Happy Earth Day 2012!

Every year on Earth Day my family starts 5 new things to help save the planet.

Since we are already doing all the big things

(most of the time - we aren't perfect)

this year we have to get more creative:

1. SKIP THE COFFEE STIRRERS AND STRAWS

Americans alone toss 138 billion straws and stirrers annually. Simply putting our sugar and cream in first and then pouring in the coffee will make it well-mixed (this is actually one for hubs who buys coffee every day at a local place near his shop) and we definitely don't need to be drinking from straws in restaurants.

2. PRINT ON BOTH SIDES OF COMPUTER PAPER

I always print out my online orders and then after shipping, since the orders are recorded online, I shred the paper. What a waste! I am now putting my used paper in the rear feed tray (to print things like customer online orders) and my new paper in the bottom tray (for things like shipping labels).

3. ICE CREAM IN CONES AND NOT CUPS THIS SUMMER

Eat the packaging to save the planet - we gotta do what we gotta do folks


4. GET RID OF OUR LANDLINE AND ANSWERING MACHINE

We have kept it for 3 reasons - 1. We have a really cool, easy to remember number

(I guess we can live without this - no one memorizes phone numbers anymore anyway)

2. We need a fax - people tell me you can fax online now - I have to figure that out

3. I like to see if I have phone message by checking for that blinking red light - I will miss that red light.

But answering machines use energy 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And when they break, they're just one more thing that goes into the landfill. If all answering machines in American homes were replaced by voice mail services, the annual energy savings would total nearly two billion kilowatt-hours - so when it breaks I'm switching to voicemail (another plus is no lost messages in a power outage).

5. AND MOST IMPORTANTLY REPLACE METAL DOORKNOBS

So we don't get those little shocks of static electricity - what a waste .... (and carpets and clothes from the dryer and balloons actually now that I think about it) :D

Don't miss the final hours of the EcoEtsy team's Earth Day Auctions - you can pick up my save the bees recycled wine corkboard and lots of other goodies HERE:

Also save 10% in BOTH my shops this week for Earth Day - Uncorked and Polarity with the Coupon Code DOORKNOB

Navigating Change for Makers Part IV - it's not a time to go historic, it's a time to have faith in ourselves

As a maker with a maker business

(or a wannabe maker business - which is an exciting, and yes, sometimes scary, place to be, too)

at a time of immense change when we do not know what to do next - when life is cracking us wide open and up is down and down is up -

it is often the time to be still and listen (ie hear and pay attention).

We hope the answers will come to us quickly - and sometimes they do - but often life wants us to have this empty space.
It's not a time to panic -
it's a time to stop.
(and sometimes the problem isn't that we don't know when to stop, but that we don't know how to get unstopped - and sometimes when we just can't get clear on where we are going it is because we are already exactly where we are supposed to be and we just haven't made full use of it yet)

Prayer and affirmations are a great way to ask for what we need, but meditation is really the best way to listen.

This listening part can take awhile.
Sometimes we have to let pieces of our life (and other people's lives - we are all connected after all) shift to allow what needs to happen to happen. We have to trust that there are lots of things going on behind the scenes - we have to have faith.

This can be the hardest part for people who like to take action. But our fallow times are there for a reason - the universe can't send us stuff - ideas, people, connections, etc - if we haven't made room in our life for it.

Fallow times can bring up alot of fear.
(Asking ourselves - is there any excitement in this fear? because there almost always is - is a good idea. We are designed to move through fear - we were not designed to play it safe)

Fear is faced with courage which means speaking one's mind by speaking one's heart. We always have to do what works for us.

(and sometimes we find out what works for us by finding out what doesn't work)

A few years ago

(after 9/11 but before the Iraq War)

I trademarked the words Homeland Security Blanket - I made a few sample blankets with the tagline "don't forget to tuck and cover".

Then the Iraq War started and almost over night this entire concept that I had put so much time and energy into just didn't work for me anymore. There were still plenty of people who would have bought my blankets, but it just wasn't in my heart to make money with them.

If I had stayed with this - I'm sure I would have made money, maybe as much money as I have made with Olive Bites, maybe more,

but I would not have made the life I have now. I let it go trusting that something better and more authentically me was waiting.

When I first started my new lines I had absolutely no idea I would be making a living with cork and car parts. I had decided to go back to school and was looking to make enough money to pay for that. I had no idea where following my heart would lead (and of course I still don't).

"This doesn't work for me" is a higher reason to not do something than "this isn't going to pay my bills".

I would not have thought I could pay my bills with my jewelry and believe me I did enough craft shows pre-Etsy with poor sales that it was only the knowledge that I knew I was speaking my heart and would find my place that kept me moving forward.

Sometimes people give up too soon and decide - "this isn't going to pay my bills" - and maybe it won't, because many things don't - but it could evolve into something or lead us to something or take us somewhere that will.

This is a time in our planet's history when we are being asked to give things up (or life is prying those things from our fingers - which is why I do not worry about broken nails anymore) - it is time to let go of what isn't working because we are meant to have so much more.

And this "more" isn't always something external because life is big and messy and complicated (and small and neat and simple - isn't that amazing!).

Sometimes the desire to create a business is more about what that "desire" does for us inside than about the thing we are trying to produce which may or may not make us money now. Maybe the desire is preparing us for something else later.

1. Give Something(s) Away (Part II)
2. Make Something (Part III)
3. Listen
4. Then Choose Wholeheartedly

As always I will wrap up this series with the disclaimer that following any advice on my blog could result in you ending up living in your parents' basement and addicted to Angry Birds, so proceed at your own risk

(unless of course this would be an improvement over your current living situation in which case I will take full credit for your success).

