Tag: motivation

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It all begins with love

This last weekend was all about self care.

After what has felt like a crappy, unproductive week, after the 2 month anniversary of my mum’s passing hit me more than I expected, it has been a more than welcome end to the week.

Do I feel guilty for not working when I should be? Some, especially with customers who’ve been waiting longer than that 2 months for completion of their work.
Do I feel guilty for leaving my 3 year old crying today because I’ve gone out early for the 2nd morning? Again, some!

But both my children and my customers will benefit more in the long run from a healthy, happy, more centred and emotionally healed mum/me than they will if I keep running on empty and burn out. Seeing the bigger picture, the future for me and my family, is fundamental to this journey I am on 💜

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WAHM Life is THE Life

Ever wondered what being a work at home mum looks like? This is a perfect example: last night trying to eat some dinner quickly, get a new listing added to my nuMONDAY store, I was also editing photos to post on a Facebook post, before going Live on my page.

I got it ALL done though, eventually (I didn’t get the shop listing done till half 10 as I forgot to set it live at the time 🙈). This week I’ve had the most successful week, planning, working and actually looking after me, family and the house too. Being a mum, working in the house where your kids are 24/7 is certainly challenging, but organisation is key to focus, that and sleep! This picture actually shows you exactly why sleep is important.

I’ve had a couple of late nights entirely my own fault not following my own rules 😊 which means a late start to the day and then I still need to get certain things done in certain time frames to either look after kids in a timely manner or because they’re the best times for my clients, customers and followers. If I’d have gone to bed earlier, got up earlier and therefore got some of these things done earlier, I’d not have been cramming 4 tasks into 1 hour 😱🤪😂

girlsThat means ditching the distractions of unnecessary time on social media and watching excessive negative news and shows, taking time for self care (however you want the to be. For me it’s a shower, meditation and getting outside) and filling yourself with positive influences, reading, learning skills and meeting new people who are where you want to be in life or who have the same goals.

Being a work at home mum is challenging at times, but so fecking rewarding and fun (If it’s not fun find a different approach). Amazing things are happening and all the work is going to pay off big time!

Much love to you all

Davina

 

 

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Life changes

rainbow

rainbowMy Lord where do I start? What do I say?

Well I don’t want to write too much, it’s too hard, but I do need to share something here and post about my absence. I know I don’t have to, however it’s been big and writing something will help.

Four weeks ago my mum died. I have mentioned her a couple of times this year, the last time was to share how she’d been poorly and we were concerned. Well back in June cancer was discovered and within 4 weeks she had sadly passed away.

I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to explain all the feelings and emotions that go through you when your hear a doctor say those words. So much, so many. First of all given her dementia condition it made the prognosis poor, but they did decide to perform a minor operation in the hopes she would be able to eat again and regain some strength. At the end of June she was readmitted to hospital just over a week from the diagnosis and I dropped all things here in West Yorkshire and travelled by train with my 3 year old to go and stay with my dad.

His own condition of macular degeneration makes things hard from a different point of view. As the Teeny Girl and I stayed with him we helped him with small day to day tasks, but he showed great resilliance and ingenuity to carry out many things, and together we did things like make fruit bread in his bread machine and cooked hotpot and savoury mince to my mum’s recipe.

That morning on the 9th July when he came into me at 5.30am to say my mum had gone was like nothing else. Torn between sadness, relief at her no longer suffering, concern for how my dad would cope, and knowing within a week I’d get to see my hubby and 2 bigger girls again, was a massive mix of emotions.

Of course in the middle of it all massive work based things happened. That’s the side of self employment. It was awesome to be able to just drop and go and be with my dad. To be able to take an amount of work with me and to be able to continue some of the admin jobs like updating shops and social media. I opened a shop on a brand new site just a week after joining my dad. I wanted to be so excited about it, but it was tinged with the fact I couldn’t just focus on that and learn the new platform. I continued working on my other new shop is opened in May on the nuMonday platform where for now all custom orders will be taken. Finally I also upgraded this site so that I will eventually be able to move some of my shop and sales over here for more complex items, especially adult wear.

I’d like to take one final minute to thank the wonderful customers that I received orders from to be made in time for winter, but without the pressure to make and ship while I was away from home. These orders enabled me to have the means to go at a moments notice to catch the train and rush to be with my dad during this hard time and visit my mum as much as I was able in her last weeks.

So, that’s it. One huge update on where I have been and what is going on and now after a few weeks spent regrouping and reassessing plans I’m back and ready to show you great things 💜

Much love and blessings

Davina 💜

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Work n Progress

Happy Monday all, if of course you’re reading this on Monday, if not Happy Day, whatever day it is <3

I am making sure I write my blog posts this week, even if I’m not entirely sure what I am writing about. I am getting a clearer idea on what Indgosky2Knit is doing in the future, both my teaching side and my creative selling side. Not only that, but am also working out how to progress my aromatherapy and crystal business in line with my position as an independent consultant for NYR Organics.

