Sunny day!

It's amazing what a sunny day can do for you.  I happen to live in a part of the great northwest (practically Canada) where there is hardly a sunny day from September until May.  Therefore, I try to relish every sunny day that I get.  I would like to say that I lived today to the fullest because it was a beautiful, though cold sunny day outside, but instead, my husband woke up with the baby and I slept in til almost 12.  I had gone to bed with a headache and low and behold, it only got worse in the course of the night, so I woke up at 8 this morning, took some tylenol and went back to bed for four more hours.

The whole day was not a complete disaster, however.  My husband insisted on getting drive thru burgers and eating them at the park, and though we only had about a half an hour until he went to work, it was a good time.  It's nice just to view the sun sometimes I guess, even just looking at it makes you happier.  :)!  Then, came home, sent hubby off to work and began my day with my son.  Not such a long day since he absolutely refused to take his second nap and so had his night time bath at about 4 and played until 5:30 and then could not keep his head up any longer.

I am now listening to pandora radio and trying to get my house in order. Really, we no longer have a living room, we have a baby play room that contains a couch and a TV and about a million baby blocks, books, a media station which includes his very own laptop, phone and piano and of course his bouncer.  Oh to be a mommy.  :)  And now I must go and make dinner for my husband who is coming home on his "lunch" break for a 20 minute meal and chat before he races off again to the trenches of Fred Meyer.

Spring Time Transitions

My generation is very much one that focuses on instant gratification.  We are horrible "waiters".  Seems I have been cursed with this.. I want a hundred people to look at my product and I want 50 sales from those looks, and I want them now!  I can't wait for the day that my business realizes this sort of attention, but until then I must keep building my business.  Still I find that I am often impatient and extremely discouraged.

More than 4 months into my craft business and I have sold only 4 orders.  I know, I know, I'm just starting out so I need to be PATIENT.  Most of the time I can tell myself that and get through the day, but lately (or maybe for the past whole month!) I have had a creative block, perhaps due to this nagging voice in the back of my head that says, "If you aren't already successful, then why are you still trying?"  When you start a business your focus should be building inventory and advertising, not getting sales.  So, the lack of sale should really not bother me as much as it does, because the goal right now is not sales, though they are appreciated! but to work on my collection and creativity.  But, as I have said, I have a block, and you can not possibly create when you have a block! At least that's been my excuse for the past month.. and really I have nothing to show for that month, so it is time to adjust my thinking, to transition from fearful procrastination to determined, persistent creation.

So, I am working on my new items for spring and praying for patience. :)  Instead of pursuing thick scarves and fingerless gloves, I will be focusing on my home items, my bright face scrubbers for instance and my wonderful kitchen washcloths and baby hats with gorgeous flowers and bright colors.  Instead of crocheting for the business, I will be crocheting for the sake of my creativity, and maybe, just maybe I will be able to get over this block.  After all, the whole reason I started my business was because I wanted to do something that I love and am good at and share it with other people, maybe make some money on the side. My business is a product of my love for crocheting, I do not love to crochet because of my business.  I must remember this.

My first post, Also, my life :)

So a while back I remember telling my husband, "You know with how crazy our lives are, I bet we could write a book.  I mean a real book that someone would want to read!"  Let me explain.

My name is Melissa Hollis, I am 20 years old.  I will have been married for two years in September, and I have an 8 month old son.  My husband, Lincoln, is a student at Western Washington University, where I also used to also be a student.  He is extremely hard working, taking a full load of classes and still managing to work a full time job. I am a lucky girl :)

Lincoln and I got married on the 19th of September, 2009, the Saturday before we started college.  There was no honeymoon; we had business to take care of! Our college lives were starting!  So, that night instead of heading off in a plane to some tropical island, we drove the 3 hours north to our new home of Bellingham, Washington and proceeded to start our lives together.  We got married on a Saturday, classes started on Wednesday.  Everyone though we were so nuts to get married right before going to school, and maybe we were.  But the craziness didn't stop there!  About a month and a half later, we found out we were pregnant.  YIKES! Two 18 year old's right out of high school, trying to begin not only their foundation for their careers, but also the foundation for their marriage, and NOW a baby?! Yep, if we weren't crazy when we got married, for sure we were crazy now.

It's been 17 months since we found out we were pregnant.  I am 20 years old, I know SO SEASONED, and I have an 8 month old son.  I am no longer attending university classes, though my husband still is.  Instead, I am a stay at home mom and a small business owner.  When I got married I expected to be in my second year of college right now, probably just figuring out my major, studying in some coffee shop somewhere and maybe thinking about babysitting kids to earn some extra money.  Never would I have thought I would have my very own!  It's crazy how life doesn't turn out how you think it will.  I wouldn't change it for the world.  Though sometimes I wish I had more time to figure out my life before I was in charge of someone else's, my son is one of the best things that ever happened to me, and I love him more than I could ever have loved a college degree.

After becoming a stay at home mom, I found myself with a lot of stress to relieve and a lot of time to kill with my husband gone at least 4 days a week until late at night at both school and his job.  And so, I started picking up a couple of old hobbies, knitting and crocheting.  And, truly that is where the idea to start this blog came from.  I started selling my hand made scarves, washcloth, gloves, and hats on etsy.com and heard a lot of people talking about their blogs and how it helped to promote their work.  So, here I am writing my very own blog.  I hope that someone cares to read it, but even if no one does, it's nice to get down in words what I am thinking in my head all day long, and so in a way I hope this can be very therapeutic for me.   I will be sharing with the world my hopes, dreams, frustrations, set backs and triumphs.  Here we go.