CURIOUS SOFA HALLOWEEN

Who would have guessed back in 1995 when I closed my first shop and left the Kansas City area to follow my husband's career path to the great Northwest that one day I would be visiting KC often (via the Internet) for doses of inspiration and the very best eye candy ever! Deb Dusenberry - the brilliant, creative, savvy force behind Curious Sofa is who I want to be when I grow up. We have never met, I've not been back to KC since she opened her business so my knowledge of her is only through her words and photos BUT what words and what photos! If you have not yet met her and seen her work (and creating the business she has is a work of art!) run right over to her blog http://www.curioussofa.blogspot.com/

and then her online store

http://www.curioussofa.com/

I'll let her tell you her story.

To Blog or Not to Blog

Why do I so very much want to blog and why do I so struggle with it? (I'm doing that thinking thing again.) I love blogs, I adore them; they make me smile and swoon and giggle and laugh and ohh and ahh and wonder and wish. They inspire me and energize me. I so very much appreciate each and every post I read. I want to give back to all those bloggers who have made me smile, swoon, giggle, laugh... I worry that I won't.
I want to give you all great eye candy - but I so suck at taking pictures! (Really - I do! Have you scrolled down to my last photo attempt? See what I mean?)
I want to give you all what you have given me ... that feeling of being part of a great big circle of creative, curious, generous, gracious, fun, fanciful and just plain wicked awesome women.
So I'm going to try to get past the thinking (aka fretting & worrying) and just go with the doing.

JUST THINKING

I think about this blog every day. Really, I do. I think about what I want from it. I think about what I want for it. I think about why I want to do it. I think about the things I want to say & the people I want to say those things to. I think about questions I want to ask & the people I hope might answer. I think about the things I know I want to share & the things I wonder if I should share. I think I think too much. I do a whole lot of thinking but not a whole lot of doing. I think it is time to change that. What do you think?

AND JUST WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN YOUNG LADY?

Said in that tone of voice that most of us have heard and many of us have used...

Well, um, well, really, you know, it was so weird, because, like, I was there, and I was like all ready to post, and then, you know, it was like all wierd and then this really cool thing happened and I was all like "Oh Wow!"
But really this really cool thing did happen and I really was like "Oh Wow." That really cool thing is named Antonio Michael (after his grandfathers) and my daughter, my baby, is his mom - and this all weird but really cool thing happened and I am a grandmother!
I had a conversationn with my daughter before the baby was born (being the oh-so-knowing mother) and tried to tell her how amazing it was to become a mother, how when that little life is placed in your arms for the first time and you look down on that face that you fall in love in a way you never have before, it's like stepping off a cliff you didn't even knoiw was there; it's so fast and stunning, so overwhelming and strong and deep and fierce! What I didn't know was that much the same thing was going to happen to me as well.

Where To Start?

I had decided that my next post would be about this most wonderful of magazines. That decision was the easy one; trying to decided exactly what to write hasn't been so easy. There is just so much to say. I could write about the wonderful artists profiled and how every one of them said something that absolutely touched my heart. OR I could write about their art, the different mediums used, their creative process. OR I could write about the amazing spaces each of them has created, each of those spaces is a work of art itself, as unique and special as the women who created them. OR I could write about the little basket of trinkets in one studio or the box of buttons in another that had me saying "How perfect!". OR I could write about the page after page of serious eye candy. OR I could just tell you to buy, beg or borrow an issue and experience it yourself.

And then I can tell you that Where Women Create has a Facebook Fan Page and a Blog and that Jo is running a 1st Anniversary Contest and that you should dash right over there and read her wonderful posts and get yourself entered. (If I did it correctly the title of this post should link to the WWC Blog - fingers crossed)

Woo Hoo! I took a Picture!

One of the things I've just had a hard time doing is taking photographs. Probably stems from my dislike of having my photo taken...It's true I hate having my picture taken. Some people photograph well, others, like me, seem to morph into some sort of alien life form as soon as the camera is aimed at them. Honestly, I've seen photos of myself that I didn't realize were of myself . I suppose that could be because I'm in serious denial that I have, in fact, reached the age that I have and no longer look cute and perky (well I was never really perky but I did have some cute going on).

So anyway - to get back to the point - I haven't worked much with cameras and have pretty much only scanned (my other mantra has been "If I can't scan it I don't sell it"). However, I have finally come to accept the reality - if I don't start doing the photo thing my Etsy shop will have only a small portion of the wonderful goodies I have to share and this blog will be seriously boring....since I hate boring and I would very much like to build my Etsy business here it is - my first inventory photo. Yes, I know, it certainly can't be considered eye candy. It's not composed very well. The color and contrast isn't great. But it's start...a baby step...and oddly I'm rather proud of it!

If At First You Don't Succeed

So it's been over a year since my last post. I was tickled by how easy it was to start a blog but seriously flusterbated by not being able to make it look the way I wanted. Honestly, it was downright ugly - really ugly. It made me cringe when I looked at it. So today I took a deep breath and - with the help of the wonderful folks at The Cutest Blog on the Block got it looking much much much better! Thank you THCBOTB people - as soon as I figure out how to link I will!
Besides adding links, I still need to practice adding photos, figure out how to add buttons, add the Etsy Shop link and then there are all those wonderful bloggers I follow and would love you to meet.
"Baby Steps" is today's mantra so I'll stop with this baby success. I promise it won't be a year until I post again! Pinky Promise!