Busy is my Beautiful

Last week was a rough week.  Gavin had the Tremont Arts & Cultural Festival this past weekend so he was down at the shop preparing for the show - which means, we were down one person in the studio...

Normally,  this wouldn't throw a wrench in everything, expect we are in the HEIGHT of wedding season (which means anniversaries as well) and the Near & Dear shop is busier than ever!  Well, not busier than Valentine week, but I digress.  All by my lonesome, I designed, printed, packaged, shipped and answered just as many emails and first draft revisions for 200+ orders and customers.  This is about standard every week, but again, I was all alone on this one. 

Normally, this wouldn't be too big of a deal, but my grandfather had surgery (he's ok, it was a knee replacement) on Tuesday and that meant a few trips to the hospital and running errands for my grandmother to make sure she had everything she needed while he wasn't home.

And NORMALLY, this would be fine however our wedding is 27 days away and as you can imagine there's SO much to still do.  So, in between pulling 15 hour Etsy days, running errands, visiting the hospital, doing the middle school mom thing (papers, homework, after-school activities etc.) I had my dress fitting on Wednesday morning and then a long list of candles, chalkboards, dried flowers, lighting and other miscellaneous "mood setting" decor I needed to pick up for the wedding while I was on that side of town.

The good news?  I did it.  Albeit, cranky (according to my daughter) but the job is done and it's time to start a new week. 

The great thing about having a blog is, sometimes when I sit down to write a post, I never really know where it's going.  I don't edit (too much) and I just let my thoughts dictate where the story goes...  This post originally started because I wanted to share this photo below:

I'm not sure where to link this photo as I don't know the original source.  I saved it to my desktop a while back with no real intention other than to read it every now and then....  If you know the source, please let me know so I can credit accordingly!

I had a great plan when sharing this photo.  I wanted to lift your spirits and share some sisterly love. I wanted to talk about individuality and how that makes us all beautiful (because these are notions I truly feel in my life) but instead, I somehow veered off course and lead into griping about what a rough week I had.  *sigh*  Somehow the need to share this photo with you, to let you know that YOU ARE BEAUTIFUL feels like maybe it is I who needed the reminder this morning....  

Now, go out in the world, do your crazy busy thing and just. BE. BEAUTIFUL!