Today's a Babble

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly musings, articles and mostly babble...

Strength... This has been a bit of a week for me, especially in my store where I have begun to try and make a listing for everything that already exists in there in terms of size/type, and also the introduction of my new gift certificates.
I am pretty good at keeping things in check now when I'm doing my Etsy duties, and I guess my blog duties too (still fine tuning the timing on that one... the late nights are beyond tiresome lol!). And this week like the past couple I've been challenged with having to balance a loooooooooooong shift with watching my little boy, against this stuff and battling the failure of bodily functions at 32 weeks of pregnancy... Boy is it unfair to be so rubbish at this stage in pregnancy! LOL! I am laughing now, but at the start of the week I was close to creating new bald patches, hiding my emotional stress levels and finding myself getting pretty irate over not being able to do as much as normal. For the health and happy growing of my baby, it's obviously worth slowing down and relaxing. But it's getting hard for factors both within and beyond my control. I dont know what it'll mean for Etsy/Blog stuff near to when I'm ready to have my baby but I am thinking that I'd better get a grip quickly and organise my time better.
This is where the past few days have come into it all. It's been a wonderful time of acknowledgement and kindness as usual when it comes to my Etsy friends, and my loved ones around me. And just being able to give myself a break has been the one thing to make all the difference in my performance with stuff. When you are bogged down for a few weeks it's hard to know how to stop but Thursday was an opportunity for me to do just that, as was today. Thursday was the day I got to waddle around a sea of babies, at my friends little girl's birthday party which was a lot of fun, and today I had the very last of my 4D scans at a lovely clinic in Brentwood outside of London known as 4dBabyImages. Gosh and to think I almost forgot to mention Friday! Friday was a day where I did everything that I intended to do in a day, but somehow managed find time to be BORED in part of the day... I actually had a moment to twiddle my thumbs, it was a miracle lol!!! It helped that my other half was off work and playing trains with my son, but I got things done pretty fast that day regardless of that as I still did my normal duties on top of everything too. The speed must've had something to do with relief of having a laugh the day before. Just goes to show that laughter is a healer in whatever way you may need a boost :D So... to relieve my bordom I played with my camera... I do some weird stuff when I'm bored. Like I say, when you're on a roll... especially one that has been as positive as mine lately on Etsy, it's hard to know how to stop. I reckon that was probably why I almost cracked at the start of the week. I've also spent some wonderful days with my son too just doing the usual a lot of the time, but he's always changing so each day is always meaningful and different even if the routine remains the same. Yet even those were marred by this incredible drive I've had lately to do as much as possible before the baby gets here, and failing to even do a days woth of intended tasks because I lacked a plan of action!
So all in all, I've have been managing time badly and having a couple of days to chill helped me realise that I'm not superwoman and my strength lies within the passion I have for what I do, and not the quantity of what I do in a day. Importantly, that I need time to just laugh to give myself back the strength I have lost through being so busy as without strength I lack focus, and without focus I'm slower than an old biddy.
Everything I have talked about lately has kind of taken over and I've become this epitome of a career lady/dedicated housewife and mother, yet in retrospective I have kind have been fighting a pointless battle with my pregnancy symptoms and made things a lot harder for myself. This is where I feel a plan of action may help out a little, because at least then I can schedule time to chill whereas right now I haven't been! And if anyone out there does this kind of thing, it is so important to give yourself a break now and then even if you feel like the earth will yawn and swallow you whole if you stop for even a second. That's been my lesson this week. Let's all make sure we show ourselves some love and respect from time to time!


Recent Photography Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com...



Happy Sunday!

moonangelnay x

Intention...

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly musings, articles and mostly babble...

Recent Photography Posted to moonangelnay.etsy.com...

Intention... Well after my big revelations of last week I found myself again a bit overwhelmed this week. Tonight particularly I thought I was on a burn out, having had to endure one of my partners longest shifts to date, having a nasty cold and sore throat, doing the Saturday entertainment for my little boy, managing my usual Etsy related stuff and also doing housework whilst lugging myself about like a beached whale for having reached 31 weeks in my pregnancy. Tired isn't the word! But none of what I do is without purpose, which is something that I had to remind myself inwardly whilst having a good old moan to the other half when he got home.

