Busy hands are happy hands?....

Busy hands are happy hands...or so the saying goes, but are they?

I have been thinking a lot about this lately, in the context of my own life, the lives of the women I know and in the context of the changes I am making.

Here is what I am coming to see and understand. In today's society women are expected (often by other women) to be successful, and it seems to me that it is hard to define success and so by default success has been defined by how busy someone is. How many volunteer committees are you involved in, how many nights a week are you running to and from meetings, or children's activities, how many mornings do you rise with a full plate of things to do places to be? How many businesses do you have your hand in? How much networking are you getting in, to push those businesses? How many hours do you spend working to get ahead?

I stopped...

I stopped to ask myself these questions and to take a moment to define what success meant to me.

via my pinterest

I stopped and looked at my life from the inside out, not from the outside in as I had been, and here is what I saw.

I saw someone who from the outside in may have looked like she had it all together.
I saw someone who was busy on this committee or that committee, going to that meeting and this meeting.
I saw a woman who worked to make her business successful and who spent many hours away from her family in order to do that ( even if she was physically present).
I saw a woman who spent quiet moments alone wondering about how her children were but not being with her children.
I saw a woman who was living with her shoulders up around her ears tight with tension and stress trying to please everyone around her, trying to be heard and seen doing the 'important things'
I saw a woman who missed an entire session of her children's swimming lessons because she had a business to run.
I saw a woman who when the weekend came and her children's eyes would light up at the idea of being together as a family had to tell her children no, she had to go to work.
I saw a  woman who had no time to visit her eldest daughter as she begins her life and career.
I saw a woman who had lost sight of her priorities.
I saw a woman I did not like, nor want to be.

Now, not everyone will stop to look and not like what they see. Some people will be completely happy to spread themselves thin and stretch their limits and challenge themselves. For some people this will give them purpose and meaning. It will fill them with pride and contentment. Some will be able to balance the many facets of their lives in a way that makes them feel whole. Not me.

I love my family, my children, my husband and they are my priority. I want to have as much time and flexibility to be with them as I can. I want to be able to be present in all ways, not just physical. I want to stop checking emails and messages every ten seconds because I might miss something. I want to not have a tension headache all the time. I want to feel normal again...whatever that is.

You see, the thing is only you can decide what is right for you, but many of us are trapped or wrapped up in this notion that being busy equates to being successful...it does not...in my case it just makes me tired.

And so as change is the only constant in this world, I am making changes, and I am happier for it. I left all the committees I was on. I stepped away, and the world did not crumble. I am closing the business we have worked at for the last four years because now is not the time for this...now is a time to be a mom, and while I will have to work outside the home, I will come home at the end of a day and be present. I will have weekends to spend with my children and I will have vacations to take. Hopefully my shoulders will drop and the headaches will lessen. I will be a dedicated employee but when it is time to head home, I will be a dedicated wife and mother. This will be my definition of success.

I wish each of you your own definition of success.
Jo

9 Saturdays...

I don't know if you count or not, but I do and it is 9 Saturdays until Christmas.

via my pinterest

I love Christmas, I love the lead up to it, the change of the seasons, the cozy feelings that come with that and the planning and build up to the big day. I love the anticipation of young children and the reading of 'Twas the Night Before Christmas' . I love the decor, the yearly argument with my husband about how soon we can put a real tree up, the planning to get the outside lights up before the weather turns too cold and we freeze while doing it. I love it all. And while for many it is too soon to even start thinking about it, this year I have added reasons for having Christmas on the brain.

You see this Christmas will mark the end and the beginning for us. Our little gallery here in Muskoka will be closing at the end of the year, and so this year Christmas marks the last time I will see many of my loyal patrons and it marks the end of this remarkable journey, and the beginning of a new stage in our lives.

It has been an excruciatingly difficult time deciding to close this business we have dedicated ourselves to over the last four years, and that has been a fixture in our community for 15 years, and while we are trying to sell it, we have also had to plan for the possibility it won't and we needed to put a date on things to move on. So it is that we decided to call it a day at the end of the year and go out on a Christmas high.

via my pinterest

We have been blessed and though being a small business owner is harder than most would understand, with much less monetary reward than many think, we have loved it, but realize now that this is not the time in our lives to be doing this. With two young children we need time to be able to spend with them. Weekends, Holidays, vacations...we need those things. As we move forward I am excited to be returning the world of Interior Design and will be working with some wonderful people who have been extremely supportive during this time. I'm not gonna lie, I am also looking forward to a regular pay cheque and two days a week off. That will be heaven to me!

At the heart of it, we are returning to simplicity where we can refocus on ourselves and our family and put that first above all else. My husband and my three girls that is what it is all about.

So as I count down the last 9 Saturdays until Christmas I face many things that need doing, but I know that at the end of this mountain of work lays a wonderful new road ahead and I am grateful and excited and sad and nostalgic all at once. but above all else, I am at peace and I am happy.

Jo

*note* If you or anyone you know is interested in purchasing a wonderful art gallery and gift shop in the heart of Muskoka please contact me at art@silverbridgegallery.com

To Be Thankful...

Today, for many, is the beginning of an extra long weekend as we here in Canada celebrate Thanksgiving, so today I thought I would share why I am thankful.

Today I am thankful for my husband and children. Jake is my best friend and I truly do not know what I would do without him. He makes each day brighter in some way or another, can always bring a smile to my face even amid tears and he loves me like no other. My Girls bring me innumerable moments of joy, whether it is my oldest settling into life as a grown woman, and doing so with strength, courage and a great deal of poise, or my middle daughter running her first cross country race to my youngest who decided to sail to India this morning in a wicker laundry basket.

Today I am thankful for my mother, father and brother. My mother who cares for my wee girls when I cannot and who does so with such joy and happiness that the moment she enters the room they run screaming  N A N N Y !!!! and jump into her arms...even though they see her every day. My dad who at this very moment is tiling my tub surround because I have to be at work, but more than that he is a man who would do anything for his children and we know it. My parents are full of the most important kind of love, the love that abounds and lets their children know that no matter what and above all else they are loved. I am thankful for my brother who is going through a major life change and has sacrificed a lot to do so (perhaps more than he should). We are excited to have him in our home as he starts this new chapter in his life and we are excited to have 'Uncley J' around for lots of fun and games with the girls.

Today I am thankful for the friends I have...though not many they are the best kind of friends who are there when you need them, no matter if it has been three days, three weeks or three months since you last saw them.

Today I am thankful for the changes we are about to undergo as we begin the process of closing our business and moving on to the next stage in our lives. I am thankful for the opportunity that being a small business owner has given me, for the things I have learned and the people I have met along the way. And although we will be open for the balance of the year, I am thankful for the many words of kindness and understanding that we are receiving after having shared this very difficult decision.

Today I am thankful for the job I have waiting in the wings and the people who have so generously understood my current situation and are still willing to wait to take me on board. I look forward to the new challenges this job will bring, to returning to a world I love, and to be working once again with some amazing people whom I have had the pleasure of working alongside before.

I have so much to be thankful for, I am brimming with gratitude and hope you have half as much to be thankful for and moreover that you are able to recognize all that you do have, it is a wonderful state to be in, and I hope you can join me...what are you thankful for?

Cheers,
Jo

Revelations and realizations...

When I turned thirty my world changed...I settled into being me I cared less and less what those on the outside thought or said about me and I found a new sense of self. Now as I approach my fortieth birthday I am feeling a further awakening or embracing of who I am and who I want to be.

My whole life my weight has been an issue for me. I always thought my life would begin if I could just lose the weight...and we are not talking a little weight, we are talking about 75-100 pounds at different points in my life. Then I met my husband and he fell in love with me...curves and all. It was powerful and maybe should have ended my fixation on my weight, but it did not. Together he and I struggle and while we generally eat healthily, we are both stress eaters and he in particular tends to nurture others (read me) through food as he loves to cook. I have devoted so much time and energy to thoughts of my weight and longing to change it, willing the scale to move in my direction, cheering when it did, scowling when it didn't. Too much energy...energy that I can and should be directing elsewhere.

