Crossed Lines

The weekend turned out to be tougher on me than I anticipated, and (of course) not in the ways that I was dreading.

The adult leaders were not the impediment to the Scouts that I was expecting, and my middle son handled his troop reasonably well (despite dealing with a cold).

I, however, didn’t have such a great weekend, and after several days recovering (while being on call with the day job) am looking forward to finding the glow from last week.

Perhaps as a matter of foresight, I didn’t include notes on my progress in that last post. With luck writing about the positive (if, baby) steps toward making my creative passion self-sustaining will get me vibrating near the level I was on last week.

I made another contact at the community gallery, and while I think the facility director looked at me a bit askance, she did pass the message on the the gallery manager, who called and gave me permission early this week. I’ll try to stop and shoot the next video over the next few days. I did make a video using some of my kites and a wall mural at one the local schools for an example, but I look forward to testing this vision that I’m pursuing.

The inspiration that I was receiving from the D(J)KYDJ community didn’t just make me feel good last week, it moved me to break with my standard of quiet reserve. I posted responses to a couple of posts that (I thought) needed my specific light, joined a list of folks looking for accountability groups, and even sent a message to Cathy via her website after a particularly moving episode.

I also started a file based on the concept of a Vision Board.

The highlight of my week (so far) was that in Cathy’s episode this week she made reference to a kitemaker that had joined her accountability list. I was exhausted from the weekend, and not having the day I wanted to be having, so the recognition didn’t carry me far, but it did buoy my spirits.

I’m looking forward to more progress, but I’m less than certain how close the next steps might be. I’m on call until Friday night, another Scout meeting tonight, and the Fall Kite Festival (where I can’t get any public recognition) is this weekend, so I’ll spend the next few days looking for opportunities for progress and promotion.

Smooth Winds

I would love to be posting that I made another kite, or that I have made significant progress on the challenge, but the last part of this week is all about Scouts.

There are unit meetings 2 nights in a row, then I’m off for the weekend with my 2 younger sons to a Scout event where my middle son will be the acting Senior Patrol Leader. My relationship with him has never been what I would like for it to be. I’m afraid that his tagging along to the activities that formed the awesome person that his big brother is may have dimmed his self esteem, and we have been at lager-heads regarding motivation since he was able to learn to do (I’m a huge fan of teaching kids to do it for themselves early and often).

Fortunately he is teaching himself that external validation works to motivate him, so a position of responsibility helps to keep him going. Unfortunately the Adult Leadership for his unit and especially for this outing, is not keen to let youth lead or mentor that leadership. We all know that it is easier to yell at room full of kids, than to help someone learn how to lead, but I would prefer that the Scouts grow as people and have fun doing it.

So while I’m not making the progress that I want, and I’m feeling some trepidation about my plans for the next couple days, my energy level is through the roof. This morning, after staying up past my bedtime, on homework and packing for the outing, my eyes popped open after about 5 hours sleep. Knowing that if I tried to stay in bed until it was reasonable to be moving, I would only lie there spinning the things on my to do list through my mind, I hopped up and started into them. While listening to a podcast from the beginning of the year, I found myself dancing and steadily getting through my list.

This morning is just part of a trend, too. The last couple days, I have felt like there is so much on my plate (a month ago I had 50 things on my to do list, the list has only gotten longer), but my spirits have been soaring to the point where I am contemplating ways to play the podcast in the background at home for the benefit of my kids, and dropping hints to my wife that listening to the podcast is really changing my perspective, not just about my side-hustle, but also about the “day-job”.

I don’t speak much of my wife here, she is a very private person, and I have no interest is exercising any negativity from our imperfect relationship on this audience, but in my heart of hearts I hope that she can HEAR some part of Cathy’s message and let it help her find purpose.

While I’m sharing the love over the Don’t (just) Keep Your Day Job community, I realized that there is a new bright star in my Scouting community as well. Our Pack has some really promising energy right now. While nothing is perfect, with the addition of girls to our unit’s roster and the adults that sometimes register with them, we have some delicious excitement. A couple of our new Cubs received their field uniforms at the meeting last night, and I had the pleasure of giving them woggles and getting to know their mother (who is taking the training for adult leadership) better.

Also, an interaction with another Adult Leader over concerns with the direction the Troop is heading warmed my heart, in that someone who has their hands full is looking ahead, watching for potholes and pitfalls, and looking for tools to send on to smooth the way and make the unit stronger, before the youth in her care move on to a program that is already different enough. I have butted my head against walls for years now, over Adult Leaders that say they are there for the boys, but don’t seem to be able to mentor a Scout toward being a leader. I hold out hope that we may find Adults that understand that telling youth to grow up is not as effective as guiding youth to become adults.