A lot of people think I'm nuts for doing what I do on my blog, whilst sales are slow and doing my usual mom-stuff all at once. But goodness without the drive I have I don't think I would be doing it to be fair. It is a tremendous amount of stuff... I am mad! yet everyday when I wake up, the one thing that doesn't happen that always used to happen back in my working days is dread getting up to go to work.
I wondered after having my son that if I ever found a way to work from home, would I eventually get so hacked off from being tired that I'd self-instill that same feeling of dread? And the answer to that is I really don't dread it at all. I have been running about like a headless chicken (for free) for over a year now and I honestly LOVE it. Helping people, checking out new blogs, new artists, new ART. It's what I was meant to do, to be surrounded by like minded creative people and beautiful manifestations of the best conjured thoughts. I was always very artistic as a child and taking up art to gain my mandatory qualifications at school and college pretty much ruined my desire to ever bother with it all again. 6-7 years from there I found my passion again through digital artwork and photography and Etsy has been like a playground for me. I am honestly in Love with what I do again and no matter how unpromising things may seem in terms of my own benefits from this, I WANT it to be my life and I want it to support me and my family, and the latter WILL happen someday... I cannot believe that it won't. It has become part of my future outlook, and part of that outlook sees it evolving into something more because I want PROGRESSION and I most certainly want SUCCESS!
ENTRECARD... A few days ago I finally delved into another one of those links that always seem to sit angrily in my bookmarks, (for I habitually bookmark and forget things) and that link was to Entrecard. You may have noticed my newest singular adbox floating about on the right of my screen? Well I have to say, this has been the most impressive thing for blogs that I have ever come across. It's purpose is to allow you to surf other entrecard users blogs and drop your "business card" (125 sized ad) into their widget to spread the word about your existance. In turn they can come back to you and drop off their card. You can advertise on any of the blogs by using credits to purchase ad space, which if you spend some time clicking away dropping cards you'll earn EC credits easily without having to spend money on obtaining some. Also you get paid credits if people place ads on your blog. You're probably best checking it out to get more sense out of it, but in terms of results I have now almost 100 visits a day on here. which is double what I was getting 4 days ago. And it's increasing by the day, as I am ranking up in Entrecard I'm guessing that's why my blog is becoming more popular. When I drop cards I am picky about what I visit so I generally try and stay within the most common niches for the blog, and shockingly in return I have had many cards "dropped" on me from the same kind of catagories. This is wonderful because I'm obtaining targeted traffic! How's that for intention! Ask and you shall receive!
LIMBO... But back to earth, my Etsy shop seems to be having a little difficulty in the aftermath of the dress change on the Etsy site and the search bar. I was getting interesting results until that happened which has left me under the impression that my shop as well as many others of you experiencing the same thing may be more vulnerable than I originally realised. Which makes me wonder how I can further optimise and market the site. I have been trying out paid advertising for this to see how it goes. I'm hoping that with some trial and error I can give you all an idea, based on my experiences of how well investing into advertising can go. I'm sure there is a reason for why I am still confronting challanges with the shop, despite how much traffic I do actually get to it but I keep telling myself that there's a bright future for what I love doing and it's worth striving towards for the sake of my dreams and intentions.


Happy Sunday!

moonangelnay x

SUNDAY... Coffee and Cake

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly musings, articles and mostly babble...


