A Few Words on Our Favorite Subjects..
If there is one thing we’ve learned over the years it’s this: Sharing sewing and quilting how-tos, tips and tricks is part of the fun. So, we’re passing along what we’ve learned so you can work smarter, not harder. If you find these postings helpful, keep the knowledge flowing by sharing this website with someone you know.
Reality…OUCH!
Day one was so hard! We started working out at 5:30am and ended at 7:00pm!!! I was so tired! But I did it. Day two I felt tired and sore; basically I didn’t want to do anything…but at 5:30am I got on the treadmill and made myself walk. After 10 minutes I had a rush of energy! YES! 20 more minutes on the treadmill, a boot camp for our core, an aerobics class, 20 more minutes on the treadmill and then….ZUMBA! Zumba is a latin dance cardio class.
You may not know that I used to dance and perform in high school and college so my thinking was, “finally something I like to do”! The teacher put on the Black Eyed Peas “I got a Feeling” and I instantly got into state. I was transformed to another place in time when I was fit and full of energy. I remembered what it was like to perform. In fact it was like my body was on autopilot. I knew what to do and I was doing it with the same intensity as if I was at a competition. I don’t know what came over me, but I was having a GREAT time! A familiar disco move was being taught. I knew how to do it already and I threw my arm up in the air singing the whole time, threw my hip to the right, and then…reality!
The sound was so loud it shocked me! I literally froze, stunned. Then the pain set in! I knew I had broken something! I tried to walk…nothing. I took a breath and hopped out the door. Let’s just say that I was seeing a professional within 15 minutes of this happening. I tore my IT band near my hip. Neff had to come get me and I have been in Physical Therapy for the past three weeks! With a lot of ice, cortisone, and meds I am finally able to walk in the pool for 25 minutes. So I was able to participate in the program for 1 day and 2.5 hours and guess how much I lost? 6 pounds!! I can’t wait to be healed and go back!
I think reality is realizing that you are not the person you think you are in your mind! Or maybe it is realizing that a 38 year-old body cannot do what an 18 year-old body can do no matter what you think! I don’t know about you, but I don’t feel my age in my mind! I feel much younger. Does anyone else have experience with this? Have any advice?
Saying Goodbye To The Family…
Wow! A lot has happened over the past three weeks and I haven’t had time to post! I will get you caught up but let’s start at the beginning….
It is hard to leave my family, go to a new place and live with people I have never met for a whole month! I am lucky…I have such a supportive family. The kids seemed almost too ok with it…it kind of hurt my feelings. I asked my youngest if he was really ok with me being gone so long and he said, “Yeah Mom, I want you to to be healthy…besides I will be at school anyway”. Now, I just have to convince myself. It is not going to be easy to break the patterns I have created after 38 years!
So the family has driven me to the “Ranch”, unloaded my things, and kissed me goodbye. I am starting to get nervous. Can I do what they will ask me to do? Will I be the only one who can’t? After unpacking we had a meeting to go over the basics and I will share this with you…
80% of weight loss is controlled by our diet
20% by exercise
It is all a numbers game. The number that goes in has to be smaller than the number that goes out! We talked a little about foods and I was shocked to learn that when I thought I was making a “better” choice it actually had more calories! For example, if you had to choose between a Old Timer hamburger at Chili’s or a Grilled Chicken sandwich which do you think would be better? The chicken right…wrong! It has more calories than the burger! Lesson #1 do your homework before going out to eat. Most restaurants have their nutritional information listed on their website. Decide what you will eat before you go so you can control the calories, enjoy your meal. You won’t have to worry about whether or not you made the right choice! Do you know of any “better choice” meal options when eating out? If so, leave a comment and share it with us.
Reno’s Biggest Loser
I mentioned a few weeks ago that recently I have had a series of events that have made me stop and take a look at my life. In the past three months I have had an aneurism scare, a bad mammogram, and test results that indicate I may have rheumatoid arthritis. Let me tell you that just the first thing is enough to get you thinking about your life! But by the time you have gone through multiple things that make you evaluate whether or not you will be happy if you had only a short time to live you are making plans that involve serious change! I haven’t done a good job of taking care of myself, I work way too many hours in a week, I only sleep 4 hours a night, I rarely have time to eat, and when I do it’s usually driving through somewhere on my way to and from work. And exercise? Forget about it. Never had the time for it, and if I did have time, I spent it with my family or sleeping. I have decided I need to do something for myself.
One thing I love to do is watch Biggest Loser. I relate to so much of what they are expressing. I kept saying that I would love to do this, but how? I thought there would be no way with my schedule. Finally last November I decided to look into places that did this type of thing (there was no way I was going to do it on TV!). I found a place in Utah that does this and signed up – for a whole month, beginning January 3, 2010!!
