"Between" Designs

I have mentioned before that the title of my blog...Read Between Designs... infers that there are things I may post that have nothing to do with designing, or decorating etc. 

I think that this will be one of those posts. 

Hopefully you will do as asked and read anyway...

If you were to go back to some of my first posts you would see posts about my family, my role as mother and wife. You would read rants about my ups and downs and my challenges. I could just repost those, but today is a different day, and while the sentiment is a lot the same, 
the words will most likely come out differently. 

My last post mentioned that my month has been a bit out of balance. Honestly it has been for a while. 

Sometimes I take a step back from my life and examine things and just scratch my head in wonder as I ponder what it is that I'm really doing. Do you ever feel that way?

In the past few years I have had to make some major life changing decisions. I have been blessed beyond my comprehension to have strong faith in my Heavenly Father which has allowed me to make many of these decisions with peace, as difficult as the situation may have been. 

I feel like I'm a pretty strong woman, but not really any stronger than any one else. 

What I do feel I've had though is plenty of opportunities to learn hard things.

 I learned at a young age that there is no such thing as a "normal family" and that that's ok. 

I have learned that fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters all have different ways of giving and receiving love.

I have learned that when a child of God cries, He listens, even when he must stay silent for a time.

At 19 I learned how to be a wife 

At 20 I learned how to be a mommy

At 21 I learned how to let go of an miscarried child and move on

At 22, 24, 26, and 29 I learned how my love can grow with each new baby in my care.

I've learned how to rely on others for a short time, how to rely on myself less, but mostly, how to rely on God the most.

I've learned that no matter how good others may seem to have it, they don't have it as good as it seems. 

I've learned that life is hard. If we would stop expecting it to be easy, we wouldn't be so disappointed and heart-broken when things go wrong. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that we should walk around with a "doom and gloom" attitude and just expect the worst out of life. What I'm saying is keep your head up, life is hard, but so what, get over it and move on. There is plenty of good around you if you look hard enough. While you are looking for the good around you, chances are you will find someone whose life is much worse than yours. 

Whew...

Not sure what all I just said or if any of it makes sense, 

but I feel better.

So my life, my out of balance life. It's interesting how we go through phases. I am a bit of a "Go Getter" and I think I've been taught a lesson lately that I need to find a balance. It's a HUGE blessing to have a career that I love, that I'm passionate about, and that I can do largely at home. It's a dream come true to be almost finished with my own studio/workshop right in my backyard. I have some BIG and exciting things coming up with my business and I'm thrilled about them! With all of these things comes challenges. My biggest challenge is finding a balance between the things I do and the REASONS I'm doing them. I'm blessed with a husband that supports me totally, but has also been strong and in-tune enough to help me see the imbalance and help me set it right. Ultimately nothing I do in the world will ever be more important to me than what I do within the walls of my home, within the chambers of the hearts and souls that I love and cherish. One more thing I have learned is that I will never be wrong by putting my family first. 

So to those of you just starting to follow my blog, please be patient. To those who have been holding on, waiting for the next project, hold on. I've had a little juggling to do. I've needed to put things in their proper place and move forward in a way that allows me to be in control of my life and career and not the other way around. Before painting, pastering, junking, creating, and yes, even blogging, there is a far more important job I love and that is mom, friend, cook, seamstress, life coach, daughter and happy servant of God,  and finally, I'm the wife of Superman! If any of you are any of these things, you will know that the projects sometimes have to wait, or go much slower than I'd like. There is a limit on the days I will have to go fishing with my kids, or help my hubby with a struggle. I don't think there will ever be a limit to the things that can pull me away from these most important things. 

Thanks Superman.

So because no blog post is truly complete without great pictures, I'll leave you with a few photos of some of the things I've been doing this past month or so...

Started out with some custom countertops for a great client

 This finish is done right over her concrete counters that she was tired of having to re-seal every 6 months. I did the actual finish 2 years ago, just came back to give her sink a makeover and touched up the shine on her counters while I was there :)

She's happy with her new sink!

I re-finished all these chairs for another client..this is the "After"

 I built this custom bench out of 80-100 year old wood for a client...

Too bad she decided she didn't want it after all, any takers?

 (I'll post soon on the step-by-step for you DIY'ers)

Although Superman is SUPER, he is human after all...

Had to have a little surgery on his knee...

Poor baby...

That says "yes" just to make sure they can tell which knee to operate on,
as if the nice "shave" job wasn't enough of a give away...

Here he's just coming out of the anesthesia...
pretty happy boy...
Make that a VERY happy boy!

Then there was some time at the cabin for Spring break with the kiddos...

Here's a great shot of Superman and me embarrassing the kids with our A-MAZE-ING dance moves...

They can't stand how jealous they are of us!

(I can't believe I'm actually going to post that!)

So beside all of that, there was more work in the Studio, flowers got planted in the yard, a new stand for some "soon-to-be-Sloaned" flower-boxes, and a list of a myriad of other things.

And lastly, here's a picture of the biggest project of the month.

I'm all about repurposing.

I think I'm being "repurposed" a little.

Feels good.

With my new-found focus on keeping a schedule rather than having my schedule "keep" me I'm hoping to be much more productive with all of the time I spend. I'm setting a schedule for when I'm working and when I'm not. There should be a lot of great things happening in the next few weeks.

I'm ready.

Bring it on.