The Tax Man Cometh and Revealeth and I Attempteth to Decideth

We had been waiting for tax time to tally up all of the nickels and dimes and pennies I worked so hard for to help make ends meet as we dealt with having a house on the market for 8 months and paying off the debts incurred just to get that same house ready to sell and then take it off the market.

Just let me say now that I am not complaining, Starlings is worth every brass farthing and needle pricked fingertip.  I am so happy that all of the work I did was merely an amendment to all of the providing that Moose does for our family.  I am so grateful that the Lord has been so bountiful in the blessings he has poured out upon us.

So, anyhow....We were adding up all the pennies and the result was extremely depressing.  The sum total of all my hard work, tears, sleepless nights and bloody fingers was...well really not a lot.  I can not bring myself to type it out.

 Let's just review the many hats of Samurai Mom this year.

Home Stager, Organizer and Cleaner, 10 months in duration 24/6  Profit? Many negative dollars.
Job Hunter,3 months Profit?  Child neglect and loss of self worth less several
tanks of gas.
Contract Seamstress, 2 months for $125 and the privilege of being fired.  I was not hurt but offended (I thank my friends for being as indignant about the situation as I was.)
Blogger for about 11 cents a day.

Needlework Instructor for 2 months - actually profitable but very difficult to maintain a steady stream of income, also, a really fun job.

 Demi-Milliner;  9 months, I actually made a very, very small profit.  I probably earned 40 cents a day.  


And finally, Nanny.  This is where it is at kids.  Snuggling and hugging a baby all day long (well part of the day,) knowing she is getting loving care and being able to pay off bills.

And so after that pitiful display of the actual $$ worth of an energetic, hard working, talented, college educated, fairly young, trained seamstress and designer where does that leave me?

Well, obviously I am going to keep on with the babysitting gig but will I hang up my demi-hats and hat making supplies?

I just don't know.  I had a lot of fun demi-millinering but it was also purpose driven and a lot of work with very little payoff.

I really enjoy dreaming up hair confections but maybe I should just dream them up for myself and Nutmeg and our friends.

I sit here wrestling with the decision because tomorrow I have a tutorial coming out on Sew Mama, Sew!  Hopefully this will get lots of really crafty people who can make hair ornaments for themselves to my site and maybe 1 or 2 who won't want to bother and pay me to make one for them.  Probably not, but being on Sew Mama, Sew! is really cool so it is almost like being famous and we all know how I love the spotlight.

So what do you think?  As it stands I have a bit of fall inventory, very few supplies, a website, a Facebook page, some fun pictures, 2 wigs, 2 styrofoam heads, some darling business cards and $5.

Part of me says to scrap it and just focus doing all the fun things at Starlings that I haven't had time to do because I have been working so hard.  But the other part of me says not to give up, keep plugging away and one day I will be the next Coco Chanel (she started as a milliner in case you didn't know.)

Don't forget to check out the tutorial tomorrow.  Here is a sneak peak.