A New Path For My Husband!!!

I wrote about pieces and fragments last time and now it is about a whole new path for my husband. A chance to walk down a new trail and leave his own footprints!! Nick has interviewed for and won the position of Principal at Magnetic Hill school for a five year term starting next fall. He withdrew his applications for the other 2 schools and so is back at work today instead of in another round of interviews for a different position.

I am SO proud of him, so amazed at how much he has grown as an administrator and so excited for him. He worked very hard to get to this point in his career and is absolutely giddy about getting this school so close to home in the next boundary over. He measured the distance and it is just under 8 km from our door which means a much shorter commute and the chance to come home for dinner even if there are evening meetings or events he needs to return for.

There is also a sense of wonder as Nick gets his career path set for this 5 year term. After 4 years of change and upheaval as he switched schools in the middle of his Vice-Principalship, he now has a chance to vision, implement and watch things grow from year to year in the same place. He is SO ready for the challenge of his own school!!

This sense of wonder stems from wondering now where I am meant to be in terms of career. I will never walk away from cross stitching completely, but there is this knowledge that I also need to find my next challenge in a field that is not so prone to theft. Somehow, there became a climate of tolerance among to great a group that scanning and sharing designs was permissible. Technology and the industry have also changed so that I really can’t rely on cross stitch to make up a full third of my income anymore... I still find a deep sense of enjoyment from creating the designs and a sense of astonishment that so many stitchers have taken pleasure in creating their own versions of one of my designs, but I am also enough of a realist to know when I need to concentrate on other ways to help provide for my family.

If I am truly honest with myself, I must also admit that it is time to stop letting the fear of rejection keep me from doing one of the things I have always wanted to do... illustrate children’s books. Right before I got into cross stitch a dozen years ago, I was short-listed for 2 illustration projects and in both cases, the project went to one of the other 2 illustrators chosen to submit some rough designs. When selling and producing cross stitch designs started to take off and meet with success, it was very easy to put facing such rejection on the back burner and go with what was working. Adding children into the mix only meant more justification not to just work “on spec” but rather spend my “work time” on projects or areas that would bring in income within 30 -60 days.

I have wanted to draw pictures for a living for almost 30 years now and have, for the most part, been able to live that dream. But I have also wanted to know that my pictures brought joy to a child’s world as they discovered reading. I was that little kid who used to curl up in the corner of a library or bring home the pile of books that was almost too heavy to carry... so I think it is time to stop being afraid of failing at the one thing I have always wanted most and just start doing it!!

“The reward of a thing well done is to have done it.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson