Hello my favorite BFF’s!

Welcome to my new BFF’s and it’s good to see my old BFF’s. I figured it would be a good time to update you on what is happening with “The Awkward Bird”, especially if you know that we’ve moved, which was supposed to bring me closer to my bubble map of dreams.

While we were preparing to move, I read something that compared big scary moments in life to diving off a cliff. That is exactly what it felt like to me. We had been brought to the edge of the cliff and were about ready to jump, not knowing what the landing would be like. It’s not my first cliff diving experience, but each one is different and big and scary. Shortly after I read that comparison, a friend sent me a card that mentioned jumping off a cliff and our net would be waiting for us. I love those connections in life!

We jumped and moved over the summer months, but we didn’t exactly land.

Not yet.

We can see a net below us but we’re not close enough to reach it.

Not yet.

Our shirts got stuck on a branch that was hanging out about three quarters of the way down and we’re flopping around a bit. Luckily, we’re close to the ground, we just can’t quite figure out how to land.

If you are new around these parts, “The Awkward Bird” is me. It’s also my website. And it’s also my future country shoppe and any other wild dream I can think up. I began this adventure a few years ago as my husband and I faced some future “forks in the road” and I have slowly grown. The time has come where our youngest wee one is now in kindergarten and we jumped off the cliff to make a move. Those were the two major prerequisites for the next steps of “The Awkward Bird” country shoppe.

But…the best laid plans usually change and we find ourselves in transition and not yet settled from our recent move. We’re currently renting, which has us in a stalemate, and our major important priority is to find a family home to purchase or build, but alas – nothing has come up yet. Being patient has never been one of my strengths.

So, we wait.

Well…what’s up with “the bird”, you wonder?

Back story: About a year ago, my website was hacked and all of the brilliantly witty and in-my-mind award-winning content that I had created was gone. Not a crumb of it was left, not even from my previous website (“Just Like Perfect!”). After a few weeks of working with my giant world-wide hosting site I realized that my content wasn’t coming back. So, now what? Was it a sign that I stink as a blogger and the world needed to be rid of my content forever? Was it a sign that my often overwhelming world was in need of an overhaul and I was supposed to give up this piece because it is time consuming and I am needed elsewhere?

After some deliberation, I knew that the world needed me and my blog and I really needed you and it.

I decided to build my website again and keep moving forward, but at a slower pace, and just hang out in limbo with it until the time would come where I could begin to give it the direction I had been waiting for. It was the last year my youngest would be by my side on a daily basis since the school day would gobble him up soon enough and I knew that we had a big move in the works. I wanted to savor the “last” moments in my world at that time because changes were a comin’.

A year later, which is now, I am able to start looking for local website design and hosting companies. I never want to spend three weeks on a phone wondering why no one can find my website content when I pay for backups, but they would surely be able to dredge up the sordid events and indiscretions of my youth – if I had any, that is…which would have happened even before the internet ever existed. (I’m 47. Let’s just get that out there.) I have slightly researched local marketing and branding companies. I am looking locally for a physical place to maybe set up a studio and warehouse of sorts, to house the inventory for the online portion of my country shoppe. And to be a local “pick-up” place for shoppers in my area so they could avoid shipping fees if they so desired. My house would be too messy. You can’t go there. I don’t want to clean my bathroom every day.

I’m still surrounded by a few moving boxes and I have no idea where we’ll hang our soon-to-be-needed snow pants and winter coats. Our rental has very few closets and storage so I’ve had to put on my design hat to come up with some solutions. Look out summer gear, winter gear is taking over. My horizontal spaces are still covered, but I’m beginning to think that has more to do with me than it does that all of the places I have lived lack enough horizontal space and storage.

My eyes have been looking longingly at a place in town for a future site for my “real” country shoppe. It’s just land at the moment because the diner that was there is now gone. That means I’d be starting from scratch. Scary. Expensive. It’ll have to wait because we need a house first. Well, and the land is not for sale.

In the meantime, I’m slowly researching other ideas to get me up and running and moving. My husband cleverly surmised that whatever we start with, needs to include some kind of food offering. He’s right. But that opens up a giant can of worms as requirements for offering food are much different than the requirements for offering retail items. Another world I need to research and flounder around in. Scary. Expensive.

So, my BFF’s, that’s where “the bird” stands at the moment. Closer. But not yet there.

And…not to be the one to add stress to your moments, did you realize that the “holidays” are almost upon us? The time is NOW to get some balance in that there to-do list of ours or we’ll be swallowed up whole only to be spit out in January wondering what happened and if we missed anything.

Go forth, my favorite BFF’s, and make moments that matter. Life is busy, ya know.

Aaryne