Aooh!

This is quiet a hard blog post to write but I will do my best.

I started University

 I was up every morning at 6m organising my life, Master O's life and my house.

I would drop Master O at school and go straight to University.

I would study and attend lectures till it was time to collect Master O and then we would go to 

maths tuition, swimming, basketball, cricket practise.

Rush home to do dinner, homework,  the night time routine 

and I would then study again till 10.30pm.

I found myself talking about getting a house cleaner, 

I was looking at school holiday programmes for Master O, 

I was thinking of ways to get out of weekend family events so I could study.

My wonderful husband was helping as much as he could but he was also away with work

on some occasion's.

I found myself withdrawing from my family.

When I was home I was not really present as I was all in my head. 

Thinking about all the things I had learnt and all the things I needed to learn.

In 3 weeks of University I had 3 migraines , which is an all time record for me.

I sat down one night and had a family meeting with my boys.

Master O said "I did not seem as happy as I normally was".

Mr O who has been nothing but supportive when I asked him to be honest with me said 

"That he felt the University had stolen me and he wanted me back".

I realised that I wanted my family life back too.

So I withdrew from University as I realised that now is not the time for me to do this.

I may go back next semester and do a paper or two at a time if that is do able with

our life style.

So suddenly I am plan less but I am okay with that as I know it was the right decision for now.

The day after I withdrew I had two new shops email asking me if they could stock my designs.

So for now I am back in my sewing room and I must confess after weeks of not sewing 

I am happy to be back amongst all my felt.

I am leaving you with a quote from Gretchen Rubin that resonated with me.

To be happy:

"I need to know myself, accept myself and build a life on the foundation of my nature"

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.

My aim for 2015 is to blog at least once a month.
So please don't give up on me I am still here.

Birds, Bunnies and Flowers

Recently I have been crazy busy filling shop orders and they have all been wanting 

the Birds, the Bunnies and the flowers.

Which is wonderful as I love sewing all these designs.

I read this beautiful quote by Tolstoy the other day.

I have been so busy that I have not had a lot of me time.

But this week two friends have been so kind to me.

One came and spent 3 hours just cutting leaf's for me and

another lovely friend took me out to lunch yesterday to
"Mondays" in Kingsland.

They were both really kind things to do and it made me realise

that I have been so busy that I have missed out on spending some 

great quality time with some of my lovely, kind friends.

Its time for me to pass on some kindness to the people in my life.

New Shades

I experimented this week with different colour shades

mixed in with a bit of cream and green.

I am pretty happy with the outcome.

Both Ipad Cases have already found new homes.

Little Rabbits

Its all about the
"The Little Rabbits"

at the moment

Little Bird

Recently I have been so busy with shop orders that I have

had to squeeze in new design works here and there.

So I apologise for not having anything new to show you lately.

I have always since I started sewing loved doing bird designs.

So I started this new design as a "Little Black Bird" range

which I really liked. 

However Master O felt I should make some other coloured birds too. 

So he choose the colours for the orange and green bird.

It is a lovely sunny day today so I quickly took some pictures of my new

"Little Bird" range.

What do you think ?

With Christmas coming I have also been working on my "Special Hearts" range for 2014.

I love doing these hearts as I get to do a lot of free hand embroidery.

I have also been working on this years "Pixies"

I will try over the next week to load my new designs in my online store.

Little People (2)

I read this the other day and it really resonated with me.

My son is a sensitive soul and I do worry at times how he will get on in the world.

I read this and I thought its true the world is a better place because

he is a sensitive soul.

Several weeks ago now it was the school holidays.

So we jumped in the car and went down to the Bay of Plenty for 

a holiday with family. 

It rained and rained and was freezing cold.

So we spent a lot of time in doors.

Before we left I found some old wooden dolls tucked in the bottom of a box 

so I took them with me.

I went back to my roots and I made a little people family.

I had such a lot of fun making these little people.
I plan to take them to sell at the Michael Park Steiner school fair in November.
In fact I enjoyed making them so much that I order a few more doll bases to make up.

If you would like to make some.
You can see a tutorial that I did way back in 2011 that will help you.
Here is the link.

I have had Sinus for a few weeks now thus my absence.
A girlfriend said to me recently that as she has grown older she has learnt a
really important thing. It is that we have to learn to 

"Be kind to ourselves"

So I have stepped back from a few things these last few weeks and
I have learnt that is ooh so true.
Often we are so busy being kind and helpful to everyone around us that we forget about ourselves.

So take a moment and think about when was the last time you were kind to you ?