There's a lot on my mind these days, probably based on a natural time of introspection as the days become shorter and we spend so much of our time creating warm spaces and attending and creating celebrations that help all of us get through the cold and dark winter months.I'm one who is often fairly deeply affected by the winter blues, but so far this year, though I feel a bit of the tug of sadness, I've been lucky to be kept busy enough with responsibilities that it's not dragging me into a pit of despair. There's often so much going on that I don't have the time to sit and let the lethargy and darkness take me. So here's a short list of the stuff that is keeping me hopping.
First, the good stuff
1) We have 2 weekends of home sales coming up, I have to make a lot for those. We already have a good start on it but I want to really have an enormous amount of stock.
2) This is the time of year to celebrate birthdays in the house, Cath's was in October, Ro's was last week and Morgan's is on Friday.
-and BTW how cool is it that he wants me to buy him a HS correspondence course so he can get ahead in his classes. wow.
3) In retrospect this year has been really good for sales. When other retailers are complaining of significant drops in sales, our little pottery business is up. So far the economy hasn't hurt us. I hope it continues.
4) Ro and I started to look at our diets and agred to permanently change the way we eat. After compiling our research on obesity, dieting strategies, lifestyle changes and who is most likely to keep weight off long term, we are following these guidelines and really this is not something we sat down and wrote out, its more a compilation of our mutual ideas about food and eating.
- We will eat anything and everything we want to, but control the portions to be smaller and be sure we don't treat ourselves too frequently. To aid this, when we go out to eat, we frequently split the entree if it is vegetarian, or package 1/2 of it to go home if we order different entrees. I just read a suggestion that
- Being a little hungry isn't a bad thing. In particular I need to remember this because I like to feel absolutley full when I am done eating..and usually 1/2 hour later I find I am too full. We spent the first couple of weeks of our regimen adapting to the idea of being hungry..now it's not so bad, but at that point it made me crazy.
- We are trying to cook at home more often and use better ingredients. This means more fresh/frozen veggies as ingredients, organic when possible, as well as grass fed, organic local meats when possible. We had already opted for organic, cage free, local eggs whenever possible.Chickens are horribly mistreated and even cage free doesn't mean as much as it should.
- Cutting back on nutritionally empty calories...not so much sugar and fat and we have been relying on apples and pears and other fruits as sweet and filling snacks. The pears are from our own tree, which had an AMAZING amount of fruit on it.
So far so good, I've dropped 13.5 lbs and Ro has lost several sizes and everyday we look at each other and notice a new feature that is emerging from under its camoflage of excessive flesh. Weve been at it about 5 or 6 weeks.
And then the troubling stuff...
The future of the economy...will people continue to buy my pots at a rate that can support us? (starving is an unhealthy way to lose weight)
Will we ever get out from beneath Ro's mortgage? Anyone want a beautiful house in Erie? Anyone?
Will The Creative Oasis survive another year? Not too many people signed up for classes this last session..we JUST paid the rent and the next month is practically here. *sigh* it's always tight in November and December, but wow is this one hard. We're hoping to turn it over to a new director this year, but so far we haven't found one, after all who wants to take a full time volunteer job? I think someone who is traned in arts administration could find the money to pay a directors salary, but as potters, not administrators we don't have the time nor knowledge to do it. HELP!
and now..I have to get to work...much to do in a short period of time!
