Courage and Success

In my wanderings around the blogosphere, I found the following quote on Donna-Marie Coggin's blog:
“The difference between a successful man and a failure, is not one’s better abilities or ideas, but the courage one has to act on them”
-Maxwell Maltz

Then I ran into this post on Lori Anderson's blog that epitomises one boy's courage.

And it put me in the mind of success. Sometimes you have to stick to what you believe will work, with your passion and your ideals. It isn't always easy and it isn't that straightforward, but success, when it comes, is just so, well, satisfying!

Our local community held a music festival last weekend - the yearly jazz festival, whilst enjoyed by those who went, was a big drain on the community resources - there were never enough people to help organise, set up, pull down and access was rather tortuous through the national park. But the scenery was gorgeous!

So after last year's festival the committee decided to go biannual and this year run a low-key music event close to town to encourage more townspeople to attend. A lot of people didn't approve and some people said they wouldn't be going.

The day dawned clear and bright, the sun was shining - but it wasn't too hot and all was in readiness. The clouds came over - threatening but nothing too drastic and all continued on as scheduled. People turned up in droves.

Then mid-way through the evening the heavens opened - the stage got wet and dangerous and there was even a black-out. Oh no!!! However, the headline act, in true professional style, just pulled out some smaller equipment from their vehicle, set up in a shed and kept playing. And everyone had a marvellous time (even if they were a little damp!) The town is now full of praise for the event, the organisers are thrilled and for their courage at pursuing their goal, are smelling that sweet, sweet smell of success!

The picture for today is a bright and fresh gemstone bracelet of rock crystal quartz, carnelian, garnet, freshwater pearls, and citrine.

Spiralling out of control vs. achieving

Do you ever feel like your life is spiralling out of control? I am a bit of a 'control freak', so it doesn't take much for me to feel like this LOL. But I certainly feel like it at the moment!



There are so many demands on our time - especially if we are mothers and trying to meet all the commitments in our communities, in our families, in our hobby/business and so on.



Take this week for example. Outside of the home/studio I had a family function, took the children to a birthday party and two after school activities, attended a school function and my town's street fair as a stallholder. This meant that I was out 6 out of the 7 days! For the scant few hours that I was home, I was doing things that a mother and wife does around the house, and squeezed in some work on my jewellery in preparation for the fair. I am just starting the next week and find myself surrounded by a messy studio with boxes and stock everywhere (I've just started to unpack it all from the fair last night), mountains of laundry and a list a mile long of things I have to do!! I am also looking after the farm whilst my husband is away, but what the heck, just add a few more lines to the To Do list.



However, although I feel rather overwhelmed I really have had an extremely satisfying week as well! I got to see family I haven't seen in months, I watched the children enjoy a birthday party with their friends and improve at their dancing classes and even saw them perform, caught up with other parents at the school function and had a brilliant day at the street fair (once the wind died down LOL).



Its important to be able to look at the positive side of things and see what you have achieved rather than seeing the downfall in everthing. I read a post on the Etched in Memories blog and although is about achieving success, it does point to the positive aspect of it all and I can see comparisons to our daily lives.



After all that I need something pretty to look at....






I sold this lovely necklace last night to our Mayor's wife. Although we are going into summer here and this piece is almost autumnal, the colours looked lovely on her and I am sure she will enjoy it. It is made of pearls in tones of gold, green, cranberry and creamy apricot, plus BC Jade, citrine and garnet.