Seasons
A close friend of mine has recently introduced me to Rob Bell and his podcast The Robcast. I listen to podcasts when I work. While sewing, hand-pounding snaps and packaging, the work itself can become tedious and repetitive. My self-diagnosed ADHD brain needs mental stimulation to finish simple tasks, and to cope, I get lost in podcasts and audio books. Typically, I listen to non-fiction content about growth, entrepreneurship or parenting...all the things that are speaking to me right now. (Let's be honest, I also love Serial and any Liane Moriarty novel) What podcasts and books are you listening to right now? Please share with me!
Anyway, this started with an episode of the Robcast called Seasons (episode 115) and it shook me to my core because of where I am right now. I felt like there were several "nods" at me from the beginning, where he actually references our ability to buy tomatoes in February at 2am to towards the end when he says "maybe you worked there for 9 years and it was good!". (To catch you up, my husband just left his very secure, very great job of 9 years, with a Fortune 500 company, to work for a small produce company selling... you guessed it... tomatoes.)
It's been about four months now and you could say we are in the thick of transition. We knew leaving the comfortable and the known was not going to be easy. And it hasn't been. Not easy at all. It has helped that we are loving our new community. We love the kids' new schools. We love suburban life (which is what I grew up in) and all the conveniences that come along with life in the 'burbs and a brand new HOA neighborhood. But change? Change is hard. I miss my tribe of amazing girlfriends, my sweet breakfast nook that hosted countless intimate coffee conversations, with the people I hold nearest and dearest. I miss being close to family.
Husband definitely misses the support and camaraderie that comes with working with others. Having come from a small town that is largely owned by a big company, the community is all intertwined. Our work friends are also our church friends who are our workout friends who were our neighbors.... This company had been very good to us, and wasn't only the source of our income, but also our social lives. I keep trying to decide if our family fit that subculture perfectly or if it's because of the culture that is how we have been shaped...if that makes any sense.
When we made this big decision, it was hard to walk away from all the security and the known and the familiar. Leaving this corporate family has been much harder on me than the physical distance. We went straight from college life into this working life with a 3-week-old-baby, a mortgage and a job and had been there ever since. We went from being poor college kids to working adults and parents virtually overnight. We hardly know what "adulting" looks like outside of that small town.
However, even good things do come to an end, and not all endings have to be bad to be endings. As Rob puts is, "People who don't know how to end things well end seasons in divorce rather than in graduations."
Here I am in a weird space where one season has ended and it feels like the next one hasn't really begun yet. I'm so grateful to have a name for it now. It's called "liminal space". And it's exactly where I am. Rob says this about liminal space -- "Keep your eyes open. Grieve whatever you need to grieve. Take your time, because oftentimes it's in that liminal space where things open up in us that would only open up in us if we were in enough discomfort."
Before Christmas, I had spent a lot of energy trying to push into this next new season and really hadn't taken the time I need to take to grieve. My second daughter, who is 7, got off the bus the day we were about to make the 18 hour drive back to Minnesota to spend half of their Winter Break from school. All I had been hearing about for days was how excited everyone was to go to Minnesota and how sad they all were that we were cutting the trip a bit short to be back in our new home in time for Christmas Day. C got off the bus in tears and told me how much she was going to miss her new best friend who lives a couple houses down as well as her new school. Then she summed up all of my feelings in one single sentence, "I just don't know where home is right now."
It's a strange feeling to drive by the house I brought all my babies home to and that we expanded as our family expanded. It felt like I belong both here and there, but sadly, it felt like we didn't belong in either. And that is the hardest part of all.
The time spent in Minnesota as a family was mostly wonderful. We loved seeing our friends and family. Everyone offered their homes and arms openly and generously. When it was time to say "goodbyes" again, it felt like ripping open a freshly healed wound. Now, after a week long visit and then waking up in our new home on Christmas morning, I think we are all feeling a shift. A shift of where home is, what it means and what it feels like. The 18-hour car ride (each way, without frequent potty breaks) gave me a lot of time to process and grieve.