I think that’s enough, for now.

Smooth Winds

Listening to the Don’t Keep Your Day Job podcast, and undertaking this challenge, I find my self very enthusiastic about my kite making at this moment in time. It probably helps that the Fall (Autumn) Kite festival is just about a week away (not that I’m part of their program, which is a story for another time).

However between taking steps to my goal, the day job, family obligations, and scouts, I find myself being kept away from new projects.

So I sit in great anticipation of the next kite I get to make.

TTFN

This weekend was pretty quiet as far as calls for the locksmith, so I managed to expend some energy on the challenge. It wasn’t a surge forward, but some progress was made.

On Saturday, I realized that all of my posts for minis are written with the assumption that the audience already knows what to do with my diminutive works. So I sat down and made a post addressing some of the usual questions.

I was able to get my tools together and made a test video (no I’m not going to post it). The results made me stop off at the community art gallery to try flying in a bright, clean space with beautiful stuff in the background. Unfortunately the space was monitored, so I was deflected before I could make my next video. Fortunately, I wound up talking to nearly everyone in the building, and they thought it was an interesting idea (but couldn’t give me the green light). I’ll be checking with the gallery director later in the week.

I spent too much time (and money) at the craft store on more tools for making the cards work better. Some adjustments that I’ve made to the way I make the kites made the latest one fit in the card better.

I also joined a national kite trade organization and the organization that runs the community gallery that I visited. That last may not actually help with using the gallery for my backdrop, but they may let me display and sell my cards in their gift shop.

I also started re-framing a Cody that I had sold to a family friend before I modified the technique I was using with them. As I was working on it, I was taking measurements (I too often use “That Looks About Right” as I’m building projects) to help with accounting and ordering parts.

Most of Sunday was eaten up working on the new vehicle, as I will need it for commute to and from work.

I’m toying with asking an editor that I’m familiar with to look at my writing, so that my poor audience has something better to read. I’ll probably break down and ask her, I was never really comfortable with my “voice”, and I have faith that she could help me hone it.

More little steps and nothing glamorous, but I’ll try to keep some momentum going.

TTFN

I didn’t manage to continue daily posts. I was surprised that I got three in a row, but not surprised that I let myself get distracted. After all taking up the challenge was something of a distraction from posting the registration details for the kitemaking event I help to run in January. As I mentioned in the first challenge post, I’m really just aiming to post an update weekly.

Last Saturday I managed to knock a few things off that to do list, but between some after-hours service calls for the day job and letting myself be distracted by a game my youngest found, I didn’t make the progress that I was hoping for. Follow that up with catching the sniffles (while being on call this week), and I have definitely stalled.

I did take some steps on the minis (I don’t want to call it progress, but I didn’t move backward), and most importantly my son did wrap up his Cub requirement.

Since then, I’ve filled my time with getting some rest and (mostly) losing the cold, that silly game, adding enough registration info to announce it open, Scout meetings, and making sure homework is getting done for school.

Back to the to do list tomorrow (although I’m still on call this weekend).

TTFN

The locksmith job (and being a Scout leader) sure does eat up time, but it is time for me to start shifting my focus back to kiting. Part of this realization is due to the Don’t Keep Your Day Job podcast and community, led by Cathy Heller. I recommend that everyone start listening today. Whether you are happy in your day job or not, there are morsels from every episode that can help shift your perspective on the world for the better.

One of the challenges (and for me it is truly a challenge) from a podcast in April 2017, was to begin recording progress. I accept, but really I need to do it. I aught to post daily, but hope to a least make it weekly.

I have floundered with my miniature kites, being unhappy with the cards that I was trying to package them with. Yesterday however, I made a little progress with the minis, on two fronts. First, I realized that I may be able to use the cards after all, just by changing my approach a little, more on that after some testing (I hope to have some mail ready to go out to my beta testers soon). B, after a brief but enjoyable experience at a local kite shop, I plucked up the courage to show off a couple of pictures and ask if they might be interested in having them on their counter. If the test with the card works out, I’ll be dropping some samples by early next week, and adding them to the list for the beta test mailing.

I intend to get a little more aggressive with the minis, in the attempt that they might start generating a little income, but more importantly getting the work some attention and thereby justifying putting more energy into banners, Codys, and then the original Crossed Lines designs that I have bouncing around in my head and tucked away, “safe” in some notebooks.

So, there you are. Progress on 3 fronts: packaging, outlets, accountability.

TTFN