The more people I talk to, the more I realize that this is common with women. We often sacrifice ourselves for the ones we love and to help others. I think it is so important that not only I, but that we all make a shift in our thinking, that I have decided that the whole Shop will be focused this year on our “Craft Your Life” program. Each month will have a unique theme to help us all focus on and accomplish this together. January’s theme is “Do something for yourself”. Maybe soak in a hot bubble bath once a week, commit to drinking more water, go for a walk with the one you love, get a massage, a manicure, a pedicure, or better yet get ALL three. Think about it, what is the thing you love to do that makes you feel great but you just don’t take the time to do…then DO IT and share your experience with us…I’ll be sharing mine!
…now you know “the rest of the story”
I remember hearing that phrase when my Dad would listen to AM talk radio. I can’t remember the name of the guy who said it because I was young but I loved it! Anyway, back to my story… early in 2009 we started looking to make a change. We had been trying to find a Store Manager, but as many of you know, this was a difficult process. I don’t think many people realize how difficult of a job it is to run a quilt/sewing business. And I have high standards for how I want my business. We eventually found a wonderful school for our boys in Utah and enrolled them for the upcoming 2009/2010 school year even though we still didn’t have the whole Store Manager thing settled. We kept our house in Reno and now split our time between Reno and Utah. Neff and I still own, plan for, and give direction for the store, and Mary is now the store manager, she’s been with us for over a year and knows what I expect and how I want things done, and she’s handled it great so far.
The boys completely LOVE their new school and are thriving! That’s right, boys plural! We have home schooled our kids until 8th grade before putting them in private school but we love this school so much that we enrolled Brenden as well! Yes, I am making sacrifices to give my boys what they need, and it is not easy being away from my family when I am in Reno and traveling so much, but it is worth it to me to see them so happy and successful. Now, that they are happy, what about me?
Sometimes You Just Have To Take A Leap Of Faith…
So where does that bring us to today? We’ve been in our new location for about 4 ½ years. In our first full year with Bernina we were nominated as one of the top 3 Rookies of the Year. The next year we were District Dealer of the Year with Bernina, which covers most of the West Coast. I started travelling more to help teach new dealers for Bernina in Chicago. Things were getting crazy busy.
In the meantime, my 3 boys were growing up. When we moved to this new location they were 14, 11, and 6. Now they’re 18, 15, and 11. Our oldest boy was having emotional problems and needed to live in a group home. Our other two boys were growing up fast, and I was missing out on much of this. Neff and I, on a much needed vacation, talked about it and figured we were each working over 100 hours a week. The boys were helping out at the shop, so at least we were together, but we knew a change was needed. I knew I needed a change, not just for the family, but for me.
Keegan was at a private school here locally, found that he loved theater, but not the drama. As a Mom, I hate to see my kids unhappy and struggling! I would do anything to avoid that for them. After a particularly rough week of giving out what seemed like non-stop advice, counseling, and strategy sessions I finally just asked him, “What do YOU want”. I was shocked that he had such clarity! He knows who he is, what kind of environment he thrives the best in, what he would like to do to help others, where he wants to go to college….and the thing that impressed me the most was how simple a choice it was for him to make major changes in his life to make those things happen and be HAPPY! I learned from him that day that just because you are doing what you have done for awhile or thought you would do forever it doesn’t mean you can’t decide to do something else if you are not completely fulfilled. We only have one life…in the end will we be happy with how we lived it? If not, I encourage you to be brave and make a change. Sometimes you just have to take a leap of faith…
Sometimes doing the “impossible” leads to better things…
The suite we bought was what they call a “vanilla shell”, meaning it had nothing but walls and a floor. The floor was plain concrete and the walls were just primer white. But it did have 25 foot ceilings and over 5000 sq. ft. We had to install electricity and lighting and more electricity and more lighting, just to open. Oh, and we only had 30 days to do it all and move! I had a great Staff, friends, and Family! We packed up after we closed one evening and set-up in the new location the next day! We were only closed for the one day and then we were back open! Looking back, I don’t know how that is even possible but we did it! We added flooring later, and finally painted and added a wall to divide off the classroom. We have even more planned that we’ll share with you later.
When we made the move to the new place, the owner of Sew and Such was retiring (but later sold the business instead) I had been wanted to have machines in the Shop so we could have them available for classes. We applied to start a NEW Bernina dealership and the rest you can say is history. That was one of the most wonderful things that happened. Bernina is such a fabulous company to represent and they make the world’s best sewing machines. The company is very family oriented as the ownership in Switzerland has been in the same family for over 100 years. We are also a very family oriented company, if you’ve been with us for awhile you’ve seen my husband and boys working in the shop over the years as well. Bernina was a great fit for us.
