Moving back and forth

Sometimes you think the only way forward is forward. I have learned that sometimes the way forward is backward. 

So here we are again, looking at the website and updating it. And funnily enough the update that I want is to bring back some of what I loved for so many years. I want the website to be a place to go to find out easily what is happening at the studio. I want you to see what's new, what's important. So if you visit it today you will see some of that. 

I just find it interesting that what I decided I wanted was something I used to have. And that makes me think that sometimes going forward means going back a bit. Sometimes we make changes and we like them for a while. I have done that with glasses, hair styles, moving my furniture or paintings around. There were a few years I wore dresses all the time, followed by a few years where I wore jeans all the time. What we want changes sometimes.

I know change is constant. I also know that sometimes you can change your mind back to the way you used to have it, or you used to be. Not every decision I make has to be for a lifetime. When we first moved into our house I used to paint the kitchen about once a year. When I would ask my husband what he thought of the colour, he would say, "I like it about as much as you will like it in six months." As you can imagine that irked me and made me think he's lucky I am only changing the colour of the kitchen. I do have to say though the time I painted the kitchen red was a sad time in the life of our house. I hated it after a month. The kitchen is now white, the same colour as when we moved in. It has been green, gold, tan, the unruly red, and various other shades, some of them a crime.

And now I love the white. 

Working on the website this week made me think about how years ago I had an old daybed in my living room because I did not have money for a couch. After years of straightening blankets and pillows for years I saved enough for a couch and I bought it. A big brown couch to replace the daybed where I had laid when I brought my son home from the hospital. A big heavy sort of of ugly old couch that made the room look like someone's else's. Though I never went back to the daybed it ten years to get that room cozy again. Sometimes new is not always better.

Yet I like to try new things and I won't stop. It is the fun of a life. It is how we grow. I also won't feel bad for going back to the old ways sometimes when the changes I made no longer suit me. Five years ago I had blondish highlights for two days. Three people told me how good they looked. People liked it. I looked in the mirror searching for a brown-haired woman and saw someone else. My hair looked like it was on the wrong head. I called Heather the hairdresser and she dyed my hair back to brown two days after she put in the streaks. I am a brown-haired girl, I thought. Then I reminded myself, "Deanne, you are a woman." Some things we cannot change.

So when you go to the website and scroll down I think you will see that it is clearer and easier to understand than it has been. We still have that pretty slide show but it is lower down on the page. We have just put up lovely blocks that link to all the wonderful things happening in the studio. We have so much going on here, we really do, and this is the best way I know how to share it with you. Very similar to the way I used to share it with you before. And I'm excited to move things back to the way they were. Cause sometimes how things used to be are really pretty good.

So this does not mean I am not moving forward. It just means I am open to looking at the past and at the future for good ideas. I don't want to be stuck in either because the day you are in is the day you have, and that day is a good day.