Adventures of Alex O & Co: New Beginnings

Its been so long but I am still here.

Thank you if you are still following me.

Last year was a crazy busy year.

I don't think I have ever had such a crazy year.

I was working 20 hours a week as a vision therapist from 8am to 12pm daily.

Then I was rushing home and sewing till Master O came home.

Then sewing again once he went to bed.

We knew at the start of 2014 that Mr O would be made redundant at the end of 2014.

He does quiet a specialised job so we had to look at many options.

Moving overseas, moving to another part of New Zealand, maybe downsizing and doing some

retraining or more in depth training for one or both of us.
It made us really look at what we wanted to do with our life's.

The uncertainty of the future meant that I decided not to actively grow my sewing business.

But each month I had more shops approaching me wanting to stock my designs.

So Adventures of Alex O grew and grew.

My retired parents started working for me and they were amazing.

But I came to the realisation that as much as I loved sewing I did not want to be at home alone sewing all day every day.

I also handed in my notice as a vision therapist as I felt after
two and half years it was time to move on.

It was a scary thing to do when I had no idea if Mr O would have a job in 2015.

Mr O went out of his comfort zone and approached a company that he wanted to work for
that are not even based here in NZ.

They snapped him up (Yippee!) and he is now working for them from home and commuting to the States every 6-8 weeks when needed.

With all this going on I read an amazing book called

"The Happiness Project" by Gretchen Rubin.

And I realised I needed to start my own happiness journey.

So I decided to fulfill one of my dreams by applying to go to

University to study to become a pediatric occupational therapist.
Great news they accepted me and I start in March.

I have also formed a "Happiness Project group" with seven other lovely ladies and we have

our first meeting next week.

Which I am very excited about.

So some big new beginnings in 2015 for Mr O and I.

What does this mean for Alex O & Co?

I will still be sewing as it is such a part of me and it brings me much joy.
But I will have to down scale how much I produce.

Wednesday was my first day back in the studio after 6 weeks holiday.

I now have a month before I start University so I plan do design some new designs

and get my creative juices flowing.
I also have to finish some orders that came in over my break period.
Here is one of them that I just finished today.
It is on a larger cushion than normal
the cushion is a size 16 (41 x 41 cm) I think it came out looking great.

Life is changing for me and I am very excited and nervous at the same time
bit like this little Panda cushion that I made for a friend just before Christmas.