Change: The Only Constant

It’s chilly nights like this when I remember so vividly my nightly walks from the Boston Commons area down to South Station, in the financial district of downtown Boston. The wind was fierce, coming off the harbor, and the skyscrapers formed walls on the streets that made each step like attempting to walk in a wind tunnel.

I bundled my dad’s Navy pea coat up as high as it would button, wrapped my scarf around my neck as many times as I could. And my fleece hat, while warm, never could handle the cutting chill of the wind.

I always smiled, though. I loved living there. I adjusted to the terrifically cold winters and the super-humanly humid summers.

And, whenever possible, I escaped to Maine.

I’m feeling a little all over the place tonight… a little nostalgic (see above... *ahem*), a little confident, a little sassy, as I dance around my living room to the newest Florence + The Machine album (please, just get it... it's so worth it!), and I am happily alone on this cold night, although I can think of few other greater pleasures than sharing warm covers with a lover.

This is the relaxed and happy me.

Tonight, I think I could write a whole novel, or at least my entire memoir, in just a matter of hours. Tonight, I think I could read the rest of the book I just started, or I could fill up the paper journal I’m barely a third of the way into.

So many thoughts twirling and swirling around in my mind, so many thoughts escaping through my pores, never to be thought again.

I’ve recently stepped through a significant amount of change in my life, and I smile as I reflect on those changes tonight.

One of the most recent changes?

Leaving my job.

A tiny little part of me (and probably a bigger part of you) thinks I must be crazy, to take a leap like that without having a "secure" and "certain" net to jump into.

All the thousands of people out of work, and I had a great job that I actually chose to leave. Crazy, right?

Believe me. That thought, and many more, scrolled through my head before I made my decision.

The reality is, there's no such thing as "job security" anymore. I'd been thinking about it for a long time, and now was as good a time as any to make the jump.

I’m working on what my business will be. I’m working on what I’m going after and what my aim will be. Don’t worry—you’ll be the first to know, once I get the plans all laid out.

In the mean time… I've been catching up on what feels like two and a half years of sleep deprivation. I am remarkably relaxed, and I'm doing fairly well with letting go of control, taking one day at a time, and I'm actually getting pretty good at living in the present. 

Instead of [indulging my old habits of] facing the potentially daunting near future of finding gainful employment with fear, anxiety, procrastination and reluctance, I am practicing positive thinking and positive action. I am working through books that are helping me create my vision for my business, and eventually a business plan and concrete steps to take to turn those plans into action.

For the first time in my entire life, I feel like I'm finally working towards the career I've spent the entirety of my working years aiming towards.

And in some ways, I feel more grown up right now than I have ever been.

I hope to post some writing soon. I hope to feel like doing some more public writing. I do have a lot to say… a lot to tell.

Glass & Other News

First things first! Don't forget to enter the giveaway! You have till Sunday to enter. You could win this beautiful set I made!

(Click the picture for details!)

So, the big news is that I got to play with glass on Monday AND yesterday, too! Want to see?

These beads aren't the greatest, but it's not bad considering I haven't sat at a torch in *over a year*. I'll pick up the beads I made on Thursday when I go back on Monday, to make more beads. ;-)

I've missed this so much, y'all. This one has my precious rubino oro (dark pink), with some goldstone, silvered ivory, and I can't remember what else.

This one is just fun, I think. And I needed a few tangerine sparkle spacers. Man, making spacers sucks! It's so boring. I do think I should go back and work on technique-- dot placement, stringers, etc... I'm so out of practice that doing that stuff is intimidating to me. I seem to only be able to do larger dots. The smaller ones tend to be distorted or misshapen, or something.

But, honestly-- just getting to sit there and play with molten blobs of glass, for hours on end... it was peaceful and fabulous. Even better when I didn't have to talk to anyone. I could just be. In my own little world.

This one has a beautiful pale blue with opal yellow, and it reacted nicely with the silver and black. The other side isn't nearly as nice, though, because I ruined the clear dots by putting (smaller) turquoise dots on top of the clear. It just doesn't look right. Ahh well.

I think this one is my favorite from the other day. I love the pinks, and the silver reacted nicely with the ivory and the smidge of intense black I added in. The dots on the side are a super pale amethyst/almost pink. This one is definitely staying with me, and definitely getting made into a necklace of some sort.

I may need to learn to like making spacers, because all these focals without anything to go with them is kind of annoying from a jewelry design perspective.

Basically, I decided to stop depriving myself of torch time, just because I haven't been able to afford getting a studio set up at home. Yes, I have to pay for the torch time... and yes, it's a 30 mile drive each direction... but it's worth it. The peace and calm I've felt over the past few days is evidence that I need to continue carving out the time to make beads.

I do have one other bit of news. I debated giving this its own post, but... nah...

I got a full time job! After months of looking for more contract work and searching for a full time position, an opportunity sort of fell into my lap. I'll be working as a leadership insights business analyist in the Business Innovations department of an international snack foods company. I'm excited about this on many levels-- because of the people I'll be working with, because of the company itself, and many more reasons than I care to list.

Things are finally starting to look up in our neck of the woods... so please keep your fingers crossed that my husband, Brett, finds work soon too.