Dreaming

I have too many things buzzing around in my head. Like cicadas, all of them making a racket and none of them being able to be properly listened to.

Contributing factors:

• I bought the Designed to Sell Unconventional Guide and started working through it.
• Last weekend, I did the introductory massage course at the Australian College of Massage. It was a great weekend; I learned a lot about technique and posture, and got to give and receive about five massages. Verrrrry nice. Of course as soon as the first day finished, I wanted to enrol in the Cert IV, get accredited and start my own clinic.
• This coming Saturday, I'm working at Goodness Gracious Me gratitude lifeclass (which is being held at the Scripture Union building where I work, so my colleague Des and I volunteered to work it so we could get a free ticket to the class) and will no doubt give me a bit of a boost.
• And in May, I'm going to the Big Hearted Business conference to nourish my creativity and try to work out how to change the world with it.

Maybe, having stirred them up, eventually all of this will help the cicadas to quiet and allow me to try and make some sense of it all.

Okay, so here's the big dream of what I would love to be happening in a few years.

Let's assume that mum and I will stay in our little house for a few years yet. Despite the downsides of the main road, we love the house and the garden. Oh, the garden! It's like a tranquil little rainforesty paradise.

Come through the many gateways to my creative wilderness...one day...

Ever since we moved here I have had dreams of building a studio in the backyard, with windows facing into the greenery, where I could do my creative work and not be sleeping, working and creating all in my bedroom (not to mention storing all the copious amounts of fabric and paraphernalia that goes along with making anything).

I want to build a little multipurpose studio, with lots of light, good sound/temperature insulation, a bathroom, and storage space. It would have a work table for sewing, spot for writing and a space in the middle for a massage table without it feeling like when you get a massage at a beauty salon or something and it's basically the size of a closet and you spend the whole time feeling sorry for the therapist because they can't move around properly.

Something like this from Garden Studios (only with some sort of storage solution):

I would be able to sew and write and design there. I would be able to tidy things away into the excellent storage and set up the massage space and do regular massages to keep some regular cash flow coming in, while selling my creations (both sewn and written). I might have to go and work somewhere for a couple of days a week, also to keep regular cash flow coming in. But the rest of the time I would be concentrating on creating, on giving joy to people, on making positive, relaxing spaces where people would love to come, on filling up my creative/nourishment tank.

But, again, that costs lots of money of course! So it's a long-term dream. I don't know how I'll get there. But that's what's buzzing around in my head at the moment. I need to be patient and recognise that these things don't have to happen right now. Everything takes time. But it helps to have a direction to step in.

And this is at the forefront of my mind, always:

Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”

James 4:13-15

makin bacon pancakes

Thank you for the prayers people! I still found it hard to sleep last night with my whirring brain, but I feel much more even today. It helps to be working at home today too, so I can go outside and grab some sunshine when I need it, and just move at a slower pace. I'm glad this week is over!

Also, a bit of silliness helps bring the smiles. I've been walking around singing "makin' bacon pancakes" to myself all morning. I reckon I'm going to actually have to make some bacon pancakes now.

Also there are SO many remixes of this on youtube. There's a 10 hour version. What.

status quo

Friends, if you're the praying type, I need a lot of prayer at the moment.

I have no energy and am really sad. I don't know which came first, but as any of my depressive friends will tell you, it doesn't really matter which came first; the two kind of feed off each other.

I had a period of positivity recently, good mood, reasonable energy, creative interest. Gradually over the last week I've been starting to slide. And it feels like now that I'm starting to try and think about what I can do to sustain myself creatively, every good feeling sapping gremlin has come out from under the bed to attack me and make me unable to do any creative things.

Work feels huge and unrelenting, and there's a lot of change afoot, with one of my most supportive and understanding colleagues leaving and with the organisation being restructured. And in the midst of that the work just keeps rolling on.

I get home and am exhausted. Having two things every week in the evenings (growth group and belly dancing) is almost too much. I have all this beautiful new fabric I really want to sew up, but just have no motivation to sit at the sewing table. I need to start publicising next month's Spire Market and can't even think about it.

To make it worse, the sleep I get doesn't feel restful. My brain brings out the big guns as soon as I turn the light off, making me go over old ground and old hurts again and again. Georgina posted this Leunig cartoon today, which is basically me at the moment (click to embiggen).

I know this, too, will pass. But it's where I'm at right now. Just thought I'd say.

(although you'd be forgiven for thinking so, this has nothing to do with the previous post (ie, not getting the BHB scholarship) because I am still going to go! And JOY will abound!!!)

So I didn't win a scholarship, but this email is basically why I think Clare Bowditch rocks

Dear Eighty-Two Exceptionally Big Hearted Humans who applied for a BHB Conference 2014 Scholarship,

It's 10pm, I've spent most of the day battling naughty X-cel spreadsheets, calculating judges scores and preparing for our "Winners Announcement" tomorrow afternoon.

