Melody's Sofa

A Preview of My New Products!!!

Hello All!
I'm so sorry I can't stay long...I'm in Las Vegas at the PMA/Memory Trends show...but just got word that the PDF of our beautiful catalog is up. I am so excited about this because for the first time in years, I got to design all of the products, packaging, etc....and it was the time of my life...

please check it out and let me know what you think!!! I would love to know!
http://chatterboxinc.typepad.com/ChatterboxCatalogWinter2008.pdf

And look for the secret messages hidden everywhere in the catalog.
I will get on again tonight and tell you more!

Lots of Love
Melody

What is a life coach, anyway?

A coach is somebody who gets you to do stuff that you really don't want to do very badly...but that you really need to do to get to your ultimate goal.....just like a sport's coach who makes you run lines and practice the same stuff over and over again....

Anyway....so a life coach is someone who encourages you....coaches you....to do stuff that you are having a hard time doing on your own....that you really don't WANT to do, but that you NEED to do to get to where you want to go...

So...I'm gonna share with you my experiences with my life coach....I am doing a 3-month life-makeover as part of my job as a magazine editor....I'll have lots more to share, but first, the really great thing she taught me is found below....

I am GOING CRAZY that I can't show you what's in our new catalog that is just getting done today!
BUT SOON SOON SOON you will see what our incredible team pulled off......you are just going to die!

OK...WHISTLE IS BLOWING!
Gotta go plan my day.
Lots of Love,
Melody

Closing for Restoration

CLOSED FOR RESTORATION

Have you ever gone to Disneyland to ride your favorite
ride, only to arrive and find a wall built around it
with the words “Closed for Restoration” or Repair, or
Renovation. It sort of makes you mad….but then you
gotta look at it from the ride’s perspective. What if
YOU were the Disneyland ride? In so many ways we are…

But we are much much more like a beautiful house, with
many rooms….one that is unique and stunning, one that
is 100% WHO we are, one that sometimes in life may
look like it has been completely abandoned and should
be condemned….but that has everything inside of it
that is precious and beautiful….and does not need to
be remodeled or modernized….just restored. RESTORED
back to it’s original beauty…the beauty that it was
created to be.

I want to share with you one of the most incredible
realizations that I have ever had in my life, one of
the greatest gifts I have ever been given.

This is going to be long, but I really really hope
you’ll read it. I hope you’ll keep reading it when
feelings rise up in you that maybe you don’t want to
deal with and maybe even cause some tears and some
anger, the way they did for me…most of all, I just
hope you’ll take some time to at least THINK about
what I am going to say.

So as part of my job as Editor of a local magazine, I
have been taking in part of the first month of a
3-month life makeover series. One of my ‘jobs’ is to
meet with a life coach once a week. We have been
meeting for just over a month and I’m going to tell
you lots about what I’ve learned…but all that I’ll
share today is what she told me in our first meeting
together, and how it has completely changed my life.

She told me that I actually get to CHOOSE who and what
really comes into my life.

Ok. Maybe you already knew that. Maybe you’ve already
heard that. Maybe you already believe that, maybe you
don’t. Maybe you like the sounds of that, but you have
no idea how to ever ever ever get to a place in your
life where that looks like any kind of a reality.

That was me.

She sensed early-on that I am an artistic, visual
person, and also that my mind whirls and swirls at
such a crazy chaotic fast pace that she would have to
paint a picture for me that I would really
internalize…

Imagine yourself as a house.
Imagine your heart and your soul inside of that house,
the deepest parts of you…your most sacred thoughts and
feelings. The spirit that is REALLY YOU.

You get to decide who comes in that house and who
doesn’t. This is not a hotel or a mall, this is YOUR
HOUSE. You get to decide who gets to come in. You get
to decide what thoughts get to stay and which ones
don’t. You get to decide what feelings get to stay for
a nice long visit and which ones you need to ask to
leave. You get to decide who is invited to your house
and who is asked to leave. You even get to decide what
rooms they get to stay in….

You get to decide who makes it past the front gate,
who gets greeted at the door for a nice visit on the
porch, and you get to decide who makes it as far as
your entry foyer….where you will have a long long wait
before anyone gets to make it past those walls and
into the place where your personal magic and wonder is
taking place. You get to decide what rules and
expectations and theories and lists get to come in.
It’s your house.

It was like a light switch went on when she told me
that….and I told her mine has always operated like an
open house….and it was noisy and loud and lots of the
visitors just trashed the place when they would
come…some even mooched so long that they took
over…they took my bed and ate my food and destroyed my
things…..and then left when the pantry was bare…or
lingered in the form of guilt and regrets and made my
once beautiful rooms into prisons.

