Since so many of us have four-legged quality assurance supervisors in our sewing studios, thought I’d share this post.

In the 25 years I’ve owned dogs, I’ve never ever needed to use emergency vet services…until a week ago!

It’s very much like taking your human family members to the emergency room. Something was suddenly terribly wrong with Boomer, but I didn’t know what. I was worried about my dog and how much it was going to cost.

ER vet services are not cheap. Plan on about $500/day for care plus any tests, treatments and surgery your dog may need. 

Boomer came home very weak after five days in hospital, but glad to be home.  He was diagnosed with thrombocytopenia, an auto-immune disease that caused his body to suddenly start attacking his platelets (those things that cause your blood to clot). He was bleeding internally. I’m very thankful our primary care vet told me what to look for and to head to the ER vet ASAP if I noticed certain symptoms over the weekend.

My boy looks like he’s been in a fight. However, he’s slowing perking up and here’s hoping his follow-up visit tomorrow has his platelet counts continuing to move in the right direction. I want him around and enjoying life for as long as he can!

Empower:  “to make (someone) stronger and more confident, especially in controlling their life and claiming their rights.”

As in empowering myself to step outside my comfort zone and step up to claim opportunities for myself in all areas of my life. 

Something as simple as asking for a different table for dinner on New Year’s Eve (we got a prime window seat!)

Pushing the claims adjuster to get the claim resolved fairly and quickly.

Returning an item that did not meet expectations.

Holding up the line an extra 60 seconds to get the 50% discount on the expensive item that the cashier missed (even though the customer behind me was complaining loudly).

Having that difficult, long overdue conversation with a coworker because I’m tired of her crap.

**Setting boundaries and learning to say “no” without feeling guilty.

**Putting myself out there to generate more teaching and tech editing opportunities for my biz (a/k/a marketing).

These (**) are the two biggies. My other two potential words of the year were “intentional” and “discipline.” I’m going to need both of those to help “empower” myself to accomplish these two items.

Don’t know about you, but I’m more than ready to put 2019 behind me!!  This year will go down as the first year everyone in the family met the deductible and out-of-pocket maximums under our health insurance policy.  Yes, we had some serious stuff going on.  Our new normal means we now must budget $6,000 annually to cover our portion of the costs associated with hubby’s follow-up care at MD Anderson in Houston.

There were a few bright spots this year – my FW retreat in Idaho, summer travel with my parents to Canada, ESOL endorsement requirements met and a shift at the day job back to full-time librarian.

2020 will be the year for my biz to BLOOM. 

Teaching
Starting in January, I’ll be teaching both adult and kid’s sewing classes at Stitch N Quilt. Kid’s Club projects have already been selected for January – June. Garment Sewing 101 and T-Shirt Quilt 101 classes will be on the books very soon.

Technical Editing
Tech-editing services will be marketed more aggressively. (No more being afraid to raise my hand and say that I provide this service to pattern designers.)

Supplies
Etsy Shop will be re-opened to sell surplus notions and fabric, plus a few seasonal items whenever my Maker urge strikes.

Bonus
Turkey placemat pattern (based on grandma’s vintage ones from the 1970’s) will finally get to market this year.

There are other ideas swirling around in my head…but this is a good start for a Tremendous Twenty-Twenty!