Today I woke up and made breakfast for myself and my boyfriend, and we enjoyed a calm morning together. I spent most of the rest of the day crafting, preparing for my first small shop drop on September 10th! Since not too many people I know follow my blog on here, I want to share a little sneak peak of the drop items on here!
I want to do a relatively small drop for my first one, as I have no clue if people will be interested/participating on this one, and I already have 17 items available for purchase! I am excited about everything I’ve made, and I’m feeling a lot more creative and confident about my crafting!
I’ve been feeling a lot better about my decision when it comes to work, and I am excited to start my new job in a couple of weeks! The goal is to get into a new routine with my job, workout out, crafting, and reading. I want to make sure that I am progressing in life and moving toward my goals, I deserve that for myself.
I am excited for the week ahead, as I feel only good things coming up. I hope that is the same for all of you as well!
I have been going back and forth trying to make a decision about what to do with my job situation. I currently have a job that I like, but I have not been getting my full 40 hours for several weeks now, and it is starting to become stressful. I recently had my manager from my last job reach out and asked if I wanted to work in the billing department for her, and offered $1 more an hour, steady 40 hours a week, no weekends, and give me my vacation time back immediately as if I never left- the issue is the insurance is more expensive as they are a smaller company. So although I would “make more money,” it would be going to my insurance. The one good thing is it is a little closer to home than my current job. I am trying to see if I can get on my boyfriend’s insurance without being married, as we do have a joint account and are both on our current mortgage. If I can do that, that may sway me into going to that job.
On the other hand, I work for a company that wants to keep their employees, and I told them about my offer and how much I would want to get paid to stay and transition into being in their billing team; I had to keep in mind that it is quite a bit further of a drive to work. However, they can let me work from home two days a week once I am fully trained, and I would also have steady hours and not work weekends. I know a lot of people don’t care about the drive, but I just keep thinking about having an hour commute to work and then back, but also how it’ll be even longer in the winter.
In the midst of all of this stress, I came up with a craft drop schedule for my small shop! I will post it with this blog, that way if anyone wants to follow along on my Instagram or Facebook page! I am really excited to take this leap and give myself deadlines; it is important to set goals if you want to reach them! I can think about stuff I want to do as much as I want, but until I put in the work, all those thoughts will ever be are just thoughts. I keep reminding myself that you cannot rely on motivation as it is temporary, you have to rely on yourself, which requires discipline. I set up a crafting schedule so that I am constantly working on projects and being creative; I work well with routine and schedules, so as long as I put it on the schedule it will get done. Also, posting publicly about it also gives that added incentive to get it done and do a good job, as I can just hope someone is waiting to see what I’ve made!
I am open to any thoughts/advice anyone has, and appreciate any who are here reading this! I hope you all have a great week.
Today is supposed to be my productive day, and it did not start out how I planned. I had a few things on my to-do list, and this morning I was starting my day at UPS to ship off one of the orders I got over the weekend. It was raining when I left the house, and by the time I got to UPS (which was only six minutes away) it was down-pouring!
I got soaked getting out of my car and when I got in to find out shipping prices I was in shock! $45 to package and ship a couple of mugs to Miami! The girl at the counter was even shocked by the fee and said that Florida rates are high right now. Luckily the girl who ordered from me was understanding and paid for the shipping, but I was shook! Now I had to tell the other two people who made orders how much their shipping costs are and I’m waiting on their responses.
I got very lucky over the weekend and one of my cricut creations was recognized by the Official Cricut Instagram account and they shared my post to their 1.4 million followers and tagged me! I gained some followers on my crafting instagram, my etsy shop got favorited a couple of times, and I had three people place orders with me! So even though this shipping thing is annoying, I’m so grateful that this happened, and am happy to be learning the best ways to ship as a small business!
Now that they shared my work, I have been more confident and motivated and I now want to make/post at least one project weekly! I have been following more pages and hashtags to get inspiration, and I want to start making some fall items! I know it’s still summer for now, but kids are going back to school and fall is right around the corner! I’m also thinking about having a Halloween party again this year and going all out with crafting/decor!
I am going to start planning out projects and times to do certain things as I find it easier to stick to a schedule. My boyfriend and I are also making a list of updates we want to do on the house over the next couple years so we can plan for those. We are still without AC right now but it should be fixed this week- I really hope it’s soon because it’s going to be in the 90s for the next three days!
Overall I’ve had a lot of stress coming up, but also a lot of excitement! I am trying hard to focus on the positive things and be grateful, rather than let the stress bring me down. We will always have stress and not-so-great things that happen to us, but as long as we remember to practice gratitude and be aware of what we have, I feel that can only benefit us in the end.
I’m attaching the photo from instagram that was shared! If you have instagram, go ahead and check out some out the items I’ve made (@jenamadeitems)!
Every astrology page that I follow on twitter has been saying that Leo/Leo rising (me and me LOL) are going to come into some money early on this week, and I have a job interview tomorrow! Whether or not you believe in astrology, you may believe in the law of attraction; I am using that power to manifest money into my life.