Of course attempting to grow 2 businesses and declutter a life and home around 3 children, 2 home educated and 1 toddler, well let’s just say it takes some serious planning and organisation.

Last week I got a gorgeous new planner from Cordwain Higgler which will perfectly suit my business planner inserts from Ultimate Success Planner on Etsy. Now I have my business planner, home ed diary and family organiser, and my personal life journal in 3 separate binders, which means 3 times the planning fun 😉

So this week I am working on some fabulous custom orders, an adult waterfall cardigan, starting a chunky adult sweater and a child’s ballet shrug. I am also making as many little baby items as I possibly can to add to my Etsy shop. I am also putting out my first call for beta testers of my online video teaching or adults, sign up to my newsletter for details of that, even though I’m still not sure where and how that is working, but that’s why I need some lovely testers.

I’ll be teaching local home educated children tomorrow, as well as taking my own girls to their various classes and groups through the week, we have art, football and a couple of social events. Then before I know it it’s Sunday again and I’m planning another week!

I am loving this journey though, this journey to living the life I want, giving my children the freedom they deserve and watching my husband find and follow his dreams too <3

Have a great week lovely readers, and maybe I will get another post or two written this week. Oh yes, it’s great to be back.

Much love and best wishes

Davina 😀

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Charging what you’re worth

So I thought it was time I wrote a little bit on the subject of pricing and hand knitted or crocheted items. This is something that over the years since I began Indigosky2knit in 2012 I have become more and more passionate about.

Imagine this: you are wanting to begin a business venture, you want to use that venture to support your family, to pay bills, feed your children the best food, make the best choices for education, and maybe have a little left to put aside for some fun. You have skills and want to use those skills to earn said money to support your family. Those skills are time intensive, they create beautiful and often unique items, those items last many years because you choose the best kind of materials.

When you are starting your business well meaning individuals, some of whom do the same crafts, and some who sell their own products, tell you that ‘you’ll never make an hourly wage doing that’, ‘people won’t pay you more than a couple of pound an hour for the time it takes’, ‘it can’t be your only source of income’, etc. They don’t mean any harm, they think they’re helping. But are they?

Do you know how long it takes to knit a baby hat, even for a skilled and fast knitter? Do you know how long an age 2-3 cardigan takes to knit? Do you know how long it takes to crochet some baby booties, or an adult unicorn hat? I expect your guess is out by an hour or two for small things, or many hours for larger items.

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Say it take 6 hours to make a toddler cardigan, age 12-24 months (and that’s for a simple cardigan with no seams and a few buttons added, made by a speedy knitter)? How much do you think a person’s time is worth for doing that? £3/hour? £5/hour? Or are they worth more than the UK minimum wage, which currently stands at £7.83? Factor into that the cost of materials, the extra time to choose a yarn, to market the item if it’s to be listed on a website and needs some form of advertising, and is it really too much to ask for £10/hour that it took to make the cardigan? Yes that makes that toddler cardigan a value of £60. Is that really too much?

Well here’s a few more things to consider. If that cardigan is made from high quality yarns it will last for many years, so it can be handed down to siblings, or friends. Many find high quality knitwear lasts beyond any stated age. The design I use is in fact aged at 2 year increments from age 2, and the age 10+ would likely fit into the teens. I have a blog post in the writing with customer experiences of how long some items have lasted, but my own experience for now from my own children. My eldest daughter fitted many of her hand knits for 2 years, baby items for up to 12 months. My middle daughter then wore one or two of those and still fits a couple of age 5 items at the age of 7. My youngest daughter (who was a 99.9 centile born baby weighing in at 11lb+, so the size of your average 3 month old) fitted a 0-3 month cardigan I had made her before she was born until she was close to 9 months old. The £45 that is worth would be money well spent for a cardigan that lasted almost the first year of a baby’s life.

Do you think spending that little bit extra for something that lasts many years is worth it? Many people feel it isn’t. It saddens my heart when I see skilled yarn and fibre artists pricing their work for so much less than the time it takes to create. I feel it undervalues not just themselves and their skill, but the hard work that many others put into their own craft. Is a person really only worth £1/hour, and yes I have seen some items priced so low that even if the person doesn’t need the money, they are seriously undervalued. If you don’t need the money from selling goods, why not gift them to the many family charities or homeless organisations who would gladly accept them as donations, and you would feel just amazing for being so generous, probably much better than the feelinsg felt when you spend several hours creating something and receive £5, £10, or even £20 for something that took you 6 hours to create.

