The Early Days otherwise know as "Basket Weaving 101"

I left a corporate job after 13 years. I was worn out physically,spiritually, and mentally. I was long overdue for down time.  My stress level was off the charts, so much so I started getting migraines. Debilitating migraines. Migraines at my age apparently are not normal.  For months on end, I'd wake up throwing up,blinded by the pain. Multiple ER & urgent care visits. The migraines were starting to periodically be managed by various different means, however not gone.  I started to come up for air. At times feeling normal.  One "normal" day, I woke up with a head(no pun intended) full of ideas to make headbands. Velvet, cloth, felt, big flowers, bling, sparkles,jewels.  However, I am not crafty, but I had to make the headbands that are twirling around in my brain.  So I set the plan in motion. Craft store, fabric store, cutting out patterns, glue, lots of glue. I was a women possessed or obsessed. Tomato, tomato.  Temporary excitement came over me. For a brief period of time, my hands had become the wands that sprinkled fairy dust over my head & mental state, so the world and all of it's issues disappeared.
I set up my office, my living room. With all of the new "manufacturing goods" spread out on my work bench aka card table, I rolled up my sleeves, pulled in my artisan seat otherwise known as folding chair, and created. Create I did. These headbands gave me a reprieve from the noise between my ears.  A bit manic in the creation. It felt like "basket weaving 101" While I was focused on creating, I was not focused on me. In Corporate life I was creative in the solutions I designed, however it never  allowed me to tap into certain aspects of the creative. Never fully flowed or developed. Stifled in thoughts and words. I felt alive for the first time in years.I was going to make this happen. I had to make this happen.

Back at the office aka living room I sat, cutting, fitting, creating, and gluing. Ah, glue!!! Glue in the dictionary says: To stick things together.  But what the dictionary doesn't tell you is that there are 40 million types of glue, most of which I purchased. Fabric glue, crazy glue, glue sticks, glue for metal,glue to stick metal to fabric, gorilla glue, and the list goes on ad infintinum. To date I still haven't found a "all in one glue" Within 48 hours I had spent a few hundred dollars & six headbands were born. Friends loved them, people on the street asked me where I got them.  The next indicated step was to come up with a company name and LaLa was born. Now let's see if they will sell.

It was days before Christmas and a friend offered to put them in her store. Timing is really everything. Not a one sold. The holiday ship had sailed. Most people were not going to buy a last minute headband as a gift. I still have those head bands, they are still adorable, and more will be created. The reality was that those headbands gave me hope. Hope that there was a direction for me to go in other than the one I had been living for years, but I needed more time to heal.  I got so much more out of that experience than could have ever begin to fully articulate. All good things come to those that wait. And wait I did. 

How it all began.

It all started with the name.  I used to be a brunette. Serious, thoughtful, logical, but something was missing.  First there were the blonde tips, which turned into strips, which quickly morphed into a head full of blonde hair.  Something happened that day, both magical & frightening all at once.  The magic began when my face softened, but tragedy also occurred. My brain softened along with it.  My responses & my response time to questions changed, turned, & twisted as the answers came out of my mouth.  When asked a question, my voice would change. It went up an octave. Then my head would tilt. Sometimes to the right, sometimes left.  However, the birth of LaLa did not start with the higher octave or the tilt of the head.  La La’s birth came with the constant response of  “Whatttttt”? to almost every question. 

One day on a bus ride from Monterey to Los Angeles(more about that later) with a friend & her daughter. My friend’s daughter asked me a question. I didn’t hear her the first time as I was starring out into space thinking about something else. Probably fixated on another shinny object. So she asked her question again.  Still engrossed in my own thoughts & the shinny object, I looked at her,  tilted my head and  said in a much higher octave than my normal voice, “Whattttttt”?   She looked at me, forgetting that she had ever asked me a question and said mockingly while tilting her head from side to side, “LaLa”.  I briefly looked at her, then at her mother and we all starting laughing so hard that tears rolled down everyone’s face.  We all knew in that moment that this 14 year old teenager was spot on in her analogy of me. Hence the birth of LaLa.