The beginning of a new year...

Snow themed pictures on a snowy day here in Maine. I guess these pictures represent the overall feeling I'd like to have at the end of 2009. I am ready for some calm, peace, drama free and trauma free time. While I know I am lucky as can be and things could always be so much worse, I also know I have to allow myself the ability to take in some of the pain, grief and stress I've had, reflect upon it, be thankful for what I have and move forward. If it were only that easy.

We're all starting our resolutions. Jeff and I each have about 13. I found my myself taking away many of the resolutions that caused me to have to measure a success (or failure) and found myself adding more that caused joy or self improvement. Jeff made a comment about last year's resolutions and how he only finished one. That really sparked something inside of me. I was very passionate about.. "why is that a failure?" "Let's celebrate how much of it you DID complete!" He had resolutions such as read 10 books or earn $10K at his second job at domino's. While he didn't complete either, he was close and they motivated him. I think that in all the years I knew Jeff before that he'd read maybe 10 books combined, so 6 or 8 in one year was great for him. And he loves challenges, so pushing himself to be extra nice and extra helpful to his customers was a great character booster (now we just have to work on the general public realizing they should tip their pizza delivery guys and that it's not all built in!) I realized that it's not silly to have resolutions such as take a bath twice a month, or go on a family vacation and if it just can't happen in '09 (I'm in 3 weddings this year!), to have it planned in '09 and ready for 2010.

The economy is a downturn as we all know. Mainers are always ahead of the game in saving I'd say.. the state motto should be "scrimp and save". While I admire it ,I don't adhere to it as much as most, but I certainly heed the warning. Having gone through a bankruptcy as a kid I know what it's like to have a lot and then have nothing and I know how to not spend. I find myself planning a lunch with my friends and hearing others say they are on such a tight budget these days they may not be able to go. I pause a moment and wonder if I should be as strict. Should I be like my brother and sister in law and have a budget that runs straight through next December. Frankly, NO. I can't do it. It's not me. And when we are really in a tight place I get resourceful. Rolling change, selling things we don't need, conserving food. Sure ok. I can admit it probably adds some unneeded stress. And don't get me wrong.. I do save and I don't spend frivolously, but we certainly aren't saving 3 months worth of bills just in case as Dave Ramsey suggests. Believe me, I wish I had $10K in my checking account plus everything else in my investments, but we live day to day and try not to touch the investments. Anyway, my point is that as hard as the economy is and how scary everything is right now, we're still ok and I'm certainly sitting tight and not doing anything major, but I realize that $10 at lunch is going to buy me memories that I'll always have and some time with my friends that my inner soul needs right now.

What I learned more than anything in 2008 is we can't get time back. Some become paralyzed by grief and loss and life continues to go on around them and they miss... a lot. Life won't stop. Death won't stop. Tragedy won't stop. But our ability to move forward, and create memories can continue. I've never lived my life with regrets, but I would regret having something else happen to another one of the people I love the most or even myself and not have the hugs, kisses and all the things that need to be said be said.

I find myself at a place of reflection and calm, yet also at a place of such turmoil. So here's to 12 months from now resulting in a piece of mind reflective of snowy afternoons and hot chocolate with marshmallows.

I have been really horrible with keeping my blog updated. It just hasn't been a priority.. not that I exactly have loyal readers, but the few that I do have.. I'm sorry. I know some of you enjoy my ramblings.

I've been super busy with work. Feels weird to call it that, but it's true. And I've actually found myself referring to them as clients lately...wow.. that's almost a bit too adult and professional. Kind of crazy that my big, bad, and expensive BU business degree might be paying off ...AND I only have $250 on my student loans left I just discovered.. that's a big woot woot.

So winter in Maine is officially here. We got hammered with 18 inches yesterday. It looks nice outside and luckily I don't ever really have to leave unless I want to.. damnit! These pics are from the dusting that lasted about 8 hours a few weeks ago. I didn't get outside to get pics today. Almost seemed kind of silly to take pics this year because the storm from last year was so incredible and today didn't even compare. Here's last years..So Christmas is only 3 days away.. that's crazy! I am so excited to head to NY and then NH. I can't wait to see Gram and can't believe it's been since May. I just have to lessen those gaps of time as sadly she's not getting younger, but I love how well she's doing. It makes me so happy.