From the beginning, Ruffle Couture had a really strong local following. Every Fall/Winter I have had a very clear-cut goal which is to produce as much as possible in time for AHC each December. Without fail, I sold completely out of certain styles within the first two hours of the Friday night show every year. It was a really great problem to have. But what does Ruffle Couture have to offer here and now? It was fun to introduce my product at an open house in my neighborhood. I was overwhelmed by the positive response and support. I still love how surprised people are when they learn that I designed and created each piece myself, from scratch.
Ruffle Couture started as a little fun hobby as a creative outlet when I had two little kids - L was 2 and C was just a tiny baby! I could only dream that the brand would grow as much as it has. I am so grateful that I can hardly keep my head above water between the twice-as-many-kids, designing and creating, sewing, packaging, selling, marketing, corresponding....
My one-woman-show can continue as it has the past couple of years, but it cannot grow any more as a one-woman-show. I realize the smallness itself is a lot of the charm of the business. I also fear that right now, at the end of the day, maybe Ruffle Couture is really only benefiting me as well.
As with every New Year, we all try to pause and take a long, hard look at what is next. I have learned that in order to go somewhere, you have to establish where it is you are and where you are starting from. Between a completely new place, a youngest who is starting to go to preschool and out of diapers (the first time in 9 and a half years our family is out of diapers!!) our family is most definitely entering into a new season, and with that, Ruffle Couture needs to enter a new season as well.
Though I don't know exactly how or what it looks like, my hope for this next season is to be one of giving and abundance. I have been so nurtured, so blessed and cared for that I want to bless and care for others. What good is my time, spent creating and building a brand, if it doesn't give back to the communities that so abundantly bless and support me? I want to leave this space (not anytime soon) better than how I found it -- this home, neighborhood, community and world, really.
I have some general and vague ideas - I want to empower other women in their small businesses. I want to give back to causes that have impacted my family and me (for example, maybe a Life Center, like Project Life, in Stillwater, Minnesota that gave life to my family 10 years ago -- that is another blog post waiting to be written). I want to clothe and comfort and warm those who need clothes, comfort and warmth. I want to counsel or support others working toward a debt-free journey and life that way that Husband and I did several years ago.
I have been praying about this since before the move and have been making a conscious effort to not open this up to everyone until I was ready for outside influence. So far it's been my family and a couple of close friends, and most importantly between God and me. After the hustle and bustle of Christmas and gifts and travel and shipping orders, I am ready to spend some time reflecting on what is in store and I invite you to join me for the ride. I am ready to open this up for discussion and feedback and share along the way what is happening next. Are you in?
Anyway, this started with an episode of the Robcast called Seasons (episode 115) and it shook me to my core because of where I am right now. I felt like there were several "nods" at me from the beginning, where he actually references our ability to buy tomatoes in February at 2am to towards the end when he says "maybe you worked there for 9 years and it was good!". (To catch you up, my husband just left his very secure, very great job of 9 years, with a Fortune 500 company, to work for a small produce company selling... you guessed it... tomatoes.)
It's been about four months now and you could say we are in the thick of transition. We knew leaving the comfortable and the known was not going to be easy. And it hasn't been. Not easy at all. It has helped that we are loving our new community. We love the kids' new schools. We love suburban life (which is what I grew up in) and all the conveniences that come along with life in the 'burbs and a brand new HOA neighborhood. But change? Change is hard. I miss my tribe of amazing girlfriends, my sweet breakfast nook that hosted countless intimate coffee conversations, with the people I hold nearest and dearest. I miss being close to family.
Husband definitely misses the support and camaraderie that comes with working with others. Having come from a small town that is largely owned by a big company, the community is all intertwined. Our work friends are also our church friends who are our workout friends who were our neighbors.... This company had been very good to us, and wasn't only the source of our income, but also our social lives. I keep trying to decide if our family fit that subculture perfectly or if it's because of the culture that is how we have been shaped...if that makes any sense.
When we made this big decision, it was hard to walk away from all the security and the known and the familiar. Leaving this corporate family has been much harder on me than the physical distance. We went straight from college life into this working life with a 3-week-old-baby, a mortgage and a job and had been there ever since. We went from being poor college kids to working adults and parents virtually overnight. We hardly know what "adulting" looks like outside of that small town.
However, even good things do come to an end, and not all endings have to be bad to be endings. As Rob puts is, "People who don't know how to end things well end seasons in divorce rather than in graduations."
