As many of you know, I’ve been ‘pulling back’ from our home
business for some time. While I still
take care of the paperwork, ordering, etc., for the most part, it’s been dear
hubby Bill running the business, taking care of customers, orders and the most
time-consuming part – the printing and binding of books, CDs, and DVDs.
It’s been a long, slow process, but I have finally realised
that much of my inability to run the business of late is that I’m simply
‘homeschooled out’. Not so much in
actually homeschooling my own children, but in the way of researching new
curriculum, getting excited every time a box of new goodies arrives in the
mail, and the ‘thrill’ of updating that pesky website has long since passed.
After fifteen years of homeschooling, we’re quite well
settled in what we use. That’s not to
say we don’t try out new things, or change resources from time to time. Actually, we probably do that too often –
one of the side effects of running Adnil Press – always a new curriculum to browse
through and try out. But it’s like
homeschooling became all-consuming.
Everything in my life was about homeschooling. Every time a new ‘how to’ book was written, I’d order it in, and
devour it, picking up hints and tips, and putting my new knowledge into
practice. It was wonderful to have so
many of these books, and to have so many choices when it came to choosing our course of
study.
But now, I’m feeling like moving on. Not from homeschooling itself, but from
spending so many hours looking at books, going shopping for texts, etc. After spending a year or so feeling very
burnt-out, things are coming back into focus.
While homeschooling remains at a very central place in our lives, and of
course, learning happens all the time, there are other things to life. So, after all that, I’ve realised I now need
to move onto other things.
Some time ago, I took up Scrapbooking. And how I hated it! Seriously – I thought it was a complete
waste of time. After all, all my photos
are printed, are in albums, and are all on the shelf in date order. While other jobs around the place may be
neglected, this is one thing I have always kept up with. But then came the workshop. I really didn’t want to go, but a good
friend invited me to attend a demonstration.
I knew I’d catch the bug, even before I went – and I did. But I still hated it. Faced with a blank piece of paper, some
photos, and various embellishments, I found I had no idea how to put them
together to make a decent-looking page, and it was so frustrating!
Fortunately, the Internet was a wonderful source of ideas,
and after picking up a few tools and books off of ebay, I felt more able to
produce something that looked respectable.
I still found it exhausting, but somehow, it was relaxing as well, and
it soon became my ‘therapy’. This was
proving to be an enjoyable, and rewarding, past-time. Yes, the photos could have been left in normal albums, but when
you finish that first scrapbook and flip through the pages, you realise just
how precious these albums can be, for they take a selection of photos and truly
showcase them in a spectacular way. Card-making naturally followed, and before long, I found that I was also enjoying making birthday, Christmas, and Easter cards for family and friends. I
had genuinely found I hobby that I could enjoy.
Fast-forward a year.
Homeschool camp – and low and behold, one lady who came along was a
Kaszazz consultant, specialising in Scrapbooking and Card-Making
workshops. When she offered to run some
workshops at our camp, I jumped at the chance, and attended two workshops
during our time together. Yep - I’m doomed now – completely hooked! So much so, that after the camp, I decided
that I, too, would become a Kaszazz Consultant. 
And so I signed the papers, and my kit later arrived in the
mail. At this stage, it’s mainly to buy
my own products, but I have an underlying feeling that it won’t be long before
I attempt to run my own workshops. When
deciding which start-up kit to purchase, my girls were stating that they could
definitely see me leading people through the process of creating scrapbook
pages. I didn’t particularly plan on
starting up a new business, and I’m not sure where it will lead, but in the
end, I decided to just ‘go with it’, and we shall see.
So there you have it – we still have Adnil Press to run of
course, at least in the immediate future – but now, the ‘Adnil Lady’ (as some
affectionately call me) is now the ‘Kaszazz Lady’. We’ll see what happens!