I came across a wonderful photographer who is compiling a book called the 'A Beautiful Body Project'. Jade Beal is an Arizona photographer and mother who is essentially wanting to show the world and it's women just how beautiful our bodies are no matter our size. The images she is compiling are compelling and I will admit, difficult for me to look at at first. I have never seen a real body represented in mainstream media. I have never seen images of real bodies in magazines, or in the movies. I grew up with the Molly Ringwald's the Julia Roberts', the Gwenyth Paltrow's...the apparent ideal body type and image, the one we all strive to become. The one we all relate to as beautiful and sexy. I will never be a Julia Roberts, though I do have a killer smile that could giver her a run for her money... So after I came across Jade's project and read a quote (I do not remember if it was Jade or another photographer and I am paraphrasing) about how he/she has photographed many many women naked and all of them whether a size 0 or a 22...all of them have rolls when they sit down, I realized that perhaps it was time to find a way to embrace this body of mine.

Following Jade on Facebook led me to The Militant Baker who is the fierce young women who took on Abercrombie and Fitch via her own photo-shoot and subsequent media popularity (check her out here), which started a slow paradigm shift in my own mind. I looked at her images and thought why can't that body, not dissimilar to my own be considered sexy? But still it is not what I had been hardwired to consider as appealing and so I continued to fight with the scale, and my wardrobe...or desired wardrobe. I would continually go to my Pinterest board 'Personal Style' and pin outfits like this

via my pinterest

As you can well see this beautiful woman is no where near a size 18-20. All of the fashion on my board is of this nature, so far from my reality that all I could do was continue to try to reach that ideal. And then slowly something started to change...slowly I started to see a shift in the fashions showing up on Pinterest for repinning...slowly I started to see this

also via my pinterest

And then I had the thought to search plus size fashion on Pinterest and whole new world flooded in to me. It had me starting (just last night) a new board called Embracing Me... and I have vowed to immerse myself in this board regularly so that I may see the image of myself, the kind of woman I am beautiful in all my curves.

both images via my pinterest

And so as I move into my forties I will let the number on the scale go...it won't be easy it has been my nemesis for so long. I will focus on my current beauty not an unattainable beauty, and I will focus on making this body, the healthiest it can be, because...

via my pinterest

Make him famous...

I was going to do my semi regular Wednesday post where I share where I have been in blogland, but something much more important came my way today;

I always wanted to be someone who changed the world. Did you?

I always dreamt about making a big difference to the bigger picture. Did You?

My change to the world has been in raising smart compassionate, caring, powerful young women, but every now and again something comes along that raises the stakes just a little, compels you into action however big or small, and the video I am attaching has done just that.

A video that will take less than 30 minutes of your time, but has the power to change the world, by harnessing the power that social media can provide...one united voice. A voice so strong and so powerful that all the world can hear, with a message so provocative that all the world will see...and a call to action so clear that all the world can act.

My question to you is what will you do? Will you be compelled to act...how will you act? My first act is to share, to use every social media device at my disposal to spread this message. To make Joseph Kony famous so he may be held accountable for his atrocities...wonder what I'm on about...sit back, take a half hour and watch the video...I bet it will move you!

Blog, Facebook, Tweet, Pin...make him famous...together we have such power.

Update...there are many a naysayer on this topic, but from where I sit this is the truth, Joseph Kony is responsible for these atrocities. He continues to reign terror on the children of Africa. These children have no voice, no choice and no advocates. He must be stopped. Whether you choose to financially support the Invisible Children organization or not is not the point. Awareness of this individual and his crimes is the point...and sharing the message costs nothing.

Love and kindness to all!

Happy Wednesday.

Here I go again...