* released print by oreilly ink

Navigating Change for Makers Part III - doing what you love is not supposed to make your life 'safe'

Now, I have always been the girl with more trust in confusion than trust in confidence.

Tell me about the sure thing - the fact that you know best - the million dollar idea - that you are absolutely right, what I should do, what you should do - yadda, yadda - and you are certain to see my eyes glaze over and my feet inch toward the exit sign.

Tell me that you are not certain but your heart is stirring - you are unsure of what to do next - you have done no thing for yourself in so long, you have no idea what you even want to do - you do not know if this will work - you aren't sure - and I will be listening ...

I will be right there with you!
Following our heart does not mean we will never lose money. It does not mean we will never get hurt. We don't work from our hearts to make our lives safe.

All the tens of hundreds of thousands of people who are out of work were not fired or laid off by chance.

(and I am not talking about jobs moving offshore and corporate greed and stagnating money and underwater mortgages because although on one level all those things are happening, on another level this unraveling of our safety net - a safety net that has always been made of our intention for safety and need to be cared for, which we are evolving (kicking and screaming) past - is so much bigger than all of that)

Doing unpalatable work soley to earn money is no longer in harmony with the energy sweeping the planet - but if we lose that job that if we were honest with ourselves we didn't love anyway and we spend hours and days and weeks and months running around in circles applying for similar jobs to the ones that left us -

this is kind of like when you want to break up with that boyfriend, you know the one who gave you something to do on a Saturday night and someone kind of presentable - well, except for his stupid bulldog t-shirt collection - to bring to your parents on holidays,

but the one who didn't make your heart sing and you knew that and although you knew you were going to have to change this relationship because it really wasn't working, you didn't want your life to change just then and of course what happens is the guy with the bulldog t-shirt collection

who has most likely been feeling exactly the same way about you that you have been feeling about him - well, he dumps you on your ass and suddenly you realize (fall into your fear) just how great he was and how adorable those t-shirts were and then you run around in circles trying to get the t-shirt guy back or finding someone else equally un-challenging

- when what is really happening is that life is calling on us to expand, to raise our vibration and clear away the cobwebs so the right stuff can find us.

Life got tired of waiting for us to leap and finally just pushed us, ready or not, off that damn limb

and, depending on how awake we were before that push, we may have landed in a pile of leaves or a pile of snow or if we were really in a deep sleep - the sleep where you are so deep and snoring so loudly that you don't even stir when your wife smacks you in the head with her Nook - not that I have done this - well, maybe it has taken a hard landing in a field of desert cactus or a rocky cliff to wake us up!
I know so many people who tell me they don't watch the news because they don't want to see any bad news and this is exactly the way of thinking that brings this bad news to our door so we can see it.

This isn't to punish us. Everything in life is showing us our connection to every other thing - the wheels are set in motion for all of us. We can barricade that door and spend weeks, months, maybe even years holding at bay what we think is out there - but it is absolutely coming in anyway - or we can open that door now.

So the second thing I do when I am at a crossroads

(after getting rid of something - see Part II) -

I make something.
(making things is not just for professionals named Martha in Connecticut or skinny people in Brooklyn who wear black - this is not about making something perfect or something amazing or something that says anything other than I made this)

The act of creating anything is a spiritual act. Our grandmothers instinctively knew this because this is how they spent their days - they made bread, the made sweaters, they made friends with their neighbors, they made a life with what they had.

I will finish up this series tomorrow with Part IV of Navigating Change for Makers -

here is a wonderful link to the amazingly talented artist, musician and writer Kirsten Cram's blog as she tells the tale of the beginnings of her little adventure called Tollipop which started with a voice that called to her with the words "you should make something".

* keep your coins, I want change photograph by YMPhoto

Navigating Change for Makers Part II - the gift of uncertainty

Sometimes when I am at a crossroads trying to decide which direction to take - I get rid of something.

Sometimes a whole lot of somethings.

(once an entire business that I flew to Chicago and dumped onto my niece's livingroom floor)

I sell it or give it away or throw it away or often I leave it at the curb with a FREE sign carelessly lettered on a piece of cardboard and it is ... gone ... fast.

(one of the great things about the crowded state of New Jersey is that there is a home for every unwanted end table, broken flower pot and bottle of Debbie Gibson cologne circa 1988)

the very first spring cleaning was almost certainly a woman who having been cocooned by winter for far too long and seeking expansion simply shed what she could not take with her

Often the act of shedding alone can create the space for us to get clear on what we want.

Sometimes it feels like we have no choices - like things are going on outside of our control - but we can usually control what we do today.

Today we can make a courageous choice and stick with it. We won't look back and wonder what if - we won't look forward and wonder what lies ahead.

We will simply choose.

When we think we should know what to do or need to know what is going to happen or what is next - we get stressed. Stress is not good.

(well, sometimes stress is good because it makes us decide, but usually stress is to negative 'feeling' the way that worry is to negative 'thinking' it can quite literally eat us up)

But when we embrace that not knowing is our natural state - we can open into that.

We can see that, in a sense, we can’t really know anything. We have never and will never know anything. So when the time comes to make a decision, we simply choose.

we simply choose and let life change us

(feeling inspired right now by the painful journeys that have brought us to the places we would have never chosen and in the end have taught us a little bit about what we are made of - which is stars and galaxies and total amazingness actually and I promise to tie this into our makings models in Part III - trying to keep these posts short and sweet - just like me and Olive - ack) xo

* one day handwritten print by merelee made