot of paperwork, and it’s been taking up a lot of my time over the past few days. Now I have to make a trip up to their office (maybe even a few more later on). I am really happy that I get funding though! A free education?! Who wouldn’t be!

STRESS:

This whole mortgage thing has me stressed, too. Still don’t know what is going on for sure yet, seeing as they haven’t called us back.

HAPPY:

On a positive note, I’ve been drawing and painting again. I have even started a new blog called Amity Arts & Crafts, but it isn’t up and running quite yet.

Nick and I have been going on a lot of walks/hikes, too. I think at this point we’ve been on about half the trails in Cambridge. We like to bring our sketchbooks and cameras with us. The one day we sketched the river. I’ve always enjoyed drawing, but I‘ve never been very good at sketching. I‘m a perfectionist when it comes to drawing, so sketching a rough picture of a landscape was difficult. It‘s been a good experience though. 

If you're stressed out, grab a pencil and sketch book and go for a walk in the woods. I highly recommend it. 

How’s your life been going?

Thanks,
Cole

Week In Review - Family Day and Too Much Stress

 

Family Day - Indoor Playground!

 

Week In Review:

It's Friday everyone! It's the weekend, and my daughter is super excited to be able to stay home and play with her mommy (me! Aren't I a lucky duck?).

Home life is still tense right now. There's a lot on my mind; school, my living situation, money, and work. I feel bad because I haven't had much time to blog and work on my Etsy shop this week, but I enjoy this online life so I keep up with it as much as I can. 

 

Personal Life:

Parenting - My patience has been really short lately. With all this added tension in the house and the silent arguments, my mind hasn't been in the right place. I feel awful for not being mentally here right now for Sidney but my stress levels are about to explode right through the roof.  

We did go out for family day though. We went to Funworx, which is an indoor playground. It was so busy there! Kids on top of kids. Seriously, you could barely get around the place without knocking into a bunch of people, but Sidney and her cousin Faith had a lot of fun.

Growth - My entire life feels like it's on hold right now. Where did the week go? Honestly, I haven't done anything lately...

Health - My goal for waking up earlier hasn't been working out too well. Instead I feel like I just want to sleep forever, and ever, and ever. 

Professional:

Work - I'm still applying to a bunch of different places. I haven't gotten one single call back though. It is a bit discouraging, but what other options do I have? I need to find a job. 

My college funding application is almost complete! I just have to send in a couple more bits of information and off it will go. How exciting is that? Very!

Etsy - Little Shop of Hemp made it's first sale this week! A custom key chain. I was beginning to think my hemp store was a waste of time and money, but that one sale has encouraged me to keep trying. Besides, I enjoy making hemp jewelry.

As for Little Shop of Treasures, no sales this week. I do have some new items I need to post though. I'll get around to it soon. Been taking a mental health break this week. I have been approved for the Bloomin Earth festival though! In two months time I have to be all ready to set up a booth and sell some awesome vintage treasures. This will be my first sale, and I'm really nervous. That's why I've been doing a ton of research.

Writing - I've been feeling uninspired lately, so instead of writing much I have been reading a ton! Magazine articles, ebooks, blogs and novels. Just filling my brain with other people's work. Of course my journal has been getting a lot of attention this week, I should call it the Whine Diaries. 

I hope everyone's week has been going better than mine! Sorry for the pity-party-post, but that's all I have to say this week - wah, wah, wah. 

Thanks, 

Week In Review - College Application Accepted!

Week in Review:

I've seen a lot of blogs do this and I love reading them! So I thought it would be fun to start doing it.

Personal Life:

Parenting - The weather has been strange this week. The beginning of the week was warm and raining. Now it’s freezing out and snowing - a lot! So basically, we’ve been stuck inside. Doing crafts, watching TV and lazing about. And FYI - I am so sick of the movie Hotel Transylvania.

Growth - I am in the process of organizing my life and everything in it. I want everything to be clean, organized and simple by the time I start college. So far I’ve weeded out my movies, books and music and filed all my paperwork but there is still so much to do.

