Being Grateful & Giving Away

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. The reasons are pretty simple. We spend time with people we love. We take time to think about what we are grateful for. This makes us feel happy and good. I like being happy and feeling good, and I like it when the people around me are happy and feeling good too.

I also really like eating yummy food. And snowboarding. I'm grateful for snowboarding. It has become our family's tradition to go snowboarding/skiing every Thanksgiving. Actually now that I'm thinking about it, it has become our family's tradition to go snowboarding/skiing on just about every holiday that falls between mid November and June 1!

I do my best to think about what I am grateful for every day. Lately, it's been first thing in the morning, before the sun comes up as I groggily drag myself out of my warm snuggly bed after hitting the snooze button three times. I'm not a morning person by nature. I usually feel like I could sleep for hours more. When I think about how grateful I am just to be here, that excites me to start my day. And large amounts of coffee. I am very grateful for coffee.

Another thing I am grateful for is you!!!!!  You who are reading this right now. Each and every one who has 'liked' my Facebook page, followed me on Twitter, looked at my Etsy store, joined my e-mail list and read my e-mails.

I am grateful to each person who has ever traded money for something I have created. For most people, this is trading your precious time. It all started with one person buying a few beads from a little dish that sat on our table in our apartment. I am grateful for each and every one.

I am grateful for each person who has ever come to my table or booth.Weather it was at my card table on the sidewalk in Port Townsend, a booth at a street fair, a Farmers or Saturday Market, a high end craft fair, or a shop or gallery.  I'm grateful for each person who has taken the time to look, ask questions, give compliments and smiles. At times smiles and true appreciation mean more than money. I am even grateful, though it can be hard to hear, for criticisms. 

I am grateful for my teachers. For workshops, classes, books, or just by the right person answering the right question at the right time. I am grateful for my students who are teachers too. Among other things, you have taught me how to teach. 

I am grateful for each and every person and every thing that has helped me on my way to where I am right now. 

All this gratitude makes me feel like giving something away. So, I am going to write each persons name who currently 'likes' my Facebook page (Larissa Spafford Designs) on a little piece of paper. I am going to put them all into this vase. 

Then I am going to randomly choose a name and give something to that person. I'm going to do this once a month. Each time a new person 'likes' my page I will add their name too. I'm not sure when I will get everyones name added, but I will let you know when I do! I'm hoping to do this by Thanksgiving. 

What are you grateful for?

Crayons & the Water Collection

I remember being a little girl and loving boxes of crayons. I especially liked the new boxes. There was something magically enticing about all those beautiful colors. Of course I had to line them up in rainbow order. Coloring was just a reason to smear those beautiful colors all over the page. I vividly remember an early homework assignment of outlining and coloring circles. I liked that one.

I remember liking their names as well. I would notice when they came out with new colors and names. Somehow, even then, I knew that there was a person who had the job of naming the colors. I thought that would be the coolest job. I kinda still do, so if anyone from Crayola is reading this, and in search of your next color namer, I would take that job! Another dream job would be creating colors. Beautiful colors of crayons, glass, or paint. That would be really fun.

Well so far I haven’t grown up to name crayons, but I do get to name colors of my beads!

Right now I’m coming up with names for my Water Collection. So far I have juicy tomato red, juicy pear green, fresh snow white and lavender dewdrop. I still need to come up with names for the grey and turquoise.

This is currently my favorite necklace. It is going away to it’s new home tomorrow, so I had to take pictures of it before it leaves. My beads and jewelry are like my babies. I got the idea for this one while sitting out in my yard this summer...or was it spring? Anyway, I wanted to make something that was inspired by water. I started with blue but could not resist making other colors too. The idea spawned a whole collection of jewelry in many colors that is still continuing to grow.

 

“...and when you want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it”   Paulo Coelho

I recently came across this quote somewhere and wrote it down because I agree.

Last month I went to England and Paris! It was a short trip for a wedding. I was in England for 4 1/2 days and in Paris for 2 1/2. When I was contemplating going it seemed pretty crazy to go so far, and such a big expense, for such a short time. Now I think it would have been completely crazy to not go. I had the best trip ever!

How the whole trip came together was pretty serendipitous.

As soon as I received the save the date card I knew I wanted to go and was determined to find a way. The date was getting closer and it was just not looking like I would be able to pull it off. I had pretty much given up and accepted that I wasn’t going to make it and was ok with that. Or at least I had myself convinced that I was ok with that.

