Borg meme. . . because I'm so behind, what does it matter :P
- Leave me a comment saying "Resistance is Futile."
- I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity
- Update your journal with the answers to the questions
- Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions
1. If selling jewelry became successful enough to be a full time job and became so time consuming that you eventually have would have to hire people help you with it would you or would you just scale it back down?
I totally would, for certain things at least. First, I'd hire someone to take care taking photos and posting my pieces to my sites (and then do a little happy dance that I had shirked my most hated task associated with jewelry work). If things were still awesome and my time still thin, I'd add shipping, inventory and book keeping to the list of outsourced jobs. If I still needed help after all that, I would look for someone to do menial bench work (which is something a lot of jewelers, especially silver/goldsmiths do), like simple soldering and polishing and such. I don't think I'd ever want to hand over creative license to anyone. I'm a control freak like that. After that point, I would scale back if necessary.
2. If Jonah approached you and asked you what he should do with his life would you give him a suggestion or influence in any way or would you want to make sure that he chose for himself?
I'm a firm believer in using a light touch when it comes to influence. I would definitely want him to pick something for himself and don't ever expect him to follow in our footsteps. I would help him to brainstorm on the things that interest him to find a path and make sure to encourage him to explore any possibility, even if he can't see himself doing it for the rest of his life. A friend's dad said something once that really stuck with me: "Do something, anything, it doesn't matter what. If you decide later you don't want to do that anymore, you can always change. But don't sit around waiting to figure out what you want to be when you grow up and never doing anything in the meantime." This was just after he got his PhD in Astronomy in his mid-50s and was trying to encourage his daughter to put forth some effort towards a bachelors in anything. I'm also one of those weird parents who hasn't even speculated on what my kid might be when he grows up. I'll certainly watch for abilities and encourage him and be as supportive as possible. But I don't want to guide him into anything he might not really want to do.
3. What are 3 things that you simply can't live without?
Well, apart from the food, water, shelter things and then the other things like sun and trees that I'd probably lose my mind without:
1. Coffee. I've tried and tried, but I can't give it up.
2. Hobbies. If I don't have a list of projects to work on, I feel very useless. Somehow, they give me a point of reference for my productivity.
3. Books. I have an unquenchable thirst for the written word, even though I really don't consider myself well read. I wish I had nourished it in high school when it would have been well fed (even if by garbage that they make you read in high school). Maybe I'm trying to make up for lost time.
4. Someone already asked about you 7 years ago, so what do you think it would be like to speak to you 7 years from now? What do you think she will be like?
I bet she'll have a lot of the same complaints as now me has against 7-year-ago me (regarding laziness and such). I do a lot and feel like I'm constantly on the go, but I still feel like I fall short and I don't feel very well put together, despite my love of organization. Also, Jonah will be nearly out of elementary school by then. That means I will have had 5 years of 6 hours per day, 5 days per week with which to do something constructive (like maybe a degree). But, even if I've grown by leaps and bounds, it's likely I'll be disappointed by now me's inability to get things done. I'll probably be even lamer than I am now, from now me's perspective. But perhaps now me is mature enough to not look down on that too much and recognize the accomplishments that I've hopefully gained in the next 7 years. I keep thinking about that Modest Mouse song about "everyone wants to be a perpetual motion machine, we all try harder as the days run out." If not much has changed, I'll be quite depressed. ;)
5. Freedom or Security?
Wow, that's a hard one. When we moved up to Nashville and even before, I was completely anxiety ridden because I didn't know where we were going to wind up. Before Chris got the offer at Vandy, we didn't know what state, let alone what city were were going to end up in. Once he did get the job here, we hadn't bought a house yet and we were in a 3 month lease while we looked for one. Our stuff was all boxed and spread between a townhouse and a storage unit. I felt very uprooted and insecure in a city I wasn't yet familiar with and trying to get used to being a housewife. Couple that with pregnancy hormones and. . . well, I did a lot of crying and felt pretty depressed.
But, if there's one thing that makes me lash out at the world, it's feeling like I don't have freedom. I think that goes back to being kind of a control freak and if I feel like I'm not in control of my situation I tend to take drastic action. So, I would say that a lack of freedom probably upsets me more than a lack of security based on my reactions to them. I withdraw into myself when I'm insecure and get proactive when I feel my freedom is stifled.
And, this is the war within me. I could blame it on being born on a Taurus/Aries cusp, but, whatever.