…and she said. Like it or not, you let them in.

That’s when I STARTED TO GET MAD.

She told me it was time to shoo every single thing
out. Every regret, every person, every expectation,
every list, every feeling. Just shoo it out. Only a
VERY SELECT number will be invited to stay…..

AM I CLOSING FOR RESTORATION?
She laughs and says YES!

….and in the event of a restoration, nothing is
allowed but things and people who will build.

Then what? Then you rest and mend and think and
decide….decide what gets to come back, what
doesn’t….what you want to make space for….what you
want to prepare a special room for….

….this doesn’t mean shutting your life down….in fact,
you can do this without anyone even knowing that it’s
going on. These are just choices….deep thoughts and
choices.

My experience was pretty painful. When I turned on the
lights, I found that things were in such a mess…..my
curtains were ripped and my marble was chipped and
some of the visitors were so horrid that they had
written on my walls and shredded my clothes and I even
found that I was sleeping on the floor next to some
smelly dog that an uninvited visitor had brought in.
My kids and husband were on the floor too, by the way.
Other things and people had taken over my comfortable
bed…and destroyed the beautiful bedding that was made
just for me. What was sleeping in my bed was never
invited, but was never asked to leave, either.

This made me so angry…..and I just wanted to shut off
the lights. I wanted to back to that place where I
didn’t pay attention to this stuff…I just shut off the
lights and went somewhere else, always longing for
home.

But I bucked up and did it….I shooed them all out to
find the quiet destruction that remained.

…and I started to REALLY decide who gets to come back.
……..and who I will meet on the outside…..and who I
will simply meet at the coffee shop down the street….I
got to decide how quiet I want things…..and what
thoughts and feelings and lists will be allowed to sit
in my family room, and in my kitchen, and in the room
where I do my thinking and writing…..

…and I realized that people and things and thoughts
and lists and expectations and even people that you would NEVER invite into your life sometimes just break in…they
break windows and sneak in through cracks and they are
LOUD! They scream so loud that you can’t hear anything
else. They smear stuff on the walls and they throw
chairs and they make you sleep on the floor…and you
let them!!

What is up with that?
That makes me SO MAD!

But, what is cool is that as fast as those things came
in, I can shoo them out…and rebuild…

...so I spent some time just thinking...and just made a choice inside of my mind, and did it...I knew if I didn't like it, I could just think it back to the cluttery minded way it was before......but I just sat and thought about really cleaning all of that stuff out....the people I was worried about, the things I was worried about, the expectations, the lists, the sadnesses, the regrets, even the big huge plans for the future...I just shoo'ed it all out.........just to see.....

….and the house was empty and beautiful and quiet.
….so I sat like that for a few days, in the
quiet…..making sure I made a special room for just God and I...and returning there often….and coming back out to sit in the quietness of
me.

…..and I invited one and then two and then seven and
then 10 things back in, slowly, and carefully and with a lot of thought and care....just a few at a time, giving each person or thing a very special place, making them comfortable....being a good host...just a few at a time….but that’s it….for now…

And you think…what about the things that I asked to
shoo out…that I am asking you to shoo out? Well, don’t
worry about them! It might be the best thing you could
ever do for them…they need to be tending to their own
house, after all…

How do you decide who and what stays?

Here’s the list I came up with…maybe it’s wrong and
maybe it’s right…but here’s where I am at….these are
the people and words and acts that bring the most
comfort…the things that your highest self turns to
when you need to know what to do, when you need
support with the decisions you made. When you need to
just cry, when you need to bounce something off of
someone, when you need to vent. When you need 100%
trust both ways. When you need to rest, but you don’t
want to do it alone. When you need a reflection of
your best and highest self. When you need to know for
sure that there’s someone on the planet who would die
for you, and you’d do the same for them. When you need
unconditional love, when you need to give
unconditional love. When you need to be in a family.
Maybe it’s the people that you would call to your side
to hold your hand in your last moments of life.

That’s who gets to stay in the room where your heart
lives.

And then it’s quiet.
And you can hear.
You can really really hear.
And you can heal.
And you can rest.
And you can feel.
And you can know, really really know.

I hope you’ll do it. It’s hard and it hurts in lots of
ways, but it is so so cool. Your soul and your heart
are sacred places. Your mind is sacred space. You can
have as many people and things and dreams going on in
your life as you really want to have…but put
boundaries on how close those things get to the core
of you. YOU ALWAYS GET TO DECIDE WHAT GETS TO
STAY….and what even makes it past the front door…don’t
forget that. THIS IS YOUR HOUSE!

