Exercising Sound Judgment

"Passion"

My jewelry business has been my passion for 14 1/2 years.  Now it will have to share some of my passion as strive to be a better child of God.

Hello my dear friends...this little tidbit of valuable information at the bottom of this blog post, came to me today via an email from a dear friend, Laura.  How appropriate and perfect it is for me to share on my blog.  As I've been mentioning in the last few posts, that turning 50 has been a positive and exciting age to celebrate.  However, I had no idea that it would bring about all of these other positive things along the way.  I tell you, I am certainly growing and changing.  Not sure if my family is aware yet, but I sure am.  Things that didn't make sense pre-50 suddenly are clicking.  How strange that is.

One area of my life I have always struggled with is the learning to say "no".  I mentioned this in passing earlier in a post, but when I received an email a few moments ago with the below information, it really hit home to me.  I have had a lot of emails and contacts lately requesting certain things of me with regards to my jewelry design business and I struggle with responding.  So if you are reading this now and are one of those people that have heard back from me, please bare with me, as I figure out and attempt to "exercise sound judgment when making choices".  My tendency has always been to be a "yes" person, and bottom line I get worn out.  My goal in my jewelry design business is to glorify God, and because of this "yes" habit I get myself overwhelmed and than no one is glorified.  I need to say "yes" only to those opportunities that the Lord prompts me to answer in this way.

It has always been an honor and compliment when shops wish to carry my jewelry and when one is asked to consign in new places, as well as being asked to participate in juried shows that are great shows.  The opportunities are wonderful, all of them.  It's just that I'm not sure which opportunity I can do and do well.

What people don't understand is that "jewelry design" is more than just creating and designing in demand jewelry.  I still have to do the shopping for the product to create with, come up with the new and/or creative design concepts and/or lines of jewelry, than create focal point creations for the items and finally after the design is in my head, create it and translate it into a product.  Then there is all the bookwork for the IRS, the paying sales tax payments, the invoicing, packaging, shipping and such for online orders.  Along with that is the task of trying to keep 1,000's of items somewhat organized which I fail miserably at in my business.  Then there is promotion, like ordering business items online like my event postcards, my mini moos, my business cards, and writing and maintaining my blog.  Along with that is the season I am upon right now which is tax time and I have many, many hours ahead of me of preparation time to get all of my expenditures and sales information for 2010 together to take to my tax guy next week.  You get my drift...lots goes into running a small business when you are actually creating the product from start to finish. :)  

I do love what I do!

But, there is only one Gretchen doing it all...

So my goal is to continue to keep plugging away trying to keep up with life, but to also learn to "take time and ponder" as I go about life each day.

The below portion is the excerpt from the email Laura sent me.  Enjoy and be challenged...

SMALL STRAWS IN A SOFT WIND by Marsha Burns -- 3/29/11:

Resist the temptation to take on more than you can effectively handle. Any over-extension could deplete your resources physically, emotionally, financially or spiritually. Exercise sound judgment when making choices, and you would do well to be conservative. The enemy would love to stretch you beyond your abilities. If you need wisdom ask Me and I will give you the guidance you need, says the Lord.

James 1:5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.