Warning...long post 1 picture...proceed at your discretion ;)

As defined by Merriam-Webster :

Definition of ARTIST

1 a obsolete : one skilled or versed in learned arts b archaic : physician c archaic : artisan 1

2 a : one who professes and practices an imaginative art b : a person skilled in one of the fine arts

3 : a skilled performer; especially : artiste

4 : one who is adept at something <con artist> <strikeout artist>

Definition of ARTISAN

1: a worker who practices a trade or handicraft : craftsperson

2: one that produces something (as cheese or wine) in limited quantities often using traditional methods

Okay now that the formal stuff is out of the way I'll explain...I just...and I mean just read Emma's post over at the marion house book. This post is part of her 52 objects series. In it she refers to an article she read in the New York Times regarding authenticity...read it here if you want to know what put a bee in my bonnet today.

First of all thank you the Emma for sharing the link to the article. Without her I don't think I would have come across it, and it is so very important to what I do. If you have never read Emma's blog you should, it is one of my go to's for great design inspiration and a great read.

Alrighty then...

The first question that comes to mind when reading the article is; if an artisan is mass producing (and not by his own hand) for the likes of Restoration Hardware et al, is his product artisan made anymore? I don't think so. Now don't get me wrong, great for him or her if they have made the leap into mainstream, it is great, really, it will offer them a form of financial security that few artists or artisans ever reach. However for big box retailers to sell these items as artisan made (if they are indeed doing this) is a bit misleading in my opinion. Artisan designed perhaps, or artisan inspired but not artisan made. It is important for the consumer to know the difference. Only then can they make an informed purchase.  Worse than mass producing an artisan piece is to mass produce it in China which CB2 is doing...how is that helping the economy, not to mention the environment...but that is for another day.

Often times I will have artists come into the gallery and say 'tell me what sells and I will make/paint it' I always tell them that is not the way it works. Art and handmade goods have an element of passion to them that is evident to those who appreciate art. You cannot paint birds because they sell unless you have a passion for birds, or an emotional need to paint them. A painting with no soul will not easily sell while one that jumps from the canvas with it's emotion very apparent will walk out the door. And so it is that art is subjective.

The article asks, "have we finally reached a saturation point, where the “authentic” loses its eternal quality and becomes just another fad?" as retailers like West Elm, Pottery Barn and CB2 jump on the band wagon. It is a valid question, but I ask are they selling handmade or are they selling something that appears handmade? I would suggest it is the latter. While we're here, let's define authentic (again as defined by Merriam-Webster);

Definition of AUTHENTIC

1 obsolete : authoritative

2 a : worthy of acceptance or belief as conforming to or based on fact <paints an authentic picture of our society>

b : conforming to an original so as to reproduce essential features <an authentic reproduction of a colonial farmhouse>

c : made or done the same way as an original <authentic Mexican fare>

Note that original and authentic are not the same thing. Authentic implies reproduction, not original. I think it is fair to say that these two terms are oft used in the wrong way.

An artist or artisan that is reproducing, or allowing the reproduction of their work has in my opinion crossed over to the other side. That is not to imply that the other side is the dark side, or the wrong side, but I believe they are now on the corporate side of the fence as opposed to the handmade side.

Some of the individuals interviewed for this article seem to feel that their one of a kind or handmade items have lost some of their place at the hands of mass produced 'artisanal' objects ; as Casey Barber says in the article “If you spend enough time looking at this stuff” — objects that are vintage, handmade or that just appropriate those looks — “you get overloaded pretty quickly,”

Ms. Barbers feelings are worrisome for me and the the artists/artisans I represent. Big box retailers already have the upper hand where pricing is concerned, if they begin to mass produce 'handmade' (ish) items at a fraction of the cost, where does that leave me, my business and my artsists?

Supporting local businesses and buying handmade is a proactive way to 'occupy' Wall Street. By spending money in my store (or one like it) your hard earned dollars filter to me, the artists and out to my community and theirs. I just said this afternoon to one of my artists that every dollar spent here means another dollar I can use to buy local or buy handmade. He (Michael Scott) made a great analogy that buying local or handmade means the money is flowing out, not up...I thought that was an incredible observation and so easy to visualize.