If you create beautiful things, take a minute to consider if you feel you and your work are worth more, if they are then charge more. If you shop for hand made products that you know take many hours to create, then consider offering to pay more for an item or shop from sellers that charge their true worth. If you don’t think a person is worth £10/hour for their time? Well maybe rethink that idea, or buy your products from shops where goods are made in sweatshops, and consider the ethical implications of knowing workers are paid £1/hour, but don’t expect a skilled craftsperson to be earning so little.

Much love and best wishes

(and make sure you charge what your worth whatever your craft)

Davina <3

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Trying to work it all out

Never underestimate the work going on in the back ground of a small business/entrepreneur/mompreneur. Much of which we are doing in our ‘free time’.

IMG_20170814_094207_254I seem to spend most of my days at the moment writing lists and working out plans for how and when I can do things. A lot of these plans are dependant on how much income I get from my businesses, and January and February have a reputation for being quiet.

I literally have no new orders at the moment, which is unusual for me, and only a couple of outstanding ones to work on. On the plus side this is giving me time to work on some new things, which is part of the bigger plan, but the quiet time does mean I can’t follow through just yet on working further on those bigger plans, like setting up my website or buying new equipment to set up my video work.

Times like this have made me feel like I should give it all up, it’s time to go out and find a ‘proper’ job which is reliable, but then I’d be more limited on what I could do with the Big, Small and Teeny girls home education, in fact that possibly wouldn’t even be an option. So as I watch my Small girl playing football, and take my Big girl swimming, and see the Teeny girl at our local messy play group, I remember this is why I have chosen this life, and I work all the more at trying to work out how I can best serve people who will support me in my businesses.

If reading this consider taking a look around my Etsy Store and picking up something that this week will help me take my kids to their various activities and maybe even move that website forward. Or if organic skin care and natural products are more your thing, be sure to check out my Neals Yard replica site 

Much love and gratitude to you all

Davina

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A hard week

Hey all you lovely people. This is a deep and personal piece from me today, but I feel I need to share to ease the inward emotions and turmoil. You know sometimes, despite all the best intentions and inner work and self care, life has some lessons to teach you that you’re not necessarily ready for.

Last week was one of those weeks. My super supportive and enduring mum is 81 years old next month. For some time now she’s been suffering the effects of dementia, Alzheimer’s and vascular dementia. Over the last few weeks my dad, himself 82, has seen a deterioration in her, and last week he was concerned enough to start asking for more help.

Having to face their mortality this last week has been a lesson to me, a lesson in my own feelings towards life, and towards death. I am hoping that the medical assistance she’s been getting for a few days will alleviate some of the recent problems, infection can after all play games with the mind, especially of the elderly. However, I do have to accept that at 80 years old she is not going to live forever in this world and what does that mean for me?

Anyone who knows me, knows that I have mixed feelings about my mum. Society and association she had when I was a child, meant she did certain things she went on to regret, namely disciplining me physically and my being left as a toddler to cry myself to sleep at night. This has caused me feelings of resentment over the years. I’ve never denied her motherly love for me, or my daughterly love for her, she has just been super supportive of everything I’ve ever done, but I did feel hurt for those early years, I have to admit it.

However, a few months ago I was loaned a fabulous book You Can Heal Your Life by the late Louise Hay. In this she talked about forgiveness and how important it is to forgive those who hurt us. She talked about how children choose the parents they will born to, and how if you feel your parents did wrong by you, then you need to seek the lesson that taught you and feel forgiveness in your heart. Well, do you know what I did when I first read that? I shut the book! I shut the book, and thought ‘no, nope, I am not accepting that’. I didn’t even realise just how strong that resentment was until that moment. This idea that my soul had chosen to come and be hurt in ways that still affected me so deeply? No, I wasn’t accepting that.

So I closed the book and never planned on completing it, I didn’t think it was right for me. Over the course of the next few days those words and some other wise words I was listening too and ready in my self-help, self care journey, made me meditate deeply on those feelings that had come up, and do you know what I found? I found forgiveness! I realised that YES, I had chosen my mum to be my mum, because she needed the wild spirit that was in me to lighten and brighten her life. And me? I needed those harsh early lessons in my life to teach me a better way. So that when my children’s souls chose me as a mum, I would find a more gentle approach to my parenting.

In all of my childhood experiences my dad and one of my older sisters taught me about peace, patience and long suffering, and I found happiness and kindness. Now when I think of that elderly lady lying in her hospital bed, telling my dad over and over how much she loves him, I see the loving and caring mum who was in there being forced by society to be hard on a free spirited and strong willed little girl, and I am more determined than ever to show my girls that love, respect and compassion that is deep inside my mum.

