Dreams Conclusion

"What was the point of all that verbiage you typed?" you might wonder. I am trying to tell anyone who will listen to (or read, for that matter) me if you can visualize yourself in another situation - one that you absolutely long for - that you will more than likely be able to achieve that particular desire.

But be warned. Striving toward that goal is not for the doubtful or the weak of heart. It takes a lot of courage; it takes lots of work; it requires an enormous amount of passion. However, it is probably one of the more simpler parts of life. By that I mean, there is nothing magical or secretive in attaining a goal. It is merely a matter of taking steps and continuing to take those steps until you have reached your goal, your dream or fantasy.

How did I manage to land in a job as art director? How did I manage to be successful in obtaining house cleaning clients? All I did was this: Get myself known. I didn't just one day decide that I wanted to art direct a magazine then land the job the next. No, no... I called the production manager of the magazine once or twice a month. I sent letters to him. You might say that I pestered the heck out of him until I got what I wanted.

Once I finally was hired, I was scared to death as thoughts of failure at the job crept into my brain. But I didn't quit. I worked hard at learning the computer and how to lay out a magazine. Apparently, my hard work was recognized because it wasn't too long before the head of the layout department asked me if I would like to design magazines. I made more money than I ever dreamed of making. It didn't make me rich by any stretch of the word but I was paid a wage befitting the title.

But the desire to own my a company grew as years passed. So strong was the desire that I found myself planning to make the jump. Again, I persisted in getting myself known. It all began with the first classified I responded to. The old retired professor hired me and immediately gave me the key to her one hundred-plus-year-old house. I worked hard. I dusted and scrubbed every corner of that old two story home. I left nothing unturned.

In the mean time, I walked up and down the streets inserting fliers touting my new business into doors of residential homes. I watched the classifieds for people advertising a need or want for a house cleaner. I didn't know at the time the old lady's neighbor asked about me. She gave me a an outstanding reference.

I now had two clients. The second referred me to her niece. Three clients... I answered a classified for a home in the country. I now had four customers. The second client referred me to her son. Now five clients... A man two streets over from me responded to my flier. That made six clients.

Just from getting myself known and showing that I could do an outstanding job, could do the job better than anybody else, I was able to land six customers. This enabled me to increase my pricing to anyone new who wanted to hire me. Some clients gave me raises, some didn't. Most everyone gave me bonuses but some didn't.

But it wasn't so much the money that made me a success as it was landing and retaining customers. Fortunately for me, there was a market for house cleaners in this city. This proved not to be true for the pet sitting business nor for customized candy wrappers business. Now that I'm out of the house cleaning business with no prospects for being hired by a company (which I wouldn't want anyway), I'm going to build up my portfolio of custom designed candy wrappers then get myself known in the smaller surrounding cities.

I've spent a life time getting myself known. This should be easy!

End of the Line and Dreams

With the excitement of selling coffee and the related items for a distributor out of Montana, I hit the streets with what few samples they could send to me. The first month was frustrating because of the difficulty to convince coffee shops in Lawrence to - at the very least - try the products I was selling.

I was surprised, to say the least. I was pretty certain the local coffee shops would embrace having a local distributor who was also selling a unique hot cup at the same price as the cups and sleeves they purchased. But no... They wanted nothing to do with me.

It occurred to me the outlaying areas might feel differently. They did. Business began to boom for me in Ottawa, Baldwin, Topeka. Just as I was getting my feet beneath me, my pitch honed to a fine art, the rug was pulled out and I was told the Montana distributor was in deep financial do-do; their future uncertain.

I consulted my husband and we agreed to continue selling and mailing checks to them would be futile. I had only received partial payment of my commissions and there was little hope I would receive the remainder. Also, to continue the relationships with my new clients might mean that I would have to begin telling them product is unavailable. That would not enhance my relationship nor credibility with them.

Now I am without a dream. In the past thirty years I have accomplished and realized my fantasies. I was successful at most everything I set out to do which is something I brag to my children who are now thirty or close to it.

I try to instill into them that whatever it is they want to do, they can with effort and time; patience and tenacity. Actually, I began the task of implanting that idea when they were much younger and it seems to have taken.