Turning My Hobby Into A Business
I got so involved with long arm quilting (even winning some awards) that my friends were complaining that they never saw me anymore! When I told them I was quilting they couldn’t believe it! After all, that was not the “norm” for someone my age. But, once I showed them some of my work they were begging me to teach them. So, I started teaching classes at my home once a month. We had so many people that wanted to learn so I decided it was time to open my own shop.
On May 30, 2003, I opened Going Batty Quilt Shop in Sparks, Nevada. How many of you remember that cute shop? We had 3000 square feet of an old clothing store, the carpet was from remnants of a theater (remember the funky purple colors?) and we had the theme of an old farm yard. We were right in between a couple of bars and when there were events on Victorian Avenue it practically shut us down. But I loved our display window, it was always so cute! So after our lease ran out in 2 years, the building owner wanted to rent the space to a cigar shop and we had to find a new home. We looked high and low for some place in Sparks where we could have at least 5000 square feet of space and have high ceilings to display our quilts. But we could not find anything. So we started looking in Reno and found our current location. By the way, just for fun try clicking on the photos in this post…they will get larger so you can see more details! The photos for classes work the same way! COOL!!!
Be Careful What You Ask For…You May Just Get It All!
I loved to piece quilt tops! One day after looking through all of my precious pieces I realized that I had made 17 quilt tops but had never finshed one into a quilt! I’m sure no one else out there has been here before, huh?! I tried to tie a quilt, but realized that wasn’t appropriate for the type of quilts I was making. I then tried hand quilting and after working on it for a few months with only finishing about a 2 square foot area (and not really liking the results either), I decided this technique wasn’t for me. OK, maybe that’s a little too ”PC”, I hated hand quilting and machine quilting. I know there are ladies that love it, but I did not. Of course, since then I have learned that it would have been a lot better if I had taken a class and not tried to teach myself! Anyone else feel this way?
I had seen an ad in a magazine for a Long Arm Quilting Machine and wanted to try it out. So, I convinced my husband, Neff to go with me to a quilt show in California. The machine looked intimidating at first but as soon as I drove it, I knew that it was for me! To say the least, I LOVED IT! Neff looked at the cost and told me I would have to start a business if we were going to get one. I ran ideas through my mind as to what I felt that included and quickly decided that if I quilted for a few of my friends that would be a business. After all, he never said how big the business had to be. He knows me too well! So after my quick “ok” he added that I would need to get a business license. I admit I hesitated. He was serious. But, I still agreed.
This is when I first started using the business name of Going Batty. Neff came up with this idea as a play on words for the batting that goes inside the quilt and that a key to my sanity and life balance was quilting (i.e. not going batty :-). Our logo was a sheep that was getting long arm stitched inside a quilt. You’ll see this logo around even now, like on the front of our current building as we are still trying to get the complex to allow us to put our new logo up. Ah, but that’s another story.
Quilting is my therapy!
If you’ve seen our updated About Us page, you’ve seen that I started quilting to do something for ME. This is true, but I REALLY needed it. (Anyone else feel this way?) We had recently adopted a child with cystic fibrosis and he was going through a hard time adjusting to our family, and had also begun doing foster care for a special needs child with cerebral palsy who was non-ambulatory and non-oral. Plus I had two more little ones running around. My husband was still working out of the home at the time, so when I say I needed some time for me, I really, really did. A wise person suggested that I find something to do that did not involve the kids, or doing something to help anyone else, but something that was just for me and my own personal growth. One afternoon, I will never forget, while surrounded by kids and still in my PJ’s I heard an ad on the radio mention the words to do something for you this year…take a quilting class. I remember thinking, here it is, my lightning bolt answer! So, I started taking quilting classes and was immediately hooked…
Join me in “Crafting Our Lives” in 2010
Wow, I can’t believe I’m actually going to start blogging. You don’t know how difficult this is for me. I am not one to talk about myself or what I need/want. I have spent my whole life looking for and trying to fulfill the needs of others. With that comes great sacrifice…yourself. I love to help others please don’t get me wrong, it gives me great pleasure and satisfaction. But, in the past few months I have had a series of events in my life that have caused me to look back and say, “with half of my life now over, am I happy with what I have done?” For some things I can say, “yes”, but for others, if I died tomorrow I would have regrets. I know we can’t live a perfect life and be euphorically happy everyday, and some may say that I am in the middle of my “mid-life crisis” but it feels more to me like a mid-life awakening! To be able to look back with an honest eye and say “hey, I did that well” and smile, or, “I wish I would have done that differently” is a powerful thing when planning for the future. I am about to start on an amazing journey and I would like to share it with you. Better yet, join me! It is important to take time for me again. 2010 is the year for us to reflect on the past, make decisions for the future and “Craft our Lives” into something amazing.
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