This picture was from that light dusting mentioned above. The first day Kelsey got all bundled up. We were walking down to the stop sign at the end of our road which is also Julia's bus stop. A house down the road is having lots of work done and she was just memorized by the bulldozer (I think that's what heavy piece of equipment it was.. but maybe a front loader).

I think it's so funny that my husband loves the "Soup" (on now as I write) and even more amusing that he's now the second guy I know that watches it. The first however will gladly take Metro status and Jeff on the other hand would not be proud of that. But who says you have to be Metro to watch some guy make fun of Lindsay, Tyra and Heff's girlfriends.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays. Stay Safe.

Are You Up For a Fall Challenge?

I become more and more impressed by my fellow MaineTeam members. They are such marketers at heart! We received an email last month giving us a challenge and everyone has been having fun with it. Here's a treasury that Adroit Jewelers put together with some of the items including my orange and yellow origami lights.

Maine Team Fall Challenge--

Maine in the Fall-- what does it mean to you?

Our team challenge is to make at least 1 new Fall inspired item by October 15th! We will blog about it along the way and also post threads in the promo section here on Etsy. We can post pictures & links of the items and statements from each artist describing their product and how it's related to the project while promoting the entire team. We may even have a volunteer to interview each seller for our blog! Keep an eye in the live weekly forum thread to keep up with our developing ideas!

Let's start creating some items and post them as you finish them! Tag them with the usual "Maineteam" tag and also add "mainefall" so that we can find each other for treasuries and promos. Team challenges are very successful within Etsy for promoting items and shops and I can't wait to see how this boosts our sales!!

Back to Nature...

Yesterday was a gorgeous, but strange day. Mother Nature decided to change it up I suppose. From the inside looking out it appeared to be a regular, gorgeous, almost summer day. But then Kelsey and I got outside to go for a walk and I realized how windy it really was. So windy, that when I got to the stop sign at the end of our road I turned us around, because I didn't want to be in the road with a large gust of wind.

So we got back inside and Kelsey took a nap. Then she woke up and I gave her a snack. Pretty standard, normal stuff. As she was sitting in her highchair I saw something dark out of the corner of my eye when I was walking from the kitchen to the living room (which parallels the road). At first I didn't look, but as I processed that there's not something usually there, I looked out the window. A HUGE branch of one of our front trees fell down and was basically in the road. I went outside and had to move the thing out of the road as much as I could. But how on earth did I not hear it fall? I was home.. haunted happenings at the Payson house. There's other branches on the yard as well, but not as big. Jeff said, "well I'd say it was windy today"... but how did I not hear it? Oh.. that reminds me.. I must bring back the squirrel story from the archives next week.

So... since Mother Nature was playing tricks on me, I thought it'd be nice to show what else was out there yesterday. We finally did go for another walk and took some pictures of the local flowers.

Earlier in the month Julia, Jeff's mom, Kelsey and I all went down to Damariscotta to watch the Alewives go up stream. They go up a river 50 vertical feet and arrive at the top at a safe place to spawn. I've never seen anything like it. In the picture to the left every curve and color you see is a fish. MILLIONS of fish! They just instinctively know how to get there. Where we went the people of Damariscotta Falls built a "ladder" a hundred years ago or so. They basically built walls on either side of the river that curve and bend creating steps. They also created rest areas for the fish to swim calmly as they make their way up. It goes on for about 5 days. We saw some casualties along the way, but the majority of the fish make it. We walked to the top of the "ladder" (and you have to go through backyards and such. At the very top there is a small opening that the fish come through as they end their journey and enter safety. Kids sit above this opening and cheer as a fish comes through every couple of minutes. It was very cool. Here's a link for more information http://www.netrailhead.com/maine/alewife-fishladder-damariscotta-mills/

Notice the poser in the middle. That's all for today. Off to storytime at a friend's house.

Until next time!

A childless moment...