Here I am in a weird space where one season has ended and it feels like the next one hasn't really begun yet. I'm so grateful to have a name for it now. It's called "liminal space". And it's exactly where I am. Rob says this about liminal space -- "Keep your eyes open. Grieve whatever you need to grieve. Take your time, because oftentimes it's in that liminal space where things open up in us that would only open up in us if we were in enough discomfort."
Before Christmas, I had spent a lot of energy trying to push into this next new season and really hadn't taken the time I need to take to grieve. My second daughter, who is 7, got off the bus the day we were about to make the 18 hour drive back to Minnesota to spend half of their Winter Break from school. All I had been hearing about for days was how excited everyone was to go to Minnesota and how sad they all were that we were cutting the trip a bit short to be back in our new home in time for Christmas Day. C got off the bus in tears and told me how much she was going to miss her new best friend who lives a couple houses down as well as her new school. Then she summed up all of my feelings in one single sentence, "I just don't know where home is right now."
It's a strange feeling to drive by the house I brought all my babies home to and that we expanded as our family expanded. It felt like I belong both here and there, but sadly, it felt like we didn't belong in either. And that is the hardest part of all.
The time spent in Minnesota as a family was mostly wonderful. We loved seeing our friends and family. Everyone offered their homes and arms openly and generously. When it was time to say "goodbyes" again, it felt like ripping open a freshly healed wound. Now, after a week long visit and then waking up in our new home on Christmas morning, I think we are all feeling a shift. A shift of where home is, what it means and what it feels like. The 18-hour car ride (each way, without frequent potty breaks) gave me a lot of time to process and grieve.
From the beginning, Ruffle Couture had a really strong local following. Every Fall/Winter I have had a very clear-cut goal which is to produce as much as possible in time for AHC each December. Without fail, I sold completely out of certain styles within the first two hours of the Friday night show every year. It was a really great problem to have. But what does Ruffle Couture have to offer here and now? It was fun to introduce my product at an open house in my neighborhood. I was overwhelmed by the positive response and support. I still love how surprised people are when they learn that I designed and created each piece myself, from scratch.
Ruffle Couture started as a little fun hobby as a creative outlet when I had two little kids - L was 2 and C was just a tiny baby! I could only dream that the brand would grow as much as it has. I am so grateful that I can hardly keep my head above water between the twice-as-many-kids, designing and creating, sewing, packaging, selling, marketing, corresponding....
My one-woman-show can continue as it has the past couple of years, but it cannot grow any more as a one-woman-show. I realize the smallness itself is a lot of the charm of the business. I also fear that right now, at the end of the day, maybe Ruffle Couture is really only benefiting me as well.
As with every New Year, we all try to pause and take a long, hard look at what is next. I have learned that in order to go somewhere, you have to establish where it is you are and where you are starting from. Between a completely new place, a youngest who is starting to go to preschool and out of diapers (the first time in 9 and a half years our family is out of diapers!!) our family is most definitely entering into a new season, and with that, Ruffle Couture needs to enter a new season as well.
Though I don't know exactly how or what it looks like, my hope for this next season is to be one of giving and abundance. I have been so nurtured, so blessed and cared for that I want to bless and care for others. What good is my time, spent creating and building a brand, if it doesn't give back to the communities that so abundantly bless and support me? I want to leave this space (not anytime soon) better than how I found it -- this home, neighborhood, community and world, really.
I have some general and vague ideas - I want to empower other women in their small businesses. I want to give back to causes that have impacted my family and me (for example, maybe a Life Center, like Project Life, in Stillwater, Minnesota that gave life to my family 10 years ago -- that is another blog post waiting to be written). I want to clothe and comfort and warm those who need clothes, comfort and warmth. I want to counsel or support others working toward a debt-free journey and life that way that Husband and I did several years ago.
I have been praying about this since before the move and have been making a conscious effort to not open this up to everyone until I was ready for outside influence. So far it's been my family and a couple of close friends, and most importantly between God and me. After the hustle and bustle of Christmas and gifts and travel and shipping orders, I am ready to spend some time reflecting on what is in store and I invite you to join me for the ride. I am ready to open this up for discussion and feedback and share along the way what is happening next. Are you in?
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