a day in the life...

This morning... oh, this morning... sitting down with my cup of coffee and stack of books before hitting the trail.

My new chicken mug full of hot joe just waiting for me to sit down for a spell. I was just minding my own business really. It's a Monday morning after a very busy weekend of dinner parties and frantic pace in the dye lab and sewing factory. I wasn't prepared for what happened next...

Suddenly, with my back turned for just a minute. I mean, merely seconds, I have been bombarded. Well, my coffee has. Once the cup was full and hot... All I can say is that I hope they enjoyed it. Since I haven't been home all day, not much telling what Beanie Babies on caffeine are capable of doing.

I decided to take my coffee, or what was left of it to the kitchen where sooo much commotion had taken place over the weekend, and some remnants were still visible.

Looks to me like there's a dangerous combo happening there -- metal, tools, and alcohol, not to mention hot sauce and bananas.

The wire "sculpture" is becoming, will grow up to be one day, a free form of my body to use for our websites. Women's clothing will be displayed on it for pictures on our etsy site, our meylah site, and our website. As of this posting our website's not hooked up yet, but check back to http://dyedstitches.com/ one day and hopefully it'll be up and running.

One of the things I worked so diligently on over the weekend were flowers made from Dan's tie-dye fabric. I was supposed to put it (the fabric) up on  our etsy site, but I couldn't keep my hands off it, so here's a little sampling of what I did with it over the weekend.

A herd of flowers? A flock? An overload? Not enough? The inside circles are cut from a yellow wool jacket that Dan brought home from the thrift store. The backs look the same as the front. We're selling them on our etsy site also. The piece of fabric they came from looked like this at one time.

Dan's a master, and I am just smiling all the live long day thinking about him. I used to buy fabrics for $25 a yard that were hand dyed, and now I get the very best in all the land right here at home. Oh sweet baby Jesus!!

And here's how some stragglers in the flock look. Actually, these are the first born. This was before the rest of the flock landed on the kitchen table while Brazilian music, Ricky Ricardo style, was blasting from the boom box, and way before the Scotch and wine were brought onto the scene.

And now there are thirty-three... just a lot of watering and tending to the gardens going on over here. Hm, and there are the caffeinated Beanie Babies to check on. My work is never done it seems.

Decent Thursday

Dan deemed today Decent Thursday since tomorrow is Good Friday. We've developed new rituals for everything we do, including Decent Thursday. We have three things on our list, just three, and it's almost 6:00 in the evening and none have gotten done, but it has been so very much more than decent today.

Here are the three things:

1. build a free form to use in photo displays
2. design business cards
3. get inventory set up

Dan has been dyeing in the lab like a crazy person, and that creates soooo much inventory for the sewing factory. There's the determination of where the finished items end up -- in the cutting section of the factory, in the photo department for our shop, or in Jill's and Dan's closet. Let's just say that out of the forty items that he's dyed so far, I have the biggest load hanging upstairs in our bedroom. I am scoring in the clothing department!

Here's a glimpse of what the factory and the lab have been looking like:

Chinese Spring Roll Sauce always goes so well with tie dyes!



and then of course the beverage of champions -- chocolate ice cream in coffee -- keeps the master going...

So here's what the factory's been looking like (this is not for the faint of heart):

There are two finished wall hangings on the back of the love seat waiting for their owner to come claim them. The rest are either clothes from thrift shops and/or tie-dyes from the lab.

You may think there's a pile of clothing in the corner, but I call that my fabric stash. It's filled with silks, linens, and wools. All either free or just a few cents each.

And yes, I have officially encroached upon what was once called the sports room with another sewing machine and fabrics. Oh, happy day...

And as far as what we have yet to do on our list, well, it will get done. Maybe not before midnight, but it will be completed. We are having the time of our lives, and documenting every step of  the way. We've also opened up our very own online shop, called Dyed Stitches. We have our things in three stores, and creating new magic every day.

Well, Dan just stopped by the Magic Kingdom Office where I've been busy typing and interneting away to let me know that son number two has dinner waiting for us -- a home-cooked meal of chicken-fried steak, mashed potatoes, salad, beer, and... I'm drooling. I'm getting off now and continuing with The Decent Thursday Celebration!



leap and the net will appear -- but where's a great massage therapist?

Oh no, another type/delete day. I prefer the ones where I sit before my laptop and move forward without a thought about anything I'm doing. I love being able to go wherever that place is when I write from the heart. My mind shuts off and my fingers fly on the keypad. I love those times. I feel so refreshed and energized afterwards. I feel invincible. There's just nothing I can't do, baby.

I've rearranged the space today, making room for my daughter's and my computers and printers. This is our command center. This is where the billions are made. This is where the action happens, the ideas flow, and excitement grows. Yes! I say YES! What else is there to say? If you're not saying yes, then what are you doing?

What can I do today that would scare me?

I didn't always ask myself that. As a matter of fact, I did everything possible to keep from being scared. It was a mission. When I'd lay my head on my pillow at night, I'd check off the family members and pets who were also calling it a night. Once everyone was accounted for, I would say a prayer of thanks and then beg for another day of the same for tomorrow. Yikes! What an awful way to live. I was always on the lookout for catastrophe. What a bill of goods I sold myself for years.

Then I learned to leap. I found that flying through midair without knowing what was below is the most amazing place to be. I've also discovered that a net always appears. It's a beautiful thing.

I've also rearranged myself -- again. I've put some of my things on etsy.com. My site is called jillluigs.etsy.com. I've only put a few things there so far. I have sooo many things yet to list. I'm going through boxes and boxes of things I've carried around and am now willing to put out there for sale, some for the first time, some for lower prices. I'm cleaning out to make room for the new in my life. Thank God for etsy.com!

Of course, this means actually going through boxes, locating things I've made, taking pictures, writing descriptions, uploading pictures, setting prices, and redoing my site. When I had this great idea, I thought it'd be a piece of cake. Somehow today my upper back is so sore like I've been through a major battle or something, and all I've uploaded so far are five things. I have so much more to do. It means going through a lot of boxes too. Did I mention that already? Since I've moved in with my daughter 5 months ago, I have revamped, re-situated, revised myself and my things so many times. And here I go again. Those who knew me in Steamboat thought I went through many changes then. Oh, you ought to see me now. Every day is a new Jill. I wake up surprised I still answer to the same name.

This afternoon has been spent in the command center, typing, scouring the internet, learning new marketing skills, befriending new people, answering emails, writing articles for ezinearticles.com, blogging, and stretching my shoulders. Where's a good massage therapist when I need one? I would pay one million dollars for the massage of my life right now. And when you make billions, what's a million?