Some success! Yesssss!

I have been guilty of being a little giddy with excitement of late & an excess of thrilling self satisfaction. This has been Jato's most successful week so far with sales of six ties! One vintage & five handmade. I couldn't be more pleased. Happy beginnings are much more pleasing than happy endings right now. I feel a real surge in momentum driving me forward & a belief more than I ever dared to dream that I might just pull this off. So it's time for more focus, more hard work, more learning, more satisfaction, more abundance & more fun!

Plans have been laid for next year; I am to start a course on starting your own business (so I can get this off the ground properly), start going to the craft workshop sessions & continue my painting class.

I am tired but excited to get up & start again tomorrow in a way that I haven't been for a long time, in a way that I thought was lost & for which I am extremely grateful.

Widen your horizons Wednesday & the thief of joy.

Yesterday's affirmation was “My courage, curiosity, confidence & creativity lead me to new & exciting opportunities to increase my abundance.”

A while back I found I was getting bogged down & frustrated with my affirmations & lost focus. I was spreading myself thin; trying to get too much done with my special sentences. I hit upon the idea of assigning each day of the week a particular focus so that I could make sure I was doing what I needed to do & give each area for improvement my full focus for an entire day, knowing that the others were going to get taken care of later in the week. It seems to be working miracles.

Wednesday has been designated “Widen your horizons Wednesday”, a day for focussing on affirmations for new, exciting & beneficial opportunities. Today I got three...

Following my support group meeting on Saturday I got in touch with an agency called Positive Assets who can assist people with mental health problems get back into work. I got a lovely call from a lady called Rachael who said that I may not for the criteria to receive assistance directly from them, but gave me a ton of helpful advice & hints for stuff to be getting on with just in case.

A conversation about my plans at the morning school gate drop off got me an offer of advice, guidance, potential access to a local business network & some knowledge about applying for grants to get my plans up & running, something I'd never thought of before.

Bumping into an acquaintance in the doctors reception led to a conversation about computer training & free courses on computing & web site design. Something I'll need to get done to make Jato fly.

Which all got me thinking about something I used to credit all my good fortune & achievements to; serendipity. I used to put all the good things that happened down to serendipity, simply being in the right place at the right time, opportunities miraculously opening up, goals being achieved just when I needed them. I didn't & wouldn't take any credit for them myself, that seemed somehow uncomfortable & not at all correct. Taking credit for anything good has never sat well with me.

Now I've done some essential & overdue rewiring & maintenance on my ailing thinking organs when reflecting on past victories I can see that all my achievements have come about from my effort, my affirmation & manifestation when I needed it most. When I really needed to, I could pull off the tricks I'm now using every day to get what I needed. Then I realised my mistake. By attributing all my hard won achievements to serendipity I was giving away my own power. By not acknowledging my own hard work & winning strategies I'd completely dis-empowered myself. So I'm going to stop talking about serendipity, she's stolen an awful lot from me & sneakily kept the praise & credit when she had no right to. Get thee to gaol serendipity, you are banished.

I'm grateful for a full day, grateful for the help offered by folk, grateful for the effort & courage I put into dreaming that my plans might be possible, grateful for convincing myself that I can move forward, grateful for the idea of writing “opportunities” on every shopping & to do list.

I'm grateful for all the good things that “Thankful Thursday” is going to bring too.

All finished & up for sale. Link below...

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/171464428/hand-made-grey-bow-tie-with-blue-window?

Only four available. Get 'em quick!

Winter

I have been outside. Not particularly unusual but for me it's been special. For the past two winters I've been restricted in what I can do; too ill or scared or breathless or in pain to go out on the cold & blustery days. If I was out I hid on buses; sheltered from the elements, crammed in with other weather cowards & seasonal refugees, all reluctant to experience the wilds of winter. So today I forced myself up & out despite the ever present pain, despite the breathlessness, despite the annoying fearful little voice trying to convince me to stay in & worry about the weather making me more wheezy.

