Maya Road and Me

Tutorial - Using Our Tulle Pleat Trim

 

So for those that know me, I have never been a girly girl. I wear jeans on most days or exercise clothing. I am drawn to greens, blues, browns and cool colors. Hot Pink doesn't show up in my wardrobe or accessories very often.  But my baby girl for some reason LOVES PINK. She asks to wear pink things, she screams when she sees pink baby dolls and it totally amazes me (and also is a data point for me that some preferences are part of your genetic code and not how you are raised).

So the other day I was filming a video for our tulle pleat trim and how easy you can use it to make a flower and I found myself drawn to the pink to create this:

This isn't just any pink - this is truly hot pink. Pink that would make baby girl squeal in delight. I don't have any clothing I wear in this color but some how I was drawn to it to create my video. I think baby girl would approve. Even Lisa commented "you actually used PINK!"

Here is the video and I think baby girl would love it:

 

 

Dear _______

Dear friend, family, and acquaintances,

I feel like I haven't been myself lately. In fact I know I haven't been myself lately. If I am not returning emails, calls and texts promptly, I am truly sorry.  I have been struggling the last couple of week not with just the health of my kids but also with the fact that it pains me to be seeing my dad in his state right now.

Some may say I am a pessimist but I am not. I am full of hope but grounded by a realist soul. I am not saying my dad is dying today, tomorrow or even a month from now. But he has gotten worse in the last month or so. I can see it. My mom can see it. My family can see it. And because I am not a tear shedder, I tend to deal with stress in different ways. I get a bit more withdrawn and quiet. And I just really don't want to talk about it.  I am more prone to anger and just plain grumpiness. I run in solitude some times to talk to God and other times just to decompress. That is the reality.

I don't like to hear that my mom is crying. I don't like to hear that my dad can barely walk because he is so weak but that is the reality. So if you ask me, I do try to concentrate on what is positive but in the back of my mind, I see what is going on with my parents and it burdens me.

I personally don't fear dying. But at the same time, I know my mom and dad are scared. They have been together for 45 years and this has been a tough journey for the especially the last couple of months. And there are times I am well just torn - between my responsibilities to my work, to my kids, to my husband and finally to my parents. And so I take it all in as that is how I deal. But I also feel guilty as I know that my family - David, Noah and Olivia - have to watch my dad as he struggles with this.

It is hard to watch my dad revert back to a child in ways. He is reluctant to take his medicines and I have to beg, cajole, plead with him to even drink gatorade but it has to be done. And at nights when I say my prayers, I am thankful that my dad still feel no pain. But I also pray that whatever the journey ahead, we will handle with grace and love and less grumpiness on my part. 

Love, me

 

Ever Have One Of Those Weeks?

 

So last week when I posted, I thought we were at the tail end of the illnesses at my house. Boy, was I wrong. Soon after my last post, Olivia came down with something fierce and fast and we have been suffering through a week of a grump little gal who had an ear infection and some other virus in her system. Thankfully all of that is done now. But alas tonight, it seems Noah has picked up what she has. 

And that has put a tremendous amount of stress in on our family. Our catalog needed to go to press this week. We needed to get the pallets all ready and packed to go by tomorrow. I haven't been able to see my parents in nearly 2 weeks for fear they will pass something along to my mom and my dad in his weak state. 

My dad to be honest isn't doing so hot. It has been very hard on all of us - especially my mom. It is hard for me not to hear my dad speak and to see him not even want to walk with a walker. This is my dad - he is usually the guy that won't stop talking and now he won't start. There is a tremendous amoutn of stress on us and many moments - I won't lie - I feel like my hands are tied or I am at a loss of what to do at times. We have some tough decisions ahead for his treatment as well as his care. I think we have decided as a family for the short term after the tradeshow, my parents will come back to live with us so we can help out with my mom. 

In the meantime, when I can I have been working and working on projects.  Projects keep my mind fresh as I deal with everything going on.  I will share one project I did this last week:

This is my design team canvas for the tradeshow - each show I have our design team each create a canvas all about them - not about their families or pets - but them. And every show it seems that it is hard for most of us to create something just about us. Heck, I had to use a photo from 2007 b/c all my other photos had pictures of the kids in them.