To Encourage... Goodness, it's been a busy week, and it's been pretty draining. I must be mad as I have pretty much spent all week working until past midnight on ideas/Etsy/the blog... you name it. I know I NEED to chill, especially when I have my son bouncing on the bed at 7am each morning but for some weird reason this week I've just had this compulsion to do more than ever!
I have been asking myself many open questions about where I think my business is going and where I would like it to be, as well as thinking of ways in which I can improve on the current marketing I do for that and also for this blog. And I came to a point of no return where the answers just died away and I was just left with repetition.
I'm a pretty patient person so I haven't yet found that discouraging but I know what I'm like and thinking ahead I didn't really want to think of a future prognosis on that account! Yet without even thinking about it, or even stressing over it, the universe did it's usual thing of trying to grab my attention with something fantastic!
I think the hardest thing for any person when it comes to starting something from home that they hope could earn something on the side, or even become a career is the ACTUAL start of it all. I know of a lot of new Etsy sellers that work hard to do everything they can to get their Etsy stores up and running, and then wonder where all the customers are. We all know that one, it's happened to all of us I'm sure, yet for a lot of people the solution to that problem isn't so obvious, so these people end up giving up before they've tried or end up doing a tremendous amount of things like undercutting themselves, spending more than they need to on perfection, maybe even changing what they want to do entirely because they think something else will work better. And it doesn't need to be so difficult. It's hard to maintain a dream when you feel underwhelmed as much as it would do if you felt overwhelmed. And its normally either extreme that shatters those dreams.
What do we do about it? Well I have been in sales before as a day job so for me I knew that once I started up I needed to market myself which in turn has lead me to trying to help others do the same. But in the meantime I am still wondering where my business lies in this.
Then I heard of a lady in a program I caught up with on the UK's channel 4 website called "Secret Millionaire" and found myself amazed by the fact some millionaires were going around willingly giving tens if not hundreds of thousands away to people they thought could use the financial help most, and would help themselves in the long run. There was one lady in particular that caught my eye called "Gill Fielding" that besides being the most generous of those that I've seen, had a very unique approach to her wealth that I've never seen in anyone EVER. She just didnt seem bothered about how much she gave away. She was obviously very confident with what she had! Or more importantly, she KNEW that she'd get it back with ease. I have never known financial confidence like that and this woman was hardly boasting about it. On the contrary she was someone normal that made something amazing of her life from pennys. Started at the bottom, and from a young age built herself an empire that's made her who she is today, and further to that she helps others find their own financial freedom.
I'm always wary of this whole kind of business person, because there are loads of them out there but I had never seen anyone like her. It was just her approach, and her very laid back confidence. No flashing lights, booming music, crazy rich person breakdancing into a conference room. I was intrigued. So I checked out her site and discovered that a lot of her methods from the start are based around the understanding of the law of attraction which I can identify with in literature, but application is another thing (thank you society and media for allowing us all to believe in our full potential from a young age!!! ahem). I feel encouraged by her attitude and personality. I can't afford to attend any of her talks, but I did download one of her free worksheets which sung ballads to me it really did, and to be fair its more than enough that I guess one would hear from a motivational speaker. But it made something click and that's all that it needs to do. Nothing amazingly special, and I'm not wanting to become a millionaire from Etsy! LOL! But what it did, was make me remember that at the end of the day, I am my own worst enemy and I cannot afford to lose my head just because I am face to face with what seems to be a void. There is no void (there is no spoon! aaaaaah Neo! LOL)! It's what I make of it. And I think we all do that sometimes. We look at ourselves and measure our success on some sort of social-measurable scale, when success is nothing but a mindset and we fail the moment we doubt ourselves. I think our best form of encouragement should come from within. We'll all go places with our dreams, you just need to believe in yourself more and with that belief comes application! Success won't come to you, you need to make it happen people!

Happy Sunday!

moonangelnay x

SUNDAY... Coffee and Cake

Sunday - Coffee and Cake
weekly musings, articles and mostly babble...






Reflection on Inadequacy
Ahhhh, to think it was only a week ago that I was having the panic of the century over losing the internet... I have been thinking about it and to be fair as much as my Etsy work and Blog had come to a standstill, the fact I was pretty ill that weekend with the Rotavirus came at a good time as believe me there was absolutely no way I was going to get anything done whilst living in the bathroom for a few days! Yet it left me feeling insecure which is something I have spent the week trying to reflect upon. That tech guy was right about one thing throughout his non-discreet sexist insults. People do heavily rely on the internet, whether it be for work in my case or just for fun in many cases. Being a stay at home mum I really do find that my escape only comes in the form of doing my own thing, and being busy about it... and I do get that from trying to get my business working as I am passionate about being an artist, and also about the handmade community. I guess being the drama queen that I am, the loss over that weekend left me feeling helpless and ordinary which was amplified by having a nasty bug to contend with! But it's funny how I really did feel a bit insecure without that little bit of independance I rarely get in other forms. Shows how much I love what I do!
But it got me thinking like I say about the lessons being laid out for me. I spent one of the mornings this week, having being blessed with a lie in! chatting to the other half about it. For as long as I can remember I have felt pretty inadequate and small in such a big world... events as they do, happened to make it worse... Like never knowing my dad, going through puberty before I reached 9, having relationships that stripped me of my self esteem are but a few examples which could have been worse, but did unfortunately leave me feeling fearful of losing things that DID give me confidence in myself. Then god bless my fortune, I met my current partner and have lived a very happy life ever since. Surely I should just feel better about everything now! I guess it doesn't work as easily as that... However I do know that I really sould be feeling good about things now, and reached an epiphany when I finally said to myself that I was actually being an absolute retard thinking in any other way! The past is the past come on woman! Seriously, I think it is so easy to fall into the trap of inadequacy you forget to remember that when good things are around, you ARE actually allowed to recognise it and reflect it within! I see so many sad stories in the news about people taking their own lives, or murdering other people due to their own feeling of self loathing and it goes to show the extremes that can come out of true fear. I feel I have learnt a valuble lesson having my partner and son as my guides this week, that true blessings really are disguised if you're the one throwing walls up at every possibility. I think the reason I am an artist and developed an interest in photography in recent years is not just the idea of my soul trying to project the beauty I see in the world, but mirroring the beauty I have been desperate to see in myself for so many years. It makes me more grateful to be doing what I am, whether business can be slow like all of us handmade lot know and experience daily. I understand why i felt lost this weekend, and it has only made me fall deeper in love with art, nature and who I am.

