Peace in the Valley

Okay all of you amazing people out there. I am a designer. The ones that people write about that are harried, manic, running crazy and frazzled most of the time, right? Add to that single motherhood, and the picture is pretty ... well... awful. Not so. I want to set the record straight right now. My thankfulness today is all about balance.

I keep a pretty well run ship here. No, my floors are not immaculate. No, my recycling piles up.
But the important things are done pretty well. My orders are placed immediately. My projects are met with focus, and drive to do the best for my client. My studio is pretty clean. My old samples are purged. But the really important thing of putting my client first. That is done with bravado and verve. My clients tell me that they feel it. They feel loved and respected and listened too.

Now comes the single mom part. I am supposed to miserable, right? Hot tea, or glass of red, perched on a big fluffy sofa, channel surfing and dozing through the evening. I guess that just does not describe the life that my children and I enjoy. Our house is always full. Our pantry is full and stocked. The kids and friends of friends are comfortable here, because they are totally welcome, accepted, and enjoyed. We may not have the cleanest house on the block, but the lights are always on, and the door is usually unlocked.

As a designer my life is full of events, installations, parties, fundraisers, CEU classes, and gatherings of people that I love. My clients become dear friends. My projects become love expressions of my life. It is self fulfilling. I am in the perfect place for my family and myself.

When life hands you lemons and you can continually make lemonade, it is truly a gift. I have dealt with some large changes in my life. I have faced the worst possible scenario and somehow gotten through it with grace and poise. We kind of all have to be able to do that and not shed tears. So the balance part comes in. When this little subset of my family first regrouped the most important single focus that I kept was balance. I began to balance how much I worked and how much I just spent time with my kids. I searched for ways to combine the two and just be around a bit more. In the balance, I found myself. She was there, under all the meetings, and the planned schedule and the travel. She was waiting for me to get real, and I actually did. After coming to Columbus from the recession/depression plagued Michigan I took stock of who I was and who I wanted to be. The person that I found waiting was being very patient. And she/I was ready to have a little more fun mixed in with the work that I love. So balance makes work play. Balance makes the kids laugh it off if Mac & Cheese tends to be a homecooked meal. Balance makes my kids, well, .... er... balanced too. I am grateful for balance finding me, and I was still there suviving upheaval and broken promise. Discovering the joy in my life is a wonderful thing to be thankful for.