an introduction
Hello out there to all of you readers, you beautiful visitors of our website and blog! I just wanted to take a moment to welcome you and to fully introduce myself. My name is Melinda, and I am a crafty dreamer in search of a life free from stress and full of creativity and love. I have never written a blog before, and aside from my personal journal and work emails, I haven't written anything in many many years. This blog is mainly for myself, to prove that I can actually do it, and hopefully along the way I will inspire others to take a leap, try something new and reach for their dreams, no matter what those dreams may be.
Los Angeles is currently my home, a beautiful sprawling city of diversity and culture. When I first arrived here in 2011, the city excited and inspired me. The world was open and I felt reborn and alive as I walked these art-filled streets. It is amazing how quickly life starts to flash by once you reach your mid-twenties, and how much a person can change in a short period of time. I fell in love with a handsome man (my partner Adam), successfully climbed the career ladder, and quit drinking and partying. I settled in, settled down, and began listening to my heart and my soul, which I had been ignoring for so long. It slowly became clear to me that deep within my soul I was not truly happy. Mind over matter can be a wonderful trick in certain situations, but it can also be terribly detrimental when you let it completely take over without realizing it. It auto-piloted me into a great job, and a beautiful apartment, which I love and I am very proud of. Which actually sounds great, right? Well, it didn't happen over night for me, it was a gradual shift, an opening of the heart and a slow realization. This city is suffocating me, I am hauling around a pile of stress and I am an angry person for it. I think to myself, when did that happen and how did I not see it for so long? It is scary to realize that you are not yourself and you don't like the person you have become. We decided that we needed to make a change.
After many months of talking it through, researching, soul searching, crying, worrying, laughing, calculating finances, and worrying a whole lot more, we came to a decision. We are leaving Los Angeles; a truly terrifying notion. I am giving up my job, a lifestyle of big city living that I have always known, and taking a leap of faith. For the first time in my adult life, I am going completely with my heart and not the practical side of my mind. I am listening to the pull of my soul, calling me to the open space of the countryside, to a slower pace of life. I am following my dreams. Dreams of owning a little fiber farm, of creating beautiful items out of my own wool that I have spun with my own hands, of having a family and living a more simple life. Dreams of learning how to grow my own garden of natural dyeing plants and teaching myself how to create from the earth. As a city girl, I never expected this to be my biggest dream, but as I said, a person can change a lot in a few years. Dreaming big means something different for every one of us, and we should never let the fact that something is different scare us away from what we truly desire.
I have been debating for a while about how much I should share about myself on this blog. Whether being too open would get in the way of creating a beautiful brand for my creations. I have decided that I do not want to run my business that way. My goal here is to be true to myself, to be honest and to reach out to people. I am on a spiritual journey to find my deepest happiness, and to create beautiful things along the way. Sharing with others is an important part of this journey, and hopefully you will agree. Of course I want to sell my creations, but for me, the business should build from the heart and the lessons of the journey. What I create and sell will grow from there.