Moonangelnay x

SUNDAY... Coffee and Cake

New Prints On Etsy - Click Images to Visit Listing




Sunday - Coffee and Cake



Hello!

I'm a bit rushed today, as so far my week has been a mixture of battling through a never ending crashing PC, new ideas for my Etsy store, and tasks unrelated to the stuff I do online. So being VERY behind is an understatement. In the long run however I'm hoping that I shall achieve peace with my computer and digital files on my Etsy store. For now my focus is today's article which I know is a week late! Apologies!

For today this is more of an opinion than anything that is of the record, but I hope that my little insight is worthy of consideration. I'm certain that what I am going to write about has been said before as with most things everyone has their own way of taking on board information and then displaying it for others to see. So this is just my take on things.

Objective Thinking : I am one of those people who have a firm belief in what is known as "The Secret", although I have been well aware of the Law Of Attraction for many years having being blessed with the freedom to find my own way through my mind. My mum is a very Spiritual person so naturally for me I was left open to think objectively about the world, without too much influence of my mums ideas but having the freedom to choose to take them on board if i wanted to.

Without thinking about it consciously, I always found myself taking on board new ideas without taking them on board, if that makes any sense? I think in order to have a point of view that is unhindered by bias or immediate belief, you must have a strong sense of self. Not necessarily eradicating self consciousness which in New Age society is the "thing" to do in order to be completely "self aware", but to have love for your ideas is actually part of the journey to loving yourself. The thing that is most important about having "your own" ideas is that any incoming ideas trigger conscious thinking on your part, and not any sort of immediate lemming response "without" conscious thought. Not to say that everyone is a lemming, but in a lot of instances when you think about it no-one really has an idea that is their own as we are born into a world that likes to impose itself on us from birth, and we have to rely on our teachers and elders to show us the path to making the right choices in our lives. In order to do that, we also have to be able to 'identify' with these people in order for their ideas/ways etc to have that sort of impact on us. Even if you're the most lonesome person in the world that doesn't really talk to anyone that maybe does form ideas of your own, the place that you're in didnt happen by mistake and more than likely your life events, choices and surrounding entourage from the earliest of your days will have lead you to that point of existance (or non existance if you find yourself completely absent from any social interaction.)
It's not something we think about either, as we all know babies are like sponges, and you too were once a squidgy porous little thing that literally sucked up everything that displayed itself infront of you. So I guess the first thing to realise when trying to work out the beginnings of where you may pick up things from is truely within yourself. Unfortunately as a baby you can't really stand up and know who you are to the point where your ideas can really do great things, but 'Knowing' who you are and having confidence in that is where you can say that maybe more than a person that follows the crowd, you have more potential to be a dream weaver and know that your ideas are influential to others. Until you can think for yourself you are not really able to think objectively. Without being able to think objectively you will more than likely always have finality, bias and judgment ready to leap out and do the talking, when in reality being able to embrace both polarities from a neutral perspective without being clouded by immediate responses will lead you one step closer to freeing your mind and helping you feel more confident in your descisions. Ultimately without a mindful attitude, how can you be sure of anything?