My daughter travelled the world with Arlo Guthrie and his family for years. She has seen Belgium, Ireland and England; the Pacific Northwest and the upper eastern side of the U.S.

My son has become the top sales person for a company and set a record in sales. He also is sought to crew on sail boats to navigate and strategize courses for races. Well, he has been sailing since he was four or five. His dad and I were competitive racers years ago.

I suppose I could dream for my children and fantasize their realization of their dreams and desires in the year to come. Some how that seems unnecessary as they appear quite capable of making their dreams come true.

I suppose I could begin to fantasize there is a new goal to work toward and accomplish. I suppose I could use my sales experience to market the customized candy wrappers or the homemade candles I create. Right now - though - I am content. I put my artistic skills to work creating customized candy wrappers for birthdays and assorted occasions, make candles and decorate them with acrylic paint or clip art; I have written lyrics and had a professional musician put music to them for my husband for Christmas; bead homemade Christmas tree decorations and think up new ways to satiate my creative side.

Dreams... I never thought that I would go from a bare footed farm girl to an art director, Operations Manager, composer of songs or an author. Never in my wildest of dreams but I did.

How lucky am I?

With Imagination and Dreaming

I swore I would never leave Florida after moving there in 1988. Not only was it warm and green there year around there were job opportunities - more than Kansas and I was able to make much more money. But after nearly twenty years the time came when my mother desperately needed me to help with her husband who had suffered a stroke and had become an invalid.

After weeks rolled by and I had settled in to my new routine and job I found my free time boring. I had done all I could in cleaning Mother's house, organizing and ridding her of junk. I needed to be productive beyond what I was doing so decided I would start a pet-sitting business and advertise house cleaning as an aside.

I advertised my services in the newspaper and purchased a magnet sign for the side of my car. After several weeks I got my first pet sitting job. Not long after, I answered a classified to clean a home for a retired professor. As the time passed, I was made aware people in this city were either not in need of a pet-sitter or simply weren't interested so I pursued the house cleaning business.

My step father was put into assisted living during my first year back home. He simply was too much for me, Mother and his son to care for or handle. This left even more time for me to fill. Further, I had moved into my own home leaving me in need of even more income.

After going door to door and dropping hundreds of fliers at residential homes touting my new business and responding to classifieds, I had found clients enough to keep me busy and bring in a decent income. Two years later another opportunity arose. I was hired as an independent 1099 to sell coffee and related items. I was thrilled to be able to drop my house cleaning clients. I'm in my fifties and have chronic back problems along with arthritis in my lower neck and third and forth back lumbar. If anyone reading this has this same problem then you know the pain and agony one experiences.

I bid all my clients adieu and dived nose first into the business of selling coffee, hot cups and other related items. After all, I had sold myself to people with homes...

Last of Early Dreams

I have written quite a bit through the years. From these postings I suppose one can tell that I'm quite the armature. My musings are dry, without much description or wit but I'm not bothered by it. Along with art and music this is yet another little something I enjoy.

While I was an art director for the automotive magazine, I wrote a short story for another magazine published (consisting of memories from readers and editors of the fifties and sixties) by the same company. I took my first unedited version of the story to the managing editor who later told me she laughed until tears rolled down her cheeks. She wanted to publish it in the magazine.

Sadly, the magazine was axed from the line up never to be published again. I was this close (imagine my forefinger and thumb illustrating distance) to being officially published. But with time and technology, blogs and the easy creation of websites, I have finally realized my dream of being published. Oh, not through a book or magazine publisher. No, no... It is here within this box I gaze now that I have realized my last dream. As well, I joined National Novel Writing Month that occurs from November 1 to midnight of November 30. The object is to write 50,000 words in that time period. Through this organization I have completed two novels in two years. Both first drafts - of course - certainly not completed but the words are out of my brain and saved on CDs for children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and so forth to read.

Through the years as I worked in companies for Presidents, CEOs, etc. I realized I wanted to start my own company; that I wished to work for myself and none other.

After leaving my last job in 2006 to come home and help my mother with her invalid husband, I was about to advance into my forth dream.

Dreams and Dreaming

Two of my brothers did something very nice for me years ago. The two of them built a computer for me, one I could use to record music onto CDs.