Kelsey is taking her morning nap and I actually found myself thinking, "now what?". Don't you love when that happens? Rarely do I check everything off my list. But then of course I feel guilty thinking "should I read this magazine or should I be tackling the projects that haven't even made it to my list yet like organizing the pantry I've let become a disaster?" sadly... I think the pantry might win, but it is Thursday, which means Jeff plays basketball, which mean pantry can happen after bedtime. Gorgeous windy day outside.. here I come!

A large group of Etsy folks decided to have a "Yart Sale" (ok.. a lot of quotation marks today).. get it... Art Sale meets Yard Sale. Pretty cool idea. If you go to etsy and type in "yart" in the search bar all 8000+ items (as of today) will appear and they are all on sale! Here's what I listed for $3 off the regular price.

Oh and on a final thought... Kelsey yesterday not really sure what she was upset about, but this was actually before she banged her head on the floor literally 20 seconds later. You have to love the ode to Richard Simmons shorts!

Until next time!

Enjoy the day...

rainy, sunny.. whatever it is where you are!

2nd time around

Well.. I survived my first post. I got one comment, so wow.. someone out there found my blog... imagine that! It's been so nice outside. I just haven't been sitting by the computer much.

It rarely gets in the high 80's in Maine and 90 is especially rare. So we've been enjoying it! Kelsey went in her kiddie pool for the first time ever... Julia loves being the big "sissy" and helping "KK" with everything. They had fun. Poor Kelsey got a bleeder of a black fly bite right in the corner of her eye. Mama needs to be more diligent with the bug stuff! Kelsey just loves being at the swing set and her bumblee swing her Gramp gave her.

I never knew I'd love being a mom so much or that I'd feel guilty after I quit my job, because I just have so much fun everyday!

Ok.. so moving on... I am excited that this Saturday we are having an Etsy Maine Team meeting in Augusta, Maine. The MaineTeam members are fantastic and so supportive.

Whimsidoodle had two sales this week.. very exciting. One was a trade for Miss Kelsey's 1st birthday invites and the other was to

Australia! My first international sale! Hopefully that goes smoothly through customs.

I recently started listing sets of origami lights without the lights- just the boxes. So far one sale of those (to Australia), but I'm thinking those are going to work out pretty well. They save on shipping for the buyer and then the buyer can use their own lights, but either way... they're still fun!

Each Christmas my parents (mom now) put up a strand of lights my sister and I made and put them in the shape of a Christmas tress in the huge window of the condo. Such a nice and festive way to use them!

Alright... enough talk about Christmas. It's 80 degrees outside in June. I have a baby napping and some plants that need to go into the ground.

Enjoy the weather wherever you are and if it's raining... well.. wash the floor I guess.

Until next time!

Enjoy it all.......

Gotta start somewhere right?

Welcome to my blog. This is my very first post, so please bare with me as I attempt to make a go of this. I must admit... I've been holding out on joing the "blogosphere". I figured, "what do I need a blog for, everyone already has one, so at one point in time do they become obsolete?", but then I started to look at it differently and started realizing what a fun way to say what I want to say, show pictures of my work and my family and whoever wants to read it can... sign me up.

I left my job in December of 2007 to be home with my baby. Since then I have been piecing it together. My new tagline = "Piecing it together through a hodge podge of projects". I think that pretty much sums it up. In march I opened my very own shop on etsy - whimsidoodle.etsy.com. I've really been enjoying finding my creative side again.

Etsy is a fabulous community filled with amazing artists and more importantly very nice, caring and helpful people. Soon after I joined etsy I stumbled across the MaineTeam. A group of Etsy members who happen to all live in Maine and thought it would be great if they banded together and help promote one another. Check out the MaineTeam blog!

I should probably take this opportunity to introduce myself... everyone looks the best on their wedding day, so naturally........My name is Jennifer Payson. I am married to a wonderful husband and father, Jeff. We have two girls at home - my step-daughter Julia and our baby Kelsey (I can't believe she will be a year in July already!) Jeff is a phys ed and health teacher for k-8. Julia is a vivacious first grader and a phenomenal reader and miss kelsey is crawling all over the place these days. How fast it goes by!

Until next time... (it just feels weird not signing off)