Whatever you do and however you feel about your parents, remember without them you wouldn’t have life, and without life you wouldn’t be able to find the joy that is always there, just a breath or a thought away <3

Much love

Davina <3

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Ahhhh, Getting Back into that Monday Groove

Hey Lovelies and Happy Motivational Monday.img_20180106_123237_7961901669046.jpg

So, all the celebrations are over now, in the last 2 weeks two of my girlies have gotten a whole year older, and NOW I can get back into the normal routine of Home Ed, Working Mum, Housewife life. Phew!

want somethingYeah, that means my Monday is back to getting out and working in peace in a nice local coffee shop. No clingy toddlers, no kids spellings, no ‘mum, mum, mum, look at what I drew/wrote/watched.’ My days like this are fabulous as they give me space and clarity, allow me to write and plan and focus for the week. I’ve said it before, but I LOVE MONDAY! Changing that whole negative vibe most people feel for Monday is life changing, Go on, Try It!

rainbowsAnyway, towards the middle of last week I asked for some ideas of what quotes move and motivate my social media audience? I got a handful of lovely pictures back with some great ideas, plus made one or two of my own. I’ve added them through the post today to inspire you for the week ahead and to come back and check out. If you feel inspired, or have a favourite of your own, let me know in the comments below. I might just add them to my collection <3quotes_creator_20180107_1105062039470655.png

Have a great week lovely people, Stay Motivated, Stay Happy
With much love

Davina <3

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Happy New Year 2018

Hey you lovely people, Happy New Year and Welcome to 2018!

I’m just popping in really quickly to wish you all a happy new year mainly, but also to share some of the first exciting news of the new year. I have so much planned for you all, for those I2K followers, customers and freinds, for those of you who love organic skin care and health care, and for those of you keen to learn new things.

img_20180103_094744_4401419709021.jpgWow, so much I need to finish writing the year plan out really, which I will when my new Goal Planning pages arrive from the lovely Natalie at Ultimate Success Planner. I’m going all out for both my businesses this year, and first up I am sharing news on Indigosky2Knit giveaways for the year over in my Facebook Group tonight. If you have missed the Live video, then it’s still there to replay and the counter is counting on who is most chatty.

pexels-photo-208165.jpegAnother huge thing for me this year is Self Care. I started a little last year with various things, working on my mindset, using some EFT, learning about where some of my deep seated pains came from. Is started to forgive more and more of my past, viewing all of the things that have knocked me down in the past as lessons that have brought me to this fabulous point in my life. Finally, there was starting training in aromatherapy and crystal healing, things that have interested me for a long time, but that now I want to explore and learn about more fully.

So Yeah, HUGE plans, all starting out or growing ever more. For now, thanks for being here and look out on Friday for news of another new thing <3

Much love and joy

Davina

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Finding My Motivation

It’s been a while, I know, I have no excuses, I just get caught up in the ‘Busy’.

Well I’m back and here are a few things that have kicked me up the butt, and are getting my plans, and work, back on track.

Winter is always the busiest time for Indigosky2Knit, it’s something I hope to change over the next 12 months so that my summer orders equal my winter ones, but for now, yes people surprisingly want more knitted goodness in winter. With that influx of orders comes my hibernation, my not leaving the house because I have all these lovely things to create, and Christmas is looming (along with Small and Teeny girl’s birthdays) and I want to make them all the things too. I put unnecessary pressure on myself, I curl up in my ‘Troll Cave’ and stay there for days (quite literally).

Last week I realised something had coincided with this, this year. I generally avoid eating wheat for my own well being. I feel it makes me feel sluggish, tired and not to mention the havoc it reaps on my digestion. I generally try to eat intuitively, so if I’m feeling like eating some buttery toast, like the real stuff not gluten free, then I will. And a few weeks ago I did that, and basically haven’t stopped. I’ve kept saying to myself, well I really want it, so I’ll eat it. The amount increases and before I know it I’m eating bread with every meal, nibbling the family biscuits and not really tuning in to whether I really want it, like deep down.

20170906_111719.jpgFive days ago, I stopped! I said no more! I started to listen to more than my instant desire for the toast and started saying no! I already feel better inside myself. I have been able to get up earlier, I have been able to focus more and I have been more productive, not just in the creative side of my work, but in the networking, promoting and being open to working out how to accomplish my new ideas. In hand with this I stop self sabotaging all the awesome progress I have made in the last 3 or 4 months and am continuing on my path forward! Of course I will still get to eat cake 😉

One more thing I am determined to achieve, and today is a good day to start, is regularly maintain my journalling. Journal writing is a great way to find focus, clarity and to move forward, past emotional, mental, spiritual or even physical obstacles. I’ve realised a few things that have stopped me wanting to do this in the past, part of it my perfectionist ego, part of it fear and worry, but a fabulous Coach and Mentor, who I happen to personally know, has started an Intuitive Journal course for the next 7 days. I’ve started on that and will find the motivation past that time to keep on.

So, I’m back, and I’m moving forward <3

Much love and happiness.

Davina K