I can read music (Mama taught me when I was six to eight years old) and play several instruments. I don't play them well but I enjoy what I can do. I also enjoy listening to music but I had no Celtic music. One day, I decided I would buy myself an inexpensive four track recorder and record myself playing my electric piano, guitar and penny whistle. I found several piece of Celtic music on the Internet and set out to learn them all.

After hours and hours of practice, I set up my wee recording studio in the breakfast nook of my apartment and began the task of recording my first CD.

It took days. I made so many mistakes and had to re-record all four tracks several times. But I was pleased with the end result. My first CD sounded as though I had recorded an orchestra as my electric piano replicates many different instruments and backgrounds in several different beats.

I grinned when I put the finished product into my CD player and listened to that which I produced. As I sat in the middle of my living room floor listening to the music I had recorded, I realized that I had dream number two come to life. I had become a recording artist...

Over the course of the next couple of years, I wrote several compositions. All are very simple but - none the less - are pieces I composed. I even composed a wedding march for my brother. Taking the letters of his first name and the letters of his fiancee's first name, I transposed them into notes of the music scale. The first letter of my brother's name determined what key the music was to be in.

Again, it is not a complicated piece but my brother and sister-in-law love it and the fact the music is comprised of the letters in their names.

Dream number two evolved...

Dreams Come True

"Where are you going with this?" you ask. I will tell you... in good time.

Some years later after I had pestered the Production Manager once a month for two years, I finally landed a job at an automotive magazine publishing company. What a deal THAT was to get paid a fair wage to learn to use a computer to lay out magazine pages. This was back in the day when many publishers still did paste up on boards.

It wasn't very long after being hired as a production artist that they promoted me to Art Director of the magazine that started it all. I was in hog heaven. The bare-footed farm girl art directing an international magazine.

An addendum to dream number one had been granted. Another addendum was granted two years after the publishing company was bought out by an enormous one from California. I fell into another publishing company in 2000. I wasn't to art direct the wristwatch magazine but I did have quite a lot of input into its design. No, I was to help run the company and left that job with the title of Operations Manager.

During my free time, I began taking guitar lessons. Dream number two was about to come true.

Dreaming...

I was never satisfied with one or two dreams. No, I had to go further. I thought I would like to become an author; write marvelous works like Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott. My subject of choice - however - was Science Fiction. Again, I was not all that good. Christopher Paolini, the author of Eragon, at fifteen was somehow able to do that which I couldn't manage.

I suffered disappoint and frustration. But isn't it funny how life sometimes turns out for us? I'm about to get ahead of myself here...

After I left farm life, married and had two children, I struck out when I was twenty eight - with desire in one hand and tenacity in the other - to begin Junior College to major in Commercial Art. Two years later after completing only half of the needed credits, I quit. The stress of working a part time job, raising the two kids, doing homework into the late nights and excelling into the top ten percent of my class proved to be too much. I was going insane. I wasn't able to do it all.

Still, grasping my desire and tenacity tightly, I was able to land a job within the advertising department of JCPenny Outlet. The pay was less than what I made as a bookkeeper but it was (as I later found out) my first dream to come true. I had become an artist and continued to be one for the next ten years.

I worked for JCPenny Outlet for a few years until a call from an old boss to my then husband beckoned him to Florida. There I worked in an advertising agency for several months. That was the worst experience of my life. I won't go into details but from the moment I left that job, I vowed to never work in an ad agency again.

Little did I know what new door lay before me two or so years later.

Being Unemployed: Dreams Come True

When you were a child, did you dream of what you would like to be? Most of us did. Some of us wanted to be movie stars, some astronauts, some marine scientists... Me? I wanted to be a cartoon artist for Disney when I was eight or nine. I used to draw all the time. I was no good, never had formal training when I was in school.

Ah, the stuff I turned out. It was frustrating. I knew what I drew was bad but I had no control of the right side of my brain that buzzed with images that never seemed to be able to travel the highway through my arm and out my fingers into the medium I used onto the paper.

When I turned twelve, I wanted to become a famous musician like Joan Baez. I got my first guitar when I was in fourth grade; taught myself how to tune and play it with the help of a Beetles music book someone got for me. I also wanted to play my French Horn for a philharmonics. That desire hit me when I was in high school taking French Horn lessons and playing in my high school orchestra.

Those were the days; the days of dreams.