Right now, I need to take "time-out" for a moment and  let you know something. You ready? Here goes.

Tomorrow afternoon when we announce our winners, we're gonna f*ck it up.

'Scuse the French, but it's true. We're gonna get it wrong.

As hard as we've tried to choose the most worthy applicants, we're gonna let some of you down.

We're gonna appear to have missed some legendary ideas, we're gonna appear to have overlooked many of those who dearly deserve to come, and we're gonna let you down. That's just what happens when it you mix humans with humans.

So, in advance, I ask for your forgiveness, and remind you that you really should not listen to us.

If you have a dream, and you suspect it means something, and you suspect you've got something to give the world, well guess what?

You're absolutely right.

A short story from my own career as a case in point:

Marty and I talked it over recently and we sincerely cannot even count the number of times our ideas, our applications, our submissions, ourvery best work was overlooked, denied, ignored, and criticised,especially early in our careers when we most needed the support.

I can't TELL  how hard that sucked, how unfair that felt, how much that hurt.

Do you reckon we let it stop us?

Nup. Not a fricking chance. "Stuff 'em".

I took their rejections, I plugged it into "The CB Machine", and I used every morsel of my disappointment to fuel my determination; there HAD to be a place for me, and if there wasn't, well, I'd just have to invent one. Sure, it took a long time to "get there" (and I'm not even vaguely done yet), but so what - everything good takes longer than you think.

And that's exactly what I hope the almost 70 of you who MISS OUT on tomorrow's scholarship turn around and say to yourself.

As I said on the application page: you are an absolute LEGEND for applying. Most people Do Not Bother. Please - keep bothering. Keep bloody trying. Do NOT take rejection personally. Use it to learn something. Use it to fuel your determination. You will never know how close you came. Just get back on that horse, try again another year, and don't let it put you off your game.

This thing you want to do?

It matters. Keep at it.

Thanks again for applying.

More news tomorrow afternoon.

The End.

CB and the BHB Crew xo

 

Joy!

I got 37 votes! Thanks guys! For those who haven't seen it, here's my video submission for the Big Hearted Business Conference scholarship.

Hang on - youtube says it's been viewed 88 times. Who didn't vote?! :P

Also I'm very, very excited that due to a very generous and unexpected gift from my wonderful dad, even if I don't win one of the scholarships, I'll still be able to afford to go to the conference (provided I get one of the tickets which are apparently going to sell very quickly)! This is a huge deal. Thanks dad.

And my absolute favourite comment about this was from Jennie and her son JD (I'm sure she won't mind me sharing this as it was on Facebook after all): "I showed the clip to JD who was convinced that you were going to spell 'Jesus'. I explained that he was where joy came from, so it was all good."

Love that boy!

Vote for me!

Hello! If you don't have time to read this, just click here and vote for me. :) But if you want to know what it's about, keep reading.

It's been a busy few weeks. Work is full on at the moment, in that unrelenting way that it sometimes seems to have. I'm trying just to do my work in bite sized chunks, rather than being overwhelmed by the whole of it. I never seem to have a 'down season'. But then, as mum pointed out to me today, at her work (also a not for profit Christian organisation), they have three full time people and one part time person doing my job.

I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse.

On the creative pursuits front, I did Glebe Markets with my TalulaMei stuff - it wasn't a financial success, but it was a worthwhile experiment, if only to teach me that just because people like your stuff doesn't mean they'll buy it if it's in the wrong context! People wanted bargains at Glebe Markets, not handmade stuff. Well, at least I know that now! As Guy would mutter, when people commented that Sammi's dolls at my neighbouring stall were cute: "Cute don't pay the bills!" So now I know that not just any market will do. It has to be the right market.

But the reason for this post is I need your help.

I've made a 2 minute video answering the question "How does my creativity contribute to the world?" as part of my application to get a Big Hearted Business conference scholarship (worth about $500). I'm not sure I know enough people to get the max number of votes required for the peoples' choice award, but it doesn't hurt to try, right? (and who knows, maybe I'll win one of the other scholarships!)

Even though details of the conference haven't been released yet, I know from what I've seen of last year's event that it will be inspiring, nourishing, exciting, challenging, and I really, really, really want to go. Making the video was a good exercise - I am assuming that the reason behind asking entrants to do something creative and with only a couple of weeks' notice was to get people making things, exploring the reasons they do what they do, and not getting hung up on perfectionism. I had different ideas for the video but in the end just had to do it. I wrote something, filmed it and put it on youtube in a little over an hour. Just got to get it out there!

Voting is on Facebook, so if you have a Facebook account, please watch my video (it should be the top one on the page) and click the little vote button! Voting is open until Sunday and you can vote once a day, so...you know...vote often!

After Sunday I'll put the video up here, but I'll send you to watch it via the link for now so as not to confuse the voting issue.

Thank you in advance!

Vote for Bec!