Red Sky by Michael Scott

We can't buy everything local, or handmade, but where we can we should and the difference will be palpable.

It is important that I note that even I have a few mass produced items in the gallery...much to my chagrin...but I am always honest and up front about what is handmade and what is not...that way you, the buyer, can make the decision.

Thanks again to Emma at the marion house book for her post and to Michael and his brother for listening to me ramble this afternoon when all they really did was come in to drop off new paintings...which are fabulous by the way!

Happy Thursday all!

Standing on a line...

I am addicted to sugar...some may laugh but it is truly an addiction, and like an addict, I cannot allow myself any sugar or it sets me down a very slippery slope,of desire and craving that eventually gets the better of me.

For those who do not know I am amid a journey to a healthy weight and lifestyle. It began last February after I thought I was having a heart attack and spent the day in hospital. As I sat there wondering what was happening to my body I could not stop thinking about the fact that I have two young daughters...and a daughter who is just at the beginning of her adult life...not to mention my loving husband sitting next to me. What had I done...how did get this far? I was not having a heart attack, but a prolonged anxiety attack they figure. Regardless something had to give.

Long story short I started this journey I am on and have lost 40lbs along the way this far. Except I have slipped...fallen off the wagon as it were over the last couple of months. It happens slowly at first with a small treat here or there and then the old patterns take hold and you fall into the 'but I've been so good' trap or the 'whats one more' trap. Then you get to the 'oh who cares anymore' phase. Truth is I care. And so it is that today marks day one...again. The new goal is to lose another 40lbs. I have not put a timeline on it, but have challenged myself to workout at least 30minutes once every day for the next 30days.

via pinterest

So here I stand...on the line but I am not giving up! This morning was 30 minutes of cardio and weight training...feels good really. So day one is off to a good start.

Happy Monday all! And Happy Halloween!

Okay...am I missing something?

So lately there has been a buzz in the air about Jenna Lyons and J. Crew. I first read an article in New York Magazine last week, and then in the Toronto Star over the weekend. Now don't get me wrong...love the J. Crew look and clearly Jenna Lyons is haute chic but what has me gobsmacked is the price tag.

Okay so clearly I am not a fashionista...and I know very little about the world of fashion, so much so that I thought J. Crew was a simple catalogue business much like Sears...shows what I know eh? Anyhow after reading all the hype about J.Crew which is set to open it's 5000sq ft. store in Toronto's Yorkdale Shopping centre, I moseyed on over to their website and though I love the look particularly this sweater and these pants

link here

 I cannot fathom in my world being able to spend over $400 on the sweater and then another almost $300 on the pants. I really really wish I could, I lust after these things but my pocket book is more the speed of Old Navy where I can get a whole wardrobe for that amount.

As I write this I think I must sound so simple. Maybe I am. Am I backwards for seeing value in spending this amount of money on art but not on fashion? I would rather spend that on a fab rug for my house or on a new chair, but on one outfit it seems a bit...well...wasted. Now maybe I am wrong...maybe because you spend the money you get the quality that makes these pieces last a lifetime...but then are they timeless? Maybe for someone else, but I don't think timeless and fashion go hand in hand for me. I like change. I like to be able to wear something new every few seasons...not because it is the latest fashion but because as I said, I like change. It makes me feel alive and fresh and as if I am evolving.

Maybe if I ever make it in the blogging world or I am making tons of money and my gallery is bursting at the seams with customers 12 months of the year, maybe then I will understand spending this kind of money, because there sure are a lot of bloggers out there coveting J.Crew and Jenna Lyons in particular, but for now I will stick with my Old Navy wardrobe and be thankful that I can afford even that and the change up it allows every few seasons.

Here is my Old Navy take on the J Crew outfit I loved...all for under $50.



Old Navy Sweater $24.50



Old Navy Pants $20