I didn’t get to post this before the year ended but oh well. You’ve got a long read ahead of you, so make sure you aren’t reading this on the toilet.
2020 was not as bad as I had anticipated with all the junk that happened. As Lisa Congdon said it was a “terrible beautiful” year. In general, a lot of not-so-good things happened but a lot of great things happened to this year, too.
If you asked me what my 5 year plan was in 2015, I would have laughed at you and said what plan? I never liked planning out goals, both short term and long term. Honestly, I think I liked to let life just happen. Whether I actually thought that back then is another story. It is more likely that thinking about the future just stressed me out. It’s the unknown. While the possibilities are endless so are the negative outcomes. I tended to be really nervous about it.
Nowadays, I have been much less stressed. I mean stress still exists but I don’t worry about every little thing that MAY or may not happen. And I take it one moment at a time. Lately, I have enjoyed just taking things more intentionally. Slowly.
If I need to do a task I just take it at face value that it will get done. I only have two hands, can’t get everything done at once. To truly clean and organize (both different things) it takes time. And you can’t rush it. Unless you have guests coming THAT day. Then I panic and rush clean 😂
Anyway, tangent aside. Five years ago if you had asked me what I was going to do in the future I never thought “yeah I’m gonna open my own shop.” 2015 seems like it was ages ago. I’m so very thankful we(my husband and I) have the resources to be able to start two new businesses (He just opened a new dental office!) in the year of a pandemic no less! I am thankful to God. Because these things are literally out of my hands. We both work hard at what we do and have been thankful to have had a great year.
Charles, my husband, had to close his office for a month and a half in March. Which was rough for him. Rough for me because I work from home and all of a sudden he’s home and I need to tend to everything house wise while he’s home. (It gets a little hecktic in general balancing house work and my own work but I manage thankfully.) I learned how to bake. I also learned how to buy things a little more in advance. It was the first time I had ever asked a neighbor for some butter because all the stores were out and everyone was baking. And I definitely spent more time with my dawg, Cooper. March lasted for ever and so did April. But we got through it. After May rolled around he finally got to reopen his offices. And tooth pain really stops for no one and no pandemic either.
I spent the rest of the year educating myself and honing my skills as an artist. During one livestream for ArtSnacks, we were all talking about colors. A few of us don’t like yellow. One viewer named James, mentioned that raw sienna needed to be cooked longer and that burnt sienna was just right. I thought that would be a great sticker. I painted the design and then realized I have a bunch more designs that I can make. Why not make a store? Where do I make a store? Why not Etsy? I have a friend that reopened her shop earlier this year, DreadPirateBri (click to see her shop), and I asked her for some guidance. I opened up within a month or two. It was all very fast. I had two launches of new sticker designs within 4 weeks of each other, which is bananas by the way. It had been a success. Since opening my shop, I have been waking up at 5:00am. Nearly everyday. Without an alarm. I have not done this since I was at the age of like 6 or 7.
So in summation…You can’t appreciate the light unless you’ve had a little darkness in your life.(unless you like to wallow in it then that’s fine, that’s your business 👍🏼)
When life gives you lemons, bake a lemon loaf. 😙
I have high hopes for this year. I hope I can continue to spread more positivity because there’s just too many negative things out there. Que Será, Será…what will be, will be. If something bad happens, well. Sh!t happens. But you gotta clean it up and move on with your day right?
Thanks for reading if you got this far! Y’all have a great morning, evening, afternoon whatever time it is where ever you are and I’ll see y’all next time!
Happy 2021 y’all!
-Christy
TheArtLabTX 