Defining Exactly Your Dream Is

     How do you define exactly what it is you want to do with your life, I had a dream to be a mother, and I achieved that for the last 22 years and more I have been a mother. I also had a dream to attend College and I am, and my children have graduated High School and are both attending College as well. At first when I began to attend College I thought I wanted to teach English, then it became History, then it became something else all of these things interested me but it wasn't what I was passionate about. I have discovered it is important to follow what your passionate about plain and simple.

      But what if I fail often runs through my mind and then I am reminded of what one particularly famous basketball player said:  "If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks. I've had them; everybody has had them. But obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. Michael Jordan" and I remember that it is the practice, the attempts, the failures that make the successes so much more important. I am not talking about getting 'A's on your papers, I am talking about those successes that you just can't help but squeal, whoop, jump up and down, and holler about. Those emotions are not emotions that you deal with every day, because on a daily basis we are all doing what we need to do to maintain our lives. We get into a rut, we do the same thing day in and day out and we wonder why our dreams are not coming about. 

      So I started to work on my dream, and in the process of working on my dream I have organized, de-cluttered and obtained certain tools that I required. Now what do I do, well I belong to several groups that teach various methods of what I enjoy doing and I have been participating in several challenges. What good are these challenges, well they teach you various different techniques for one thing and they also keep you putting yourself out there. Research what it is you wish to do, don't just surf the internet actually go out and look at how other people are doing what you want to do. Get involved on the lowest level if that is the only way in. Be willing to work for what you want, be willing to work at what you want, and be willing to step up to the opportunity when it arrives. Don't close your eyes and pray for it to happen, because you just might miss the opportunity.

      Although my dream is not completely defined, I have a general idea of what I wish to do and that is to create artwork be it in the form of a quilt, a wall hanging, a framed picture, an outfit, or a dish of food. I wish to transform these ideas and images that are in my mind and create a tangible, real object. All to often, what others have said in regards to my work or what they haven't said has created a block or wall for me, as well as, encouraged me to keep plugging away at it. Not everyone will like what I do, that includes those closest to me, family, friends their values, their belief system may not match mine. I know that for many years I was told I could do or be anything I wanted and yet when I did, those same people refused to look at or acknowledge what I had worked so hard at because the subject matter was either something they weren't interested in or they were uncomfortable with it.

Define what your dream is for yourself, research what it takes to achieve your dream, practice, practice, practice and with this method of defining and refining you will achieve your dream. It takes work and dedication, setting goals and taking steps to insure that your living your dream.

Don't enslave yourself to a life that doesn't fulfill your dreams, if you live your life to achieve the expectations of what others place on you, then you will have achieved nothing of your own. You will only have resided in this world. Don't sell yourself short before you have given yourself a chance.

Pursuing My Dream

 Yesterday I posted about how to start working on your dreams and I told you a little bit about my life and the changes that have occurred in my life. Today, I am going to tell you the steps I have taken to step up and own my dream. My birthday was in the beginning of July and this year my husband and I joined an Mixed Media Art Museum, as a member they have challenges twice a year that would allow me to display a piece of my work. Now my job is to overcome my trepidation and actual attend the monthly meetings, which means I must drive downtown in order to do this and for those of you, who know me know this is not something I am comfortable doing. So the last Friday of this month is the meeting and I am hoping nothing comes up that tells me or gives me an excuse not to go.

 Now the second thing I have begun to do which I actually began in May when my classes ended is to get myself organized. I am not completely there yet, it is happening though. I have gone through every bin, box, drawer, bag of craft and sewing supplies that I have. I have sorted, tossed, folded, ripped, and mingled with everything and put it together by simple virtue of venue, paint is with paint, pencils and pens are together, fabric is sorted, folded, and cut, thread glorious thread, you know I think I have more thread than anything else, I have sewing thread, quilting thread, embroidery machine thread, hand embroidery thread, serger thread, cotton thread, crochet thread, yep you name it I got it. I have rolled and sorted all my hand embroidery thread and have them in little boxes, my machine embroidery thread is together as well as the crochet and sewing thread. Projects were gathered together and listed (well still working on that to be honest). I have acquired a few items that I procrastinated on getting because why ever would I get them they are so expensive and I will never truly branch out and use them right? Well if you never get them you won't ever use them, you will just keep saying I wish I had them.

The third thing I have done is joined some groups online that do a monthly challenge and one of those challenges was to make an art journal cover and this is mine, which I actually made myself, trying different techniques and I posted it as well. I used pastels, and acrylic paints, sharpie markers and thread on fabric to create my notebook. It is not perfect, however it is a start. And that is all that anyone can ask for when beginning the journey of pursuing you dreams.

How to start working on your dreams.

Have you ever had a dream, a dream that no matter what never left you? Over the years I have had several of these dreams they bloom and fade and bloom again and yet I never feel quite right about following them. That is until this past few months, over the last two years there have been many changes in my life. My son moved out and is busy living his life,my nephew has found himself the woman he has chosen to marry, my first niece has a daughter of her own, and my second niece well she has graduated college and is working in the field of her choice, and my daughter well she continues to surprise me everyday with the changes that come over her some good some make me shake my head. My husband continues to be a strong support system for me as I flicker from one idea to the next. Almost from the start he has always looked at what I do with amazement and this I think is the main reason I have been persistent in exploring my dreams more avidly. Sometimes, the fear of failure is so strong, or maybe it is the fear of judgement, either way it is fear.