This one is about my goals this year - health wise  - body, mind and soul.  There are some new products on this canvas. I also played with some gesso, Maya Mists and sand. I really love how it turned out and I cannot wait to see all the other Design Team Member Canvases! 

With that I am off to do final inventory of everything we need for the show. Hope everyone is having a healthy cough free week!

What A Week

 

It has been a week since I have blogged. Since last week everyone in my family has come down with some sort of sickness. We spent today cleaning everything in the house. The kids are getting better. The runny noses and coughs are almost gone. I will be happy when everyone is back to their regular old self.

It has been a chaotic week here in our lives compounded by the fact that the tradeshow will start in less that three weeks. I am calm but yet at times feel like I am forgetting something. Oh well, I am going to roll with it. Even with the best of planning, thinking on your feet is a necessity.

With 2012 I told myself I would work on a couple of things in my life. Here is a partial list of what I want to accomplish:

1. Run a 15k  (done and signed up for a race in February - have been running consistently the last 2 weeks so I should be ok if I keep my workouts up).

2. Work on spending more time with my parents. I will be honest, my family is sorta a "doing" family - we are a family of multi-taskers and just sitting around visiting isn't our strong point. But I have made an effort to just sit with my dad and mom even if they don't want to talk or whatever. I have avoided them the last couple of days just til everyone feels better.

3. Go on more date nights. I want to invest more time in my relationship with my husband. Even though we work together, I am in work mode when we are working. We are going to try to go out without the kids, not talk about work 1x a month.

4. Work on my photography - now this is something I have had on my to do list for a while. I finally invested in a cheap fixed lens at the end of last year. I think I might take an online course to learn about all the features of my camera. 

And with number 4, I have also been getting tips from my design team. I had asked late last year Karen Grunberg to share some tips with our customers on how she can photograph her layouts so well. Here is her blog post. 

While I don't have quite the set up Karen has, I did find a place where I have light from 3 sides on a good day in our reading nook. The problem was there was not a wall where I could hang a layout so I looked around and improvised. My kids keep their IKEA easel here so I can watch them while I cook and such and I found it was the perfect place to photograph:

 I stick the layouts on and photograph and we are good to go! The only problem is when I leave my layout and tell my baby girl "now draw only on the white paper and not the layout ok?" to which she agrees but then I end up with this:

A closer look - I think she wanted us to "go green":

I laughed at first when I saw this. Things like this don't bother me. I am sure we will have a good laugh about it when she gets old. This layout might even come with us to CHA for display.

As we finish up our catalog, I realize that everything we are doing are items I would use for my projects. Love them all. Our design team is rocking all the projects too and I cannot wait to share with everyone.

 

 

New Year

 

It is hard for me to belive it is 2012 already. With the blink of an eye 2011 flew by. As I was putting up our Christmas decorations, I decided there had to be a way to enjoy our Christmas cards longer than the month we have them up. So I grabbed a couple of extra frames I keep on hand (when I find them on sale) and did this:

This is a nice and simple set of photos we will keep on our desks so that we can remember the Season a bit longer.

It has been a busy week for us even with the Holidays. We have been prepping for the catalog; a container with lots of our goodies will arrive soon and in the midst of it all I did a little creating. I can only show a peek now before our official release but there are a couple of products you will see coming CHA-W in this photo:

And also we have been spending  a bit of time with my parents. My dad's cancer is getting more aggressive in the last month. He will need to be doing some radiation for different spots he has on his bones as well as finishing up the radiation for his brain. As a person of science, I know and understand the statistics and what it all means. At the same time I live with hope each day. 

I am going to spend tomorrow over at my mom and dad's and get some work done and visit with my dad so my mom can go out and run some errands. My dad is extremely tired at this point and looks like he has been tanning (due to the radiation). We took them out to the mall a couple of days ago and as much as it made me sad a bit to see how my dad has aged in the last two years, I was happy to see that he was a bit outta control with his walker going across the mall.

And I think my dad actually is happy. Even with all the tiredness. He is still smiling. He really doesn't feel any pain and we will see what the future holds. Learning not to sweat the small stuff and enjoy time together.

Hope you are having a good start to 2012!