A Surprising Gift

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I have been feeling very present and grateful lately, and I’m truly working on soaking it all in. I feel like everything is working in divine timing, and I am being blessed randomly by the universe around me. Just this past week I had something amazing happen!

My fiancé and I are planning to have a “Til Death Do Us Party” a couple weeks after our small destination wedding, and we had a plan to have a cute vintage phone record messages and use that as our guest book. There are companies that rent these phones, and there are also phones you can purchase that have this purpose and ability already built in, but my fiancé wanted to try to build one himself.

He is into computers/programming, and he figured he could buy an old phone and a raspberry pi computer to make the phone into our audio guestbook. We placed an order for a cute, black vintage phone and the raspberry pi, but when we opened the box, we were shocked at what came.

Inside the amazon box that literally was labeled “black vintage office phone” and was a cream colored vintage phone, with a center button that said “record your memory.” This was the exact thing that he was planning to make. He looks at his receipt and sees we definitely did not order this phone, in fact, the one we ordered was $40 and did not have this technology. I start looking up this phone we received and it is a $135 phone!

As much as I wanted a black phone, I couldn’t help but be excited about this random accident that happened! I feel like this phone was meant for us and I am just going with the flow of it all. Whether it’s my angels and guides or the universe at large, I am feeling very connected and protected at this point. I am so lucky and blessed to be living here in the present, and I don’t want to ever take this for granted.

Rainy Monday

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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)!

Random afternoon post

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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!

Merry Christmas

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I hope everyone had a wonderful day. This was my least favorite Christmas ever, and I plan to do it much different next year.

This year my parents and I decided not to do presents, which I was fine with because I need to save money and we’re all adults. My boyfriend and I also decided not to do Christmas presents because we want to invest in a new bed within the next few months. I only got gifts for one friend and her child, which was fun, but I just wish I would have done more.

I always love giving people gifts and I feel like that really helps to keep me in the Christmas spirit. I told my boyfriend that next year I would like to do gifts again, and he said that was fine.

Another thing I want to do next year is get a child or two off of a giving tree or angel tree. Or maybe donate to a local animal shelter. I feel like I should be giving more and I would feel better. I know I don’t have to wait for a certain time of year to do that, it just seems like a good time.

Well, Christmas is over so New Year’s eve is next which I’m looking forward to. I’m ready to say goodbye to 2019 and not look back. Don’t get me wrong, I had some positive changes in myself as well as my career, but overall I just feel that 2019 had a lot of sadness and stress. I just know that 2020 will be much better. ♡