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| grow where planted locket - jude mcconkey |
(soul/God whatever you are most comfortable with here)
has lined up to get us where we need to be - maybe without this space called problem our journey would be longer or harder - maybe this actually is the path of least resistance.
This is a planet of polarity
(which is more than a locket although the locket is pretty cool and you should get yourself one - blog readers use code BLOGBITES for 10% savings)
- a planet of contrast - often we learn what we do want by experiencing what we don't want - and sometimes that thing we don't want turns out to be exactly that thing we need.
Of course, it only looks like this in hindsight.
After I left banking, had a mini-breakdown, had a major break-through, did the mall cart thing for a few years and before I found Etsy - I had a commercial embroidery business. I did embroidery on shirts, caps, jackets, etc for local businesses from my home. The business didn't start out that way though.
It started when I bought a commercial 12 needle embroidery machine with a $30,000 price tag (including supplies, computer, table, etc - three years later I bought a 2nd one used for $5000 - these things depreciated big time - ugh - the $30,000 was from stock options I had from my banking days. I think it didn't even feel like real money to me and this is what allowed me to be so detached from it).
I had been selling other products on mall carts and so lined up a space in a mall to do personalized baseball caps, baby bibs, etc. The mall was about an hour from my house. I had no experience with embroidery and no passion for it, but thought it would be a big money-maker (and it was - for a lot of other people - the ones with the passion probably).
I had done things just for the money before and they had always worked for me (mostly) - I didn't realize though that life was requiring a little more from me now - I had been promoted so to speak, my vibration didn't line up with 'do it for the money' anymore.
I knew this in my heart but my head was still playing by the old rules.
The morning I drove to the mall to sign the lease I had major tension in my neck - I knew I had not done my homework on this machine (it was not as easy to operate as I thought it would be) - I knew I had no passion for a 2 hour daily commute and that managing employees an hour from home would be stressful.
In fact, the day I wired the money for the machine I had felt sick and tense. I thought at the time it was a buyer's remorse response and discounted it, but now I know that tension was a very clear signal to stop. I didn't.
(life had sent me the pebble and since I had ignored it - hit me with the rock)
I did stop myself from signing that mall lease though. I called the mall manager and told her I'd changed my mind. I had no idea what to do with the machine. I couldn't sell it - hubs was like "how much did this cost?!" - I had to make this work somehow. I did a mailing to some local businesses including a trophy shop that did embroidery. I kind of bluffed my way into getting their embroidery account and they sent me some small jobs that I did well.
(I embroidered every single piece of clothing and fabric I could get my hands on for practice. My daughter was going to school with college fraternity symbols, EMT stars and other people's monograms on her clothes- luckily she was still young to think this was sort of cool. Hubs was another story. Even though he has never been fussy about what he wears and only says "no sweater vests" and even though I only rarely used his shirts and even then always sewed near the hems since he's a tucker - he was not so into the random sewings.)
The trophy shop started sending me bigger jobs.
One day they sent me some jackets for a local fire department and I somehow managed to embroider the backs of 3 jackets totally crooked - the kind of crooked that can only be made straight if each fireman would agree to walk around with one shoulder 3 inches higher than the other - I considered this, but decided I needed to order new jackets. It turned out the jacket maker would not sell 3 pieces to me and I didn't want to let the trophy shop know about my screw up.
I decided to try a tailor. I took out all the stitches and took the jackets to a tailor who through some kind of tailor magic was able to mend enough holes that I could resew them without anyone knowing.
He asked me if I wanted to put my business card on his bulletin board.
(he somehow didn't see me as a total screw-up and for this I am forever grateful)
A couple weeks later a gymnastics/ballet/cheerleading shop saw my card and eventually I got all the local cheerleading teams through her (which would not have happened without my jacket nightmare). Those accounts (and Ebay) kept me going until she sold her business and the new owner bought their own embroidery machines - it was exactly at the time I was ready to move on so worked out perfectly for all of us.
That embroidery business was never a big money-maker. Eventually I paid for the machine and made some money and I did buy that second machine so I must have needed it at some point. Most of my memories about that business revolve around the repetitive motion damage to my hands and neck, which is a whole other story.
I had ignored life's pebble (you are stepping on someone else's ship Cat - this is not your ship) and of course, the rock had taught me the same lesson - the hard way, but maybe it was the way I needed to learn it and actually it was the way I needed to learn it because it was the way I learned it.
This story was so long (and yes, I realized this has been 5 minutes of your life you will not be getting back - don't hate me) that I lost track of the "grow where planted part" so will get to that in part IV.
xo all
