The STUFF Sisters

Renewed Commitment

Last week, we celebrated STUFF’s 22nd birthday. Several months ago, we signed a new 10-year lease. We are here to stay, and we are excited. It’s a renewed commitment.

Last week, we celebrated STUFF’s 22nd birthday. Several months ago, we signed a new 10-year lease. We are here to stay, and we are excited.

When you start a business, people talk a lot to you about plans. “What is your business plan, your 5-year plan, your 10-year plan, and what is your exit plan?” “What if it doesn’t work; what is your plan?”

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Words & Boxes

I have been thinking often about writing and writing often about thinking.

I haven’t written a blog post in over a year. I stopped posting blogs because when I drafted something I felt uncomfortable. That is not to say I haven’t been posting or offered a public stream of content. I have been hanging out on the social media channels instead. And most of those posts have been on the store’s pages and feeds, not my own. My personal posting has been meager by comparison.

I want my posts to be authentic. And, all my drafts felt phony.

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Finding My Way

I haven’t posted to our blog for a long time. If you follow our blog you may have noticed or maybe, if I am lucky, you didn’t. I left you in very good hands. My sister, Sloane, has been keeping our blog well tended with her lovely writing and unique point of view.

I have been overwhelmed. I don’t feel pressured to have an excuse. I am just ready to write it down and share it. Life has been challenging for me. I am no different than most of the people I know. Everyone is busy living fast and furious it seems. And, sometimes circumstances can knock you on your ass for awhile. That is what happened to me.

When I have challenges that I cannot change, or I am not in the position to change, I rage against my impotence. I am conditioned to my high energy “get it done” personality. So when it is ineffective in a situation I burn ruts in the ground just trying to move something, anything, forward.

I could not change the hurdles that were placed before me this past year. I flailed about grabbing for something to change. My frustrations finally landed on my home. As time marched on I became laser focused on everything wrong with my property. I fed my pain by blaming myself for my inability to find the time and energy to get any projects done. Top of my list was my yard and gardens.

I would drive up my drive and say to myself, “See those weeds and those overgrown vines, do you see them? You are right, your life is awful. Why can’t you get your shit together? Look at your yard. It’s a mess.” You see, that is what I do when I feel helpless, I beat myself up.

I felt so overwhelmed. I began fantasizing about selling my home and moving into a small apartment with no yard, where everything was brand new and I lived on the 130th floor where nobody could find me. I appetite to run away from home was insatiable.

I was advised to sit still and let time help me get to the other side. I wanted to scream. Sit still? Screw that! There are things that must be done. Can you not see the weeds in my yard? I am being covered by weeds Why can’t you see the weeds? Doesn’t anyone see the weeds? I have to pull the weeds.

It was grim.

A few weeks ago, I took this photo with my phone one morning when I was impatiently waiting for my daughter to get out the front door.

This beautiful vignette of my courtyard. I started pulling the image up on my phone to view it randomly. I found it captivating. I wanted to know why I couldn’t avoid sneaking a peek at it a couple times a day. It soothed me.

There was that vine that had slowly and patiently, over the entire summer, crawled it’s way from behind a big planter squeezed against my fence, climbed over two plants, around a metal sculpture and was reaching down to the ground to find it’s footing. It is beautiful.

It began to validate me. I realized I was like that vine. I just need to give myself time to find my way.

I am now pulling a handful of the weeds each day. I am going slowly.

Where Does The Time Go?

I planned to write a blog today. I really did.

Is it really 10:23pm already? Where does the time go?

This is not how I spent my day. I swear.

It’s not a “Chick’s Blog” Until You Post a Photo of Your Cat

I was roaming through blogs the other day and realized that this blog is not officially written by “chicks” until we post an image of a darling cat

I was roaming through blogs the other day and realized that this blog is not officially written by two “chicks” until we post an image of a darling cat. The cuter the better. An “ahhhhh” inspiring photo is preferred if you take into consideration the other big-time-chick-bloggers. So…here ya go.