Anyway, I just thought I would share this….it’s been a
cool realization that is so simple….but that I am just
getting…and I wish we could all just do it so that
when we pass the threshold of our own front door, and
step out into the world every day, that we could meet
everyone else on the sidewalk with our very best, and
highest self, then wish each other well at the end of
the day when we retreat back into our sacred spaces…..

…the world would be a different place…full of
beautifully manicured ‘homes’ and peaceful people….

Good luck.
If nothing else…pick 10 things or people that would
get to stay…..and really think about whether or not
your life revolves around those things, because it
really should. Too often our lives revolve around the
very things that are breaking our beautiful
leaded-glass windows and punching holes in our walls…. a href="http://melodyross.typepad.com/.shared/image.html?/photos/uncategorized/2008/01/21/restoration20bed.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href, '_blank', 'width=573,height=382,scrollbars=no,resizable=no,toolbar=no,directories=no,location=no,menubar=no,status=no,left=0,top=0'); return false">
If nothing else, at least take your bed back!

Cool stuff...I will share more later....love my new life coach, she is awesome!
Lots of Love to You!

Melody

and....uh....

Where have I been? Well, 200 new products for CHA have been screaming my name and asking to be designed (and I was happy to oblige)......and, I took a part time job as a magazine editor.....my first issue will be out in 2 weeks....but, with that and CHA and 2 teenagers and 3 more wild and crazy kids.....and moving our office and moving our shop and Christmas and New Years and a fabulously fun tax audit and a million other loose ends to tie up to start this new chapter of our life....it's been just really really in sane!

BUT CHA IS IN 3 WEEKS AND......things are really coming together.....and calming down....and I have taken on a Life MakeOver Challenge....and one of the things I have to do is blog about it....so, you'll be getting sick of me soon!

LOTS OF LOVE TO YOU ALL....thanks for the emails, notes & phonecalls......I'll be back on the radar super soon..........seriously, you will be getting sick of me I"ll be here so much!

A big smooch to you all,
Melody

One Friend...

Almost exactly, to the day....18 years ago.....I was at church, sitting with my family, when through the corner of my eye I saw the boy of my dreams.....I was, in fact, 18 years old....which means that I have been WITH the man of my dreams for as many years as I have been without him....though it seems that there could not possibly be a time that we were not together.

Man oh man, I would not have guessed the twists and turns that our life would take...a lifetime of them in these 18 years....some people take the slow boat, we took the wild & fast river of world class rapids, with surprises around every corner....some of them terrifying, some of them incredibly exciting....all of them taken together though sometimes we've wanted to push each other out of the boat....but that's what you get when a free-spirited 18 year old marries a type-A golden boy of 22 years....we've had to grow up together...we've had to let each other grow up independently sometimes.....and all in all....we've just had to grow.

I have a new passion in life, I've noticed....and it's talking people through difficult marriages....ours did not pass through difficulty because of normal reasons....and the worst parts were due to things out of our control, a brain injury, yucky business situations, lots and lots of kids....but still, a difficult marriage is a difficult marriage....and, it's worth fighting for.....so, if you're one of those hundreds of people out there who I seem to keep crossing paths with, just know that when your heart says it's worth fighting for, it really really is.....and............you made a promise to each other.....and you both need each other to keep it, ever day.

I woke up in the middle of the night to the most horrific windstorm I think I've ever heard and felt...it was like the whole house was shaking, it seemed to even come through the windows because I could feel the chill....I turned to Marq and scooted closer to him under the covers....in his sleep, instinctively, he pulled me close and held me tight..........and I thought about ALL of the windstorms we've been through and how we've always made it is to just hold each other tight.

So....here's to you my love.....our song......after this year, I'll be with you for MORE years than I've been without you......I love you so much and I'm so happy to have traveled this wild river with you....

ONE FRIEND
By Dan Seals

I always thought you were the best
I guess I always will.
I always thought that we were blessed
And I feel that way still.
Sometimes we took the hard road
But we always saw it through.

If I had only one friend left
I'd want it to be you.

Sometimes the world was on our side
Sometimes it wasn't fair.
Sometimes it gave a helping hand
Sometimes we didn't care.

'Cause when we were together
It made the dream come true.

If I had only one friend left
I'd want it to be you.

Someone who understands me
And knows me inside out.
Helps keep me together
And believes without a doubt,
That I could move a mountain
Someone to tell it to.

If I had only one friend left
I'd want it to be you.

Someone who understands me
And knows me inside out.
And helps keep me together
And believes without a doubt,
That I could move a mountain
Someone to tell it to.

If I had only one friend left
I'd want it to be you.