Too Many Choices

When my kids were little, they attended a Montessori school. Even though they did not finish out their educations there, I think we all took away a lot of valuable lessons from the years they were there. One of these is the word "lesson", but I digress.

One of the lessons learned by the parents is the concept of choice. Even a very young child is capable of making choices and then dealing with the consequences of those choices. The key is not to overwhelm them with options. You should not ask them something as open-ended as "what would you like for lunch", but you could ask them if they would like Grilled Cheese or PB&J. This involves the child in the decision-making process and you get buy-in at the same time.

This concept was extended to the area of toys. At home, a child generally has toys available with which to play. If you have ever walked into someone's house and the floor was strewn with toys, and the child was complaining he/she had nothing to do, that is a perfect example of a child with too many choices. It was suggested that we did not need to reign in our purchases, but that we only make available a fixed number of toys (read: options) at any one time. If you have 6 toys on a shelf, then the child has 6 toys from which to choose. You can certainly swap out one toy for another every once in a while to keep the inventory moving, but there should not be more than that fixed number of options at any one time. It is all about limits.

So why am I blathering on about Monetssori? Because I think, as stampers, we are often overwhelmed with our choices, and then we get nothing accomplished and we feel frustrated and maybe even feel we need to go buy something new, when that is not the case - AT ALL.

Check out my current situation.


This is a card that looks better in person, but it is a piece of Very Vanilla wheeled with the Forever Flowers wheel and Versamark. It makes it look like patterned paper, and was the subtle look I wanted. I think. (If you click on the photo you can kinda see it ...) I added the sentiment from Together Forever in Sahara Sand, and tied a piece of swirly ribbon from my stash. I liked it, but then I thought it was too plain, so I set it aside where it still sits on my work table.


The cat? She does not worry about too much at all. Ever.

Also out on my worktable are these papers from the Ginger Blossom set that are just crying to be used together, but I have not gotten to them yet.

Oh, and those envelopes at the top of the photo? Those are the prizes for the last Spot The Mistake Contest, almost ready to mail.

This was an idea I had that is just not working out, but all the materials used are still within reach on my table. Still nigglin' about this one. It may need a plain-front card instead of the raised-edge variety. And yes, I hoarded these when they retired...I have a whole drawer full of them.

If I can get some variation of this idea to work for me, I'll have justified the purchase of the Lovely Letters Alphabet and the Together Forever sets, plus use up those packs of card stock in my drawer. A girl can dream.


And then there is this pile of mock-ups on the corner of the coffee table. They landed there during my last Clean Sweep prior to my March workshops, and there they still sit. I see them every day, and I tell myself I simply MUST make more of them for selling, but I have not gotten there yet.

Aaaand, this is a piece of paper from my stash that just screams "Very Vanilla card stock with some purple ribbon", but it is just sitting there, waiting in the wings.

On top of all this, a friend of mine emailed me asking if I could bring some Birthday cards and some generic Any Occasion cards to our next get-together in April. Uh, yeah, sure, once I MAKE SOME! Don't get me wrong - I love it when my friends like my cards, but I am just a bit behind this year in the inventory-building exercise.

So you see, this Montessori concept of Too Many Choices now bleeds into our adult lives. I think we (or at least *I*) need to get a grip and get some focus. I just have SO MUCH STUFF that I want to use, that I just cannot seem to focus on any one thing long enough to finish it before I feel the pull to move on to something else. I think my lazy Winter months make me like this, I really do. I am much more organized during the Summer months, as I have to keep the inventory moving and interesting each and every weekend.

Oh, well, enough whining for one sitting. I am home today to take care of a ton of financial things - taxes, IRA funding, investment adjustments, auto and home insurance calls to make ... all the things you cannot do easily from Cubeville. This was just a break in the action, so I am off to make some more phone calls. Perhaps later today I will pull myself up by my bootstraps (if I were actually wearing boots, or ever shoes) and get some FOCUS. I'll let you know how that goes.