Health - There’s a chance that I may have a thyroid problem. I’m showing a lot of the symptoms. Plus my sister has a thyroid problem and I’ve read that it’s genetic. Which could explain my weight gain, or maybe I just want something to blame other than my laziness... Anyway, it’s almost time for that dreadful annual check-up, so I’ll bring it up to my doctor when I see her. It’s also time for a dental check-up, too. It’s always one thing or another…

Professional:

Work - I've been doing the awful January job search. Anyone who has ever tried to get a job within the retail industry in January knows what I'm talking about! All I need is a job that pays me by the hour until I can go to college this September.

College - As far as college goes, my next appointment is in a week. I'm still working on that paperwork. There are all these questions on it! Like, "Tell us about your educations plan." and "How did you come with this plan?"

I don't really know what else to say other than "I want to go to this college, because it's close to home." I'm pretty sure the answer can't be that simple though. And then I have to prove that upon receiving my diploma I will be able to find a job within that field and not have wasted their money. I’m really stressing out about this. If I can’t write killer answers to these questions, there is a good chance I won’t get my funding application accepted.

Good news though. I’ve been accepted into the college program of my choice, and just confirmed it!

Etsy - We’ve got a bunch of new items we plan on listing within the next week. I’ve also finished retaking all the pictures, too. Or at least almost finished. I have a few more items that I need to retake.

New Items:

Libbey Glasses

Anchor Hocking Candy Dish

Hand Crafted Ontario Wooden Bowl

Mid Century Square Wire Bowl

Pyrex Percolator

So that’s what’s going on right now.

What’s new with you?

Thanks,


PS - Today is our 6 year anniversary. No biggie. :)

Little Shop of Hemp - Now Open on Etsy!

I Opened My Second Etsy Shop:

I did it! I opened my new Etsy shop yesterday, Little Shop of Hemp, where I will be selling my handmade hemp jewelry and accessories. As of right now I only have a few items posted, but over the next few days I will be adding more.
 

Why Hemp Jewelry?

 

Hemp is a really great material. It's environmentally friendly, vegan, strong and long lasting, and very comfortable to wear. Plus, the design possibilities are endless! I have a hard time deciding what to sell and what to keep for myself. What I really adore about hemp is that it can look really casual, or funky or even beautiful.

 

And it's nerve racking when you put yourself out there. And by yourself I mean your creative work which is like a part of you. I don't know if anyone will like my stuff, or if anyone will even buy anything but for some reason I just felt like I had to do it.

 

I'm finally learning to push myself out of my comfort zone.

 

Thanks for taking the time to check this out!

Play Time is Over

Sidney - December 29, 2012

Winter break is finally over and I am so glad! I’m not the only mom who feels that way, right? ‘Cause that might look bad. But as much as I love my daughter and spending time with her and my nieces, I am all kid-pooped-out and can’t wait to get back into a more “work”-like routine.

I have a lot of things I plan to work on now that I have some time to myself. There are items I want to get up on my Etsy shop; Little Shop of Treasures. Which means cleaning them, taking pictures and editing, researching, writing descriptions, titles, tags, coming up with a price and then advertising. There’s actually quite a bit of work to this side project but because it’s so much fun I don’t mind at all and even look forward to it.

I also just want to mention that over the holidays we got up to 13 sales! It’s such a great feeling seeing the number of sales and money we’ve made. I hope to get up to 50 sales this year for my vintage shop, or more! That would be wonderful.

My other shop is coming along nicely, too. I’ve been busy making bracelets, and am pretty sure I can get it up and running by the weekend. I hope many people will take the time to check it out, and that they like what they see.

Most importantly though I want to take the time to write more. Plan out better posts for my blog, and take the time to write for myself - short stories, poetry and my novel. For as long as I can remember I have wanted to be a novelist, or at least a professional (as in paid) writer of some sort.

Well, that’s it for now!

Thanks,

Cole