Save the Date

I am proud to announce that the classes I am teaching with the Arts Council have been set!  You can check out my dates and details across the top of the page under the Oxford Handmade tab. 

I am so very, very excited to get this party started and cannot wait to share these experiences.  I hope to see everyone there. Remember that classes are cheaper for Arts Council members and membership fees start at just $25 a year.

After October 31st I will also be available for individual sewing lessons.  New to sewing?  Have a specific project you'd like to work on?  Need help figuring out your machine?  I'd love to help.  You can email me at Stacey@madedem.com for more information.

I'll admit I'm terrified.  I'm terrified and excited and when I start directly thinking about this life change I start to feel a little bit woozy and the room spins... but I know that at the very, very bottom of the fear is the feeling that I am doing something which makes my soul sing.  I am listening to that voice who has been so angry and upset.

Twenty years from now you will regret the things you did not do, much more than the things you did. You know what I think?  That thing you've always wanted to do?  You should go do it too.

Thank you for coming along with me.

Get Control of Yourself

As I prepare myself for the responsibility of actively teaching others, I am going to try to share some things that have been taught to me more recently.  

A few weeks ago Marco and I were invited to an adult birthday party.  It has party hats and balloons, but there were dirty words on those hats and balloons, so that made it adult.  Also there was beer- and adults.

The birthday boy is actually the husband/father of some ladies who are very, very special to me.  So special in fact, that right now I'm thinking about not seeing them three times a week when I do eventually leave the library and I'm getting a little weepy.  So special that this is one of my favorite pictures from my wedding:

I love that picture and I love that bunny in that picture.  She is cheesing it up in that picture but I still love her and that smile and how she ended up eating most of my nachos that you see to the side there...

Anyhoo- at this birthday party, that little bunny was running around like, well, a bunny.  A bunny on crack.  And you know what her mother said to her?  Her mother told her to sit down, cross her legs, put her hands on her knees and take control of her body.  And she did.

My bunny's momma didn't know it then (though she will now- hey girl!) but that moment taught me more than I could learn from any Mommy Blog or book or therapy session.  She treated that bunny like a person- not a child to be coddled, or an inferior who needed things explained to her... but as a person who was capable of controlling herself through awareness.  And the awareness thing- whoa.  In that moment I realized that I could probably use some more awareness myself.  Awareness of my own body and my own thoughts and those whispers in my soul that have been so long ignored.  

So when I find the panic climbing up my throat or the backs of my knees start to feel weak- I sit down, cross my legs, put my hands on my knees and get control of my body.  I ask my body what it's looking for- what is it afraid of?  I ask the whispers to speak a little louder, I'm still practicing.  I pace my breathing, it doesn't pace me.  And then I thank the universe for the people who unknowingly have given me so much.