Focus on the tasks of the morning, focus on saying anything positive inside my head, focus on all the layers of lovely fabrics I can pile on to protect the fragile chest.

So I got out. I breathed the chilly winter air, the drizzle dampened me & the wind swirled aggressively around me. It was exhilarating. Bashed about by the breeze, walking proud through the murk of winter weather I felt like I'd beaten something. A victory for me. I've missed the winter. Missed the savage blast & the surprise cold of the downpour. Missed the rapid changing sky. Missed the fantastic feeling of being safe & snug in the middle of cold brutality.

The fragile chest still hurts & my lungs still feel like shattered glass, but no more than they did earlier, no more than they did yesterday & no more than they will tomorrow when I shall venture out again. Another fear felt. Another fear beaten. All I need to worry about is which coat I'll choose tomorrow.

making...

I have been busy...

Everything I make is sewn on my Singer sewing machine. It belonged to my Great Grandmother who was a seamstress & a milliner. I have coveted this machine since I was a small child. Now it's my favourite thing in the house (after Sharon, Jack, the cat & the dog!) Grangran (her special name) made my mother's wedding dress on this. I can feel her looking over my shoulder when I'm sewing; an encouraging presence. 

I like them when I turn them right way out after sewing. They look like chubby tentacles.

Soon to be available in the Etsy store. Only five available so get 'em rapid!

Jato blog 1.

It all starts with madness.

Stuck in a big city many miles from home, so full of panic that I can't decide what clothes to wear in a morning. It's frequently too much, so difficult a decision that I crawl trembling back to bed to hide from the wardrobe's discarded pile of clothes.

Serendipity rescues me.

Melvyn Bragg becomes an unknowing saviour.

A South Bank Show featuring Gilbert & George reveals a special way of coping. To prevent unnecessary distraction from their art those genius chaps have wardrobes full of identical suits; everything is the same, they don't have to bother themselves with making a decision, they don't have to worry. The next day I dash out to hit the charity shops. I buy three suits & alter them to fit. One part of the day gets easier.

So begins a love affair with the elderly & forgotten. Garments are abandoned despite their beauty, their former occupants dead or ready to move on to something more now. Charity shops become boutiques & I scour them regularly. I seek out new ones in unfamiliar territories & I navigate the city with these second hand citadels as my landmarks. I discover that fabric, like art can move me. I find some tweed that is so beautiful that when I wear it I want to cry.

Years pass & I feign wellness. Jobs come & go & people are helped & some are healed. My self deceit is reinforced by the professional progress I make & it can't last. Incongruence & dissonance are things you can't run from forever. It's a truth I use help others get well. I forget to use it on myself.

This latest madness. This lacking. This hopeless mood. This wanting to leave the world. It comes from pain, this stabbing, kicking, pain in my chest that makes me curse & cry out. Makes the breath unwilling to come & go. I can't go out, I can't walk, I can't work, I can't breathe.

There's a dream I have. A dream where I sew & sew all day & it makes people give me money. It makes people feel good about themselves. It makes people feel the same pride as I when I'm in my dead man’s finery.

Jato La Snoot smacked me in the face as I was wheezing while watching my son whiz ever faster round & round. It seemed a fine way to do something, to fill the long dismal days & make them much brighter.

I discover on my raspy breathed walks around desolate places that I can take photographs that become different ways of looking at the world, my way of looking at the world; digital visions of a beautiful dystopia that has been a place I've visited in slumbering travels for years, finally dragged from my dream-world & made tangible.

So now I see & I alter & I make & I sew & people like it & I feel a lot better. It feels like living & the sewing machine makes my heart sing to its rhythm. It seems a fine way to make a living & to be living.

I thought long & hard about how much my recovery should be a part of this venture, thought about how much I should expose & I decided they had to be absolutely linked, intertwined, exhibited, displayed & sold together as progress with one naturally enhances the other. I also feel it needs to be an example so others can see. I dared to inspire in my other role, dared to allow people to use me as an example so it will be the same with this adventure & this shall be its place.