I feel like people forget how powerful the mind is, and honestly I have been learning more about the stars and I feel like it’s beneficial because it makes me believe that these good things will happen to me- not only that, but it helps me to ask questions and analyze situations in my life, and practicing self-reflection is needed in order to progress.
In addition to the possible new job, I’ve been selling items that I’ve been making with my Cricut which is a fun little side hustle right now! I don’t expect to make tons and tons of money from that right now, as I’m still really just learning about things to make. But it definitely is fun! I hope everyone is having a nice Sunday.
I have a job interview coming up Monday morning for a manager position at a dental office. I have experience and am very hopeful about this opportunity; they told me via email that they are impressed with my experience which is a good sign, right?!
Also what’s good is at my current job we hit all our numbers for last month so we ended up getting a nice bonus this month, which I used part of to order my Easy Press so I can start making shirts/sweatshirts with my Cricut. I also treated myself to a manicure today so that felt great!
One of my old coworkers is coming over to buy a shaker bottle from me! I bought some cute ones from Walmart and used my Cricut and permanent vinyl to add the phrase “Gym & Tonic” and people love them! (I’ll add the photo to this blog post). I’m thinking of more ideas for projects with Valentine’s day coming up!
Just chilling in my car on my lunch break since none of us can eat in the break room (too many people without masks), and reflecting on the fact that every Thursday I am supposed to leave at 5 and always end up staying until 5:30-6pm due to how busy we are… unfortunately I don’t think today will be much different.
The good thing is I’m off tomorrow and am dropping off a surprise pre-christmas gift to my best friend and her son, so I’m excited about that! Also a good friend of mine is going to come visit and I get to give her the gift I made for her! It’s a cute Margarita glass with a mini margarita for her!
I’m loving the Christmas season this time around as I’ve said before, but I am genuinely happy being able to make all these gifts for people and it’s so fun! I can’t wait to see everyone’s reactions to their presents. I’ve attached the margarita photo to this post- let me know what you think!
Lately I’ve been feeling good, which I’m sure has a lot to do with my medication. I’ve been on a low dose of Cymbalta for about 5 months or so now, and it has been the best anxiety medication I’ve tried. I only take 20mg daily, but I’m also very sensitive to medications so it has made a whole world of a difference.
The last weekend I had a somewhat irrational thought and was like “let’s see what it’s like if I don’t take my medication today,” and by the end of the day I was sobbing uncontrollably. To be fair, it probably wouldn’t have been that bad, but it was that time of the month, so I was I already more emotional than normal. Not really the greatest time to experiment with coming off my anxiety medication, my bad LOL.
My boyfriend helped me to calm down and made me realize that most of what I was experiencing likely had to do with my hormones, but I still know that the medication had something to do with it. The thing is though, my goal is to be off of my medication by February, and absolute latest would be by July. I haven’t been going to therapy but I haven’t really felt the need to either. I have been reading about empaths and highly sensitive people which has helped me to understand more about myself and be able to apply that to every day life.
I have also been very motivated in regards to making crafts/gifts for my friends and family! I am loving Christmas season this time around which is a great improvement from last year. I love that I got my Cricut and I am always using it. Of course or sucks when I make mistakes, but then I learn! Overall I have been feeling good, especially for it being winter. I am happy with the change I’ve seen in myself comparing how I was this time last year.
I’ve been thinking a lot about how people manifest great things into their lives and I’ve been trying to do the same. I still need to make my vision board but I am debating getting a new printer and getting printable vinyl or just buying magazines and finding pictures like I used to as a teenager LOL.
I know that I have a purpose, and I don’t know 100% what it is yet, but I know that I like to bring people joy and I want more people to feel in control of their emotions and I feel like I need to help people in some way. Granted, I am nowhere near perfect and I still breakdown and have bad days, and I will always be working to improve myself; but in reality that is everyone, we’re all human.
We need to stop being so hard on ourselves and be more encouraging, as we are to our loved ones! We have no problem telling others that “everything will be okay” and “nobody is perfect, don’t be too hard on yourself,” but we can’t seem to cut ourselves the same slack. Why not?! It is important to have goals and high expectations in yourself, but that doesn’t mean you have to hate on yourself the whole way there!
I’ve been having fun and also getting discouraged with my cricut. I see other people doing awesome projects of much higher skill level, and I see projects where I don’t have the materials I need right now, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be able to get them in the future! And I will always be able to learn these new skills that I am seeing! I just need to remember to be patient and kind with myself, as we all should be with ourselves.
Today was self-care Sunday which mainly included being lazy around the house and playing with my cricut! I made a few small projects and I am so impressed with how easy this is to use! This is going to make Christmas so fun this year!
I am going to meet up with an old coworker/friend sometime soon so she can give me some old magazines so I can have some images for my vision board that I’d like to create! I want to start manifesting some greatness into my life, and what better way to start than getting a little crafty!
I want the board to have different themes in different parts of it such as a part for health/wellness and a part for wealth/financial goals, and I definitely want to include some inspirational mantras that I will constantly read. Some people swear they benefit from vision boards, and honestly it couldn’t hurt to try! Not to mention it’ll just be fun to create!
Below I’ll post the first project I made today, which is clearly not perfect, but please don’t judge and do as it says! LOL
a writer in the dark 