MinaMaries - The Idea Behind It

So this is how MinaMaries came to be...

I'd been dragging my online legs about for a couple of years, not happy in what I was doing. I had become a net zombie. I suppose it was a type of burn out of sorts.

I'd had this wee hope of finding 'success' (oh come on... how airy fairy/vague is that?) and managed to achieve a hobby type of chump change status.

That's been okay because I love the net and am curious about heeeaps.

My online life started out as a Digital Scrapbook designer. Back then it was a novel thing to 'work' with someone from another country and I was involved in US and Australian stores.

I decided to try my luck in online Europe to see if my design efforts were 'acceptable' to those very cultured people.

I became disillusioned as store owners expected more and more of designers...and came to the conclusion that I just didn't cut it for that kind of thing.

The 'Success' notion dwindled.

It all may sound very lovely, but it wasn't.

I hadn't found my thing...

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Fast forward and a health issue had me struggling to see or hold a pencil. But my mind still worked.

So there the writer me emerged. I still needed to do something, so I wrote (it was like pulling teeth at the beginning - spit-out-every-word-staccato-like) and ended up Editing and Chief Editing for some years.

Disillusionment visited again. Maybe its a personal cyclic thing - who knows? I was stuck in a mess of various content mills.

The 'Success' notion dwindled.

It all may sound very lovely, but it wasn't.

I hadn't found my thing...

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Fast forward and a lightning bolt, buzzy thing happened. Well, it didn't really. All along I was learning this and that, seeing changes in the online world, and trying to figure my place in it.

At some point all the little clues came together and told me to bugger off.

Basically I got sick of online people telling me what to do and how to do it and follow this rule and follow that one and... and...and...

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Soooo...this is a type of experiment....

I'm going to do what I want, thank you very much. I do that in my 'real life' and its a happy one, so why not here?

Note: It took me a long time to do what I want in my 'real' life.... that had to happen before I could apply the same notion to my 'online' life. (Slow learner?)

I put on my 'excited eyes' - invented by me, where you step back and look at things from other angles and then pick the one you like best. You start looking about with them eyes.

I'm the kinda home-loving gal that likes a bargain, whose Mother told her to do the best you can with what you've got and who sees achievement in the most tiny of things. I like it at home, in my own space with my own time.

So for a while I'm going to do things with as little as possible, utilising what I have, and doing the best I can do with them. (Frugal is such as arse-word).

Understand that everyone has their own idea of how much/little they can do with/without.

Not going to listen to anyone I don't want to. If that means coming a gutser - then so be it. Learning the hard way? Maybe I need to.

'Excited eyes' says the latter is a matter of being creative and resourceful. That it will be fun and zingy. Expeeeerieeeence.

So the experiment starts off with trying to make a little chump change with the least possible outlay.

I should clarify here... they say time is money... time IS what it is going to take because I'll have to learn lotsa stuff if I'm not going to pay for it.

TIME is what I DO have.

Probably I'll make mistakes... it may not work....but I'm going to have fun giving it a go.

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I asked Marie to come on board and she said....Ok then.

Marie's got her own ideas about things. Didn't ask.

MinaMaries is a place for us to do our own thing - independently but in the same 'house'

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Result: An invigorated zest. Own 'rules' attached eg pressure be damned, should do's not allowed, what is time? Fun. Freedom.

The 'Success' notion had now morphed into a new, different beast and had a different definition.

It all may sound very lovely, and it is.

I have found my thing...