Lady Matilda, my daughter’s darling little grey cat.

Since the summer heat kicked in this pretty much all she does all day.

This is her cute curled up pose. This is the pose that makes me want to snuggle with her. — This is her cute curled-up pose.

PS. I have to admit I love this tiny little girl.

Leavings

In the deeply gathering dusk a few nights ago, I stood in a small group of women and discussed the concepts of leaving. Of children leaving home for college. Of friends and their families leaving for different cities.

Three years ago I began publicly letting slip that I do not use the word goodbye. Remarkably, a woman in this little group admitted that she greatly disliked the word goodbye. We ran around and around the ways she doesn’t use it and in the end we were all laughing quite brightly.

I still don’t use the word. I wrote about this deeply held issue in a blog in July of 2009. It still stands today. Click here to read more.

They Should Have Six Signs For That

My sister Casey and I spent some time this morning at work writing the fine print for an upcoming giveaway. We tried to write it using as few words as possible, but it is never few enough for me.

My sister Casey and I spent some time this morning at work writing the fine print for an upcoming giveaway. We tried to write it using as few words as possible, but it is never few enough for me. “Lawyer speak” steps in and before you know it, you’ve written 100 words to give one great thing away.

In my previous post, I shared a few signs that made me happy or smile. These signs – spotted after lunch today – just cracked me up. I guess whoever placed them there thought six signs could tell the story so much better than just one concise one.

It’s a struggle. I know.

Writing Lessons

Last night I started a journey towards improving my writing. I recently joined a small band of women who will meet weekly and work on each other’s projects of the pen.

This morning, my son – who knew I left the family circle last night to retreat to my office to start my 5 pages that are due this Friday – asked how it went. I told him I was pleased with the piece I had started but that, so far, I was falling one page short of the the 5 page minimum. I am too old to play the “adjust the margins” game or to pretend I didn’t hear the “please use 1.5 spacing” and resort to double spacing. Clearly, I have more to do before deadline.

Upon hearing this news – being short a few hundred words – this was my son’s advice, and I quote: “Mom, just go back and start adding in the descriptive words. Like the ‘deep brown walls’, not just ‘walls’. That will help.”

After all these years of letting loose with this blog and scribbling in many journals the ideas for my “Great American Novel”, I was finally taking the jump towards opening myself up to the power of other women writers from my own community. This was going to be challenging and thrilling and difficult. I was ready.

I obviously could have just turned to the 15 year old and my thesaurus. And saved myself the extra work.

Silly me.

Tentacles II

My sister, Sloane, posted a blog today titled “Tentacles”. I was struck dumb when I read it, because I had just saved this image to my desktop yesterday. We must be broadcasting that “spooky sister connection” our mother always talks about.

This image was featured in a widget I have on my iGoogle page called Artist A Day. You can find them here. I discover new artists from them all the time. Here is the link to the artist’s website.

Blank Screen and Blocked

This is what happens when I am depleted. I can’t think. I can’t create.

Does there really need to be one more blog about some small business owner trying to get the creative juices flowing? I don’t know the secret. I can’t help you right now, because at the moment I can’t seem to help myself.

The truth is, I really wish we had a million more customers that already knew how fantastic our store is and how hard our artists work and how creative our team is and, and, and, and blah, blah, blah.

Because at the moment, I am stuck. I am wide awake and ain’t got nothing happenin’.

I don’t want to be overly dramatic. Our store is good. We have managed to haul our butts thru this “economy from hell” with smiles on our faces. We have done with our store what most people told us couldn’t be done. We have grown, evolved and taken risks. And it keeps working out.

It’s just some mornings, I wish so deeply that I would wake up to a truckload of new customers that just magically discovered our store. And were standing outside waiting for the door to open.

Then I wouldn’t feel the need to stare at a blank screen at 12:57am on a Monday night trying to think of the next idea that will create sparks and light the way to our door for that next group of new folks.

Casey