Then in Feb. my friend called me to say that she and her wife were going to try to go and I should come too. This made me want to go all over again, even more now. I remember saying “sometimes things have a way of magically working out when you want them too” as I hung up the phone. I decided to give it a few days before I said no for sure.

Monday rolled around and I still hadn’t had any massive sales, or won the lottery. I just really wanted to go and felt so determined that there must be a way that did not involve credit cards. I was driving down the street and remembered the quote. I pulled into our driveway and the second I walked into the door I grabbed a marker and wrote this quote largely in dark pink ink. I put it on my desk where I could see see it throughout the day and went about my business.

Just a few hours later, completely out of the blue, my mother in law calls me. She has decided to give me enough air miles for a ticket!  Woo hoo! I was going. Just like that. Good things continued to happen to help me on my way. When I went to shop for a dress to wear, as I was waiting in line to pay, a lady next to me gave me a $20 off coupon. I received just enough extra bead orders to fund my trip. And at the last minute I received a check, completely unexpectedly, from my sweet grandma. She was as excited for me as if she was going herself. So in just a few short months I went from not thinking I was going, to having everything I needed, pretty effortlessly. I am very grateful!

The Workhouse in Bend

Have you heard about The Workhouse? It is an ingenious mix of studio, retail and class space. I am so happy to say that my work will be available here! The Workhouse has a face book page, so follow along if you like. The Grand Opening is this Saturday! Music, drinks and a pop up tapas bar!

It has been well over a month since we began online/homeschooling our son, Jasper. It has been a REALLY intense experience juggling his school, working at home and everything else. At first it felt like having a newborn again and it was an accomplishment just to get to take a shower that day. If I wasn't there to constantly monitor him he would get stuck on something and just sit there stuck.

Luckily I have THE best husband in the universe. We make a great team and together we came up with a plan that is working. We take turns being there to help when Jasper gets stuck. We each have subjects that we are better at helping with. Mine are math, science and language arts. I've dusted off the nether regions of my brain to re-learn things like balancing chemical and algebraic equations and remember parts of speech like misplaced participle phrases, infinitives and independent and subordinate clauses. Yikes!

In the last week or so something has definitely shifted and it's starting to not be so intense anymore. I seriously was starting to wonder if it would ever get easier and kept reminding myself that I can handle anything for just a few months. Jasper is finally being more self motivated. We don't need to babysit him as much to make sure he stays on track. I am so impressed with the work he is doing. When we first started he always did the bare minimum. His answers to questions would always be super short. Now he elaborates and is more thorough. He has always struggled with writing and now can write an essay in a reasonable amount of time. I don't know if we will choose to do this again next year but learning to be self motivated and thorough is invaluable.

One other positive thing that has come out of this experience is I've somehow managed to be really focused with and completely appreciate my work time. I am full of new ideas and good things are in the works. I've been trying to work smarter, not harder. I think that is my new motto. That and ....when you want something, the whole universe conspires in helping you to achieve it. But that is another story.....

Hello New Year! Hello Change!

Well so far this year has brought a whirlwind of changes. Change for the better. The biggest change is that we have enrolled our oldest son in an online/homeschooling program.

I can remember a day just last summer sitting in the sunshine of our backyard having a conversation about school options with my husband,sister and her boyfriend. I clearly remember being very adamant that homeschool wouldn’t really work for us because we work at home and need the time that the boys are in school to work. I remember going off about how I’m so busy with my business that there was no way I could possibly take on anymore. At that moment I felt I couldn’t possibly fit one more responsibility into my life. I felt like the majority of the homeschooling would have to fall on me, since between my husband and I, I have an easier time with academics, and there was just no way I could do that.

Now here I am, sitting next to a pile of textbooks and school supplies and my oldest son is enrolled in his new online/virtual/homeschooling program. I am his ‘learning coach’ and according to the online videos I’ve watched ‘learning coaches’ spend an average of 35 hrs. per week being a ‘learning coach’. How the heck did I get from that point in our backyard this summer to now?

It’s like the whole universe was saying, do this. Everything leading up to this decision fell into place so quickly and easily. It just feels like the right thing to do. Whenever I would completely convince myself that this just wouldn’t work for us and try to forget about it, someone would come along to nudge me closer to it.

We’ve built our whole life around doing what we love, and it just seemed wrong for our son to go off to a school everyday that he clearly did not enjoy and was not thriving in. In the short time we’ve been doing lessons, it’s already completely clear to me why he has been struggling and falling through the cracks. I’m relieved we are here to catch him, and ready for this new adventure.