As a child I would look on as my mother sewed and wanted so much to be able to create as she did. I truly felt I had failed in that respect for a very long time. It was not until recently that I accepted that I am creative just not in the same way as she was. It took me 40 years to come to this conclusion and since I hit my 50th year this past July, I can honestly see that my dream did come true. Because of this realization, I am taking a chance and putting it out there for everyone to see. I don't write on a regular basis because well to be honest I don't think about it or if I do think about it, I think what can I write that someone else hasn't written already. And to stay on the honesty kick the fact of the matter is I would write about the struggles of obtaining my dreams and the fact that not everything I make comes out exactly like I want it to, however, it still comes out quite different than what it started out as.

I have moved around so much in my life many people don't understand why when I finally got a home that I could call my own the desire to truly decorate and remodel it to fit me and my husband is so very strong, that having someone who doesn't really know me or him do anything is not something I do very often. There are a few things he and I don't do electricity is definitely one of them,  yard work is another, plumbing yep another one I have come to accept I don't like to do these things. Otherwise as we make the changes to our home it truly begins to develop within our personality range.

So how do you go about starting to work on your dreams, well that is simple the first step is never give up on them no matter what fears, obstacles or changes come about. Remember only you can make your dreams come true. Others can help and encourage but if your not willing to pick up the pieces and put them together they will never come about.

What I have been working on

I am almost completed with this semester just need to go to class on Monday then do the final on Wednesday and go to class on Thursday to pick up my final project. I have been following along with several quilt alongs and this weekend I was actually able to work on one of them and the link to this quilt along is here Globetrotting-2014-mystery-bom-by-Pat-Sloan I am really loving how it is going together. I have managed to figure out the key element to how to get my quilt blocks to come out to the right measurements.

all of these blocks came out to be 10.5" X 10.5". The key element is of course to cut them straight and to sew straight. The cutting is not as hard now that I have my new cutting table and cutting tools. I will have to take pictures of them all and post those later.

The other thing that I have been up to is working on recipes, I created a recipe for stuffed mushrooms and actually typed it all up and last night had my daughter test it out and both her and my husband say that it came out great. I enjoy the creative process but am bad on the recording process so this is the first time that I have been able have a recipe duplicated without me there to do it with them.

The other thing I have been up to is crocheting I have been working on a curtain for my kitchen window out of a natural ecru colored thread and when I get to the point where their actually looking like curtains rather than just motifs I will post a picture of that.

Today I am going to cut out another block from a quilt along  this one is called the Aurifil Quilt along and it can be found here Aurifil designers-of-the-month and I am going to start with May and work backwards.

I am becoming slightly comfortable with the idea that I can do this quilting thing. But you know it is always just a day to day thing.

Bird House

I have an extreme love of birds I don't really care what kind nor do I care whether or not their real. I have been working on a project and today I completed one of them. This project has been hanging around since last year but I just hadn't figured out how I wanted to put it together and I have bought several different items to complete it. Not sure if it is exactly how I want it but I do know that it looks ok.

 

Let me know what you all think is there something I should add?

Sewing Machine Riser

Well we made the plunge have listed our sewing/embroidery machine riser on eBay for sale. To get a nice view of the riser you can look at it on the eBay listing link here:

Handmade wooden Embroidery Machine Rise

This is a great little riser and it is definitely quite sturdy. I have one just like this and it works great. It is built solidly and has a nice smooth finish on it. Love it.

Bad posting habits

I have been very busy with classes and volunteering and getting stuff done around the house, so I haven't really been able to post much. But I have been busy cooking as well and I made two new dishes for me and I thought they looked and tasted really good so I thought that I would post about them.

I love to cook now cooking can get routine but it is up to you to change it up and you can experiment as well that is what I love about cooking. You can cook the same dish over and over and yet if you experiment it will come out differently each time. Now there is a drawback to this technique if you are like me you don't always pay attention to what you change so if it is really really good you may have just had a once in a life time experience. Now I do this often so I have now gotten my husband and daughter to help me with preparing certain dishes so that they can document what I do and then I go back and redo it this time using measurements. Now this is what happened with my stuffed mushrooms, lol now my husband calls these food porn and my daughter says num num and she is 20 soooooo I guess that is good, myself I don't like the feel of mushrooms in my mouth so its a no go for me but the stuffing is to die for lol.

 

And there they are. Now I also ran across a souffle recipe that I had to try as well it is a Bacon and Cheese souffle now I have never made a souffle before however, this one came out great so I typed up the recipe for that at as well. 

And that is my cooked souffle it was really good even reheated my husband liked it.

I do have the recipes typed up so if anyone wants them just let me know and I will send them to you. I don't know how to add them here other wise I would. I suppose I could type up a special post for each one and add them that way. I will have to think about it though. Now it is time to go.