Hello Quilty Friend,

Hope you’re having a beautiful Friday.

My day started slowly, which is rare as of late. I stayed in bed until the sunlight woke me and puttered around with a warm cup of coffee in my empty apartment. (Anyone ever read “Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea”? LOL childhood flashback) An empty home may not sound very nice, but the open space is clean, full of sunlight and refreshing to me. There was a time where I would have desperately tried to fill an empty room with any furniture I could find even if it wasn’t to my liking just for the sense of having more. With my perspective shift I’m enjoying the emptiness. It’s quiet, peaceful and will only be filled with things or people that I absolutely love, who will reciprocate that love back to me.

All part of starting over.

Which reminds me of the last post I shared. My heart was broken wide open in that post. I’ve read your comments, received your kindness and want to thank you. These life lessons often take us down a lonely road, to share such things with other women who can relate, confirms to me that there is more connecting us than simply hand made fabric projects. We can lift each other up. That’s what you’ve done for me and I will gladly offer you the same. Please continue to comment or email me if you seek a more private word of encouragement. Sending lots of love to you.

Not to get too deep in the weeds here but when I’m lonely and struggling through life’s lessons, an image often pops into my head of Joseph from the Bible when he was sitting in prison for many years (he wasn’t sitting, he was a doer but I digress). As a child I felt a connection to his story, it’s been a reference for me in my intimate thoughts and prayers. Everything he needed to succeed in life was in him from the beginning. Not because of his father’s favoritism, but because creation willed it within him. His gifts were fashioned in his being from the Creator Himself. Joseph’s supernatural gifts were a blessing that he didn’t know how to use. We can look at his story and think it was so wrong for him to be lied about, cast out by family, betrayed and mistreated for no reason… but there was a reason. His gifts had to be honed in, he needed to toughen up, be strengthened by wisdom and experience the cruel realities of this world to fully understand how to navigate it holding the purpose within that he was created for. The isolation was required. All who betrayed him were led to do so by a greater force, they were a well disguised blessing. Can anyone say NPCs? The man Joseph was before Egypt and imprisonment, was not capable of being the great leader the world needed. He must have been in constant cycles of learning and development in that prison… the fruit of those lessons spoke for themselves in his latter years.

Knowing this strengthens me. I hope it does the same for you.

Needless to say, I know God is within me. I feel guided and protected in every way. Now, where has this guidance taken me? To a place very far from what I called home.

Take the journey with me beginning at the exiting of my marriage. Filed for divorce near the end of 2024 and immediately was thrown into self-sufficiency. I had a hell of a time finding work. After all, who wants to hire a stay at home mom of 12 years?!?! With the way education and technology have advanced, I wasn’t even qualified for the types of positions I held prior to leaving the work force back in 2012. I felt foolish for giving up a career in the higher education sector to be a stay at home mom. Which is something I hate to admit.

My dream was always to be home with my children. Mostly birthed out of a traumatic childhood, I was determined to give my children a stable and safe home life I didn’t have growing up. Well, my marriage splintered into a thousand pieces. Being a sahm ended up biting me in the ass. I was so frustrated! It felt as though I was being punished for good deeds. Over the course of a year and a half I struggled to find work. When I did land an entry level position something would go awry. The competition in office relations is something I was not accustomed to. You see it’s not an issue I dealt with when in my little-homeschooling-Mary-Poppins-handmade-everything-Christian-bubble I had created. My three daughters were not stabbing each other in the back for a pay raise or the supervisor’s recognition. I was shamefully unprepared. After losing work a couple times due to lying co-workers, I realized I needed to get smart and up with the times. It was going to take a whole lot more grit to navigate being the single-sole-provider of my home.

It felt as though there were limited options in my sightline. Which is really strange to say now looking at the vast world and opportunities we have at our fingertips, but that’s truly how I felt at the time. I needed help and the people in my life were not interested in offering any.

As fate would have it, I met a man at a country bar in my hometown of San Diego. Being broke doesn’t mean you have to miss out on fun 😉

He was handsome, older and successful. I was immediately smitten and very intrigued. We talked for many months. He was from a world I did not understand in the least. Born in New York, very career driven, successful in IT, was a Private Pilot, traveled the world, a committed father and was a handsome bachelor to boot. Ahhh, how that Long Island accent slayed me. The interest grew into friendship. At times it even felt like mentorship which I now appreciate but in the moment I was confused by it all. I didn’t understand why I felt so drawn to someone that wasn’t going to be in my life romantically. Not everyone we meet in life is meant to stay, but I can say meeting him was life altering for me. The timely connection broadened my horizons, causing me to explore the East Coast, more specifically New Jersey which I fell in love with and venturing into a career path in Aviation. I thought, “he makes flying look so easy.” Hahaha… little did I know!

One a whim I looked at job postings with the airlines for a position in Customer Service. The timing could not have been better. I needed work and all the airlines were accepting applications for Flight Attendants as it was the end of the year, around the holidays. As I submitted my resume, I felt it “in me bones” that this was the path opening for me. From what I hear the process of getting into the aviation industry can take many attempts but my entry happened quickly. Actually, I wasn’t ready for it at all! Within a month I had an offer letter with an option for training dates as well as locations… First training class on the list, would you believe was New Jersey/Pennsylvania. Well I’ll be damned 🙂

This was supposed to be a quick post about some new offerings I’ll be listing in the shop but has somehow turned into a novel. I’m going to make this into a two parter because I have a report time at the airport in two hours and ya’ll know the traffic gets heavy crossing the bridge into Philly.

Stay tuned for part two… and if you have questions ask away! I can add the answers into the next post.

love, Jasmine

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