i'm taking out my STITCHES!

.....and no, this post has NOTHING to do with valentine's day. i waited until today to post it to avoid any confusion.
so here i am..... 2010 well on it's way, GRSG still open, i'm back in the full swing of drawing and the luggage is still selling!

i tend to vent, rant, complain etc. on my blog. i don't mean to. i just let my brain unwind here and reflect. it's never my intention of using this blog as a dumping grounds for my trails. so today it's all about the good news.......

2009 ended on a sour note for me, details as to why NOT coming, but it threw me into this bizarre artistic hole. it caused a forced halt unlike anything i had ever experienced. it was a time for me to really look at my business. re-evaluate, toss around what-ifs, toy with new ideas, draw new designs, draw NOTHING AT ALL, take lots of pictures, hang out with my brother, try to draw, fail, try to draw, finish a bag, think about closing shop, actually putting the shop on vacation mode, opening back up even when i felt artistically cleaned out! i digress but only to get to make the ending that much sweeter.

the people of the etsy community, as well as the ones in my personal life, whispering in BOTH of my ears was a GRSG life-preserver if you will. i don't remember a specific day but this line from one of my favorite movies sums it up:

"You know the great thing, though, is that change can be so constant you don't even feel the difference until there is one. It can be so slow that you don't even notice that your life is better or worse, until it is." George (Kevin Kline) from Life is a House

so, february 15th 2010 is what i woke up to this morning, yes i know, we all did that. but here's the thing, i've been knocked off my feet in the best possible way. i crunched the numbers last night....
55 sales in January
33 so far in february
ACK! i couldn't be happier. that's some SERIOUS FAVOR for me and my shop.
and shop talk aside i could make a list a mile long of all the good things i've got in my life. so upward and onward! i don't want to make others feel as though my life is a bowl of cherries and i live in la-la land. i'm just choosing my focus right now- some days that's easier to do than others, i PROMISE i know. but GetReadySetGo isn't going anywhere! any thoughts i may have had about mnimizing or closing have been kicked to the curb and taken away by the garbage trucks.

so yes, i'm taking out my stitches! if you look real close the scar looks like one SPECTACULAR STAR! yeah, i'm fully aware i might be seeing things but all that matters is what i see.
and from where i'm standing.
the view is PHENOMENALLY BRIGHT WITH POSSIBILITY!

xox to ALL of you lovely faces (boys can be lovely faces too- just so ya know), you keep me going on the darkest of days:)
GRSG OUT!