Just in case....

Just in case I don't get on here for the next couple of day's. I want to wish all my friends a Happy, Joyous New Year. I love the thought of the new year, a fresh start , a new outlook, new determination. I wish you happiness, joy, love and success in every part of your life in the coming year my friends.

On a vacation?

As of today I have not had a day of work at the Cafe in a week and a half. Not my choice. One of the things we are noted for besides being a tourist town because of the summer horse racing, we are home to Skidmore College. Well 95% of the Cafe's business is Skidmore students and they have all gone home for Christmas break. So no students in town= no business and no work for Debbie. Well I am scheduled to start back next Sunday, and in the mean time I am trying to accomplish some things. Now that Christmas is done I am going to do some house cleaning. I have my son probably moving back in and my daughter possibly moving out so lots of rearranging to do. Also going to try to stay focused on my shops. Working on my daily sale, staying active on the computer. I have been working on some new items , just finished this one above.
I am also working on an idea. My felt and sequin ornaments which I make for my Etsy shop. My granddaughter gets a portion of the profit on each one to donate to Esterville Animal shelter.
I must say this year I sold only a few so , so far we haven't come up with enough to send the shelter, we want to at least send $10.00 at a time. I am considering a way to offer a sample sale here on my blog but need to work on the details a bit. I will let you know more on this at another time. My house is quite, I am the only one home except for the whining dogs!
When my daughter leaves the house , her dog Bailey wails, I mean he Wails, until she comes home. If I go spend some time with him to calm him down, my dog Alex cries and yips because I have left him. With Bailey and Alex whining the big lady, Morgan gets upset and starts to bark at everyone else. So there is no such thing as silence in my house even when I am the only human here:) Have a good night every body.

Sale Update

Just a quick note, last week I told you my newest idea. To have a sale in my shop of one item and to change the item every 24 hours. I have been doing it for the last several day's . One item that is priced at about 1/2 off. Every 24 hours have changed to a new item. I have to admit I am having fun with it. It also keeps me active because as I choose the sale item, I renew it so it is keeping my up a bit in the pages. Don't know how long but it can't hurt. Any way I am doing it, actually have sold 2 items, will do it for sure til the end of the year. Maybe even longer just because I am having fun with it.
I have also decided to get more active again with my Ebay shop. I know all the reasons I stopped doing it but the fact is I will not ever sell anything if I am not pro-actively doing everything I can. Sent a note to my brother who built and manages my website and hopefully he will add the Ebay link back to my page.
For any one who hasn't seen my website, take a peek and tell me what you think!
www.serenitycollections.com

Peaceful Thoughts

I decided to take a walk downtown on Christmas night. It had been a very tough day for me with the situation that we are in right now and felt like I had let my grandkids down badly. I needed a way to think about things and taking a walk seemed right. Living in town that while small is alway's busy with lots of traffic and people walking the streets and ton's of businesses clustered in a very small area, then, on a special night when the businesses are closed and the people are at home and the cars are in the garage.....wow, kind of like stepping into a different world. so completely calm and quiet, with all the Holiday lights glowing was just the most pleasant and peaceful feeling. By the time I went home I realized that I was okay with things, my family was okay and no matter what we did not have, we have soooo much. We are blessed if for nothing else than to be a part of a close and loving family that will alway's support each other in the roughest times, at least emotionally if nothing else is possible. I realized that I can be very much at peace with myself as long as I concentrate on the blessings in my life!

My wishes

Alex and I wish you all a very merry Christmas, the best time of year . Enjoy

Better late than Never

Every year I create a one of a kind amulet bag for Christmas, put it up on Ebay and it sells, every year. Well this year with all the drama I have been putting myself through I did not get it done in a timely manner so it won't sell before Christmas. But Today I did finish it TaDa! I went ahead and listed it anyway even though it won't go for Christmas, it's still a super nice winter peice. I am super happy with the way it came out!

My newest big Idea

The fight for Christmas sales is now pretty much over. I don't know about you but I like to freshen things up and have new items to start the new year and I just don't like things to hang around to long. So just for the heck of it I am going to try a sale. A bit different though. I started already tonight. Every 24 hours I will pick one item in my shop and put it on sale for up to 1/2 price. That one item will stay on sale for the 24 hours at the end of which it will go back to regular price and a new item will be put on sale. In my title bar I am putting:
ON SALE TODAY and I will state the regular price in my description area so people will know how much of a savings they would see if they purchase it. I am going to do this from today through New years. What do you think? Silly? Will it get noticed? Maybe not. I put a notice in promotions on the Etsy forum and it got buried within seconds. So would you please spread the word?
So that's today's crazy brainstorm, I let you know how it turns out!

Getting Control

That is what I am working on today. Getting control of this bad attitude. If I don't things will get worse because there is just so much stuff going on with not just myself but my kids too. If I don't reach down deep and pull out Debsparkles we are going to be in deep deep deep crap. So when I got up this morning I made up my mind to accomplish some things. I have laundry washing and dishes washed, and I finished this lip balm bag, took a bunch of pictures which is a problem because we haven't seen the sunshine in forever but had to get them. Tonight I will post it up for sale. Mission accomplished. May be tonight I will call my mom......so ok I am working on me :)

Gone to long

I just realized how many day's it's been since I posted something. I have to be honest, I have been going through a really emotional downer since they turned my cable off last month. Even though I got some help getting it turned back on I don't like the way I have been feeling. I am just so tired out, don't know what to do to improve my attitude and that's just not like me. I am alway's the one saying we need to be optimistic and better things are coming and keep moving and ........lately I keep thinking I have walked in the same circle for the last 30 years and it just never ends.
I must tell you I am truly disappointed in my Etsy shop. I worked so hard, took advantage of every possible thing, marketed in every way I could think of, posted to the point where what it is costing to list items is a joke and nothing. Foolish me, thinking I could get enough sales for some kind of holiday if I just worked hard enough at it. And this is not like me to feel so bad about lack of sales. I am the one that alway's say's no worries, some day the right buyers will find me and we will just keep going. I think alot of the negative stuff going on with sellers canceling sales and buyers not paying and the stuff that is constantly being kicked up in the forums full of whining and complaints are just really having a negative effect on the community. I truly wonder if it can be healed. I think I need to spend some time in thought on this one.

When I am feeling really down I stop working and play. I am a recycler. I use soup cans, mayonaisse jars, coffee cans, anything, trying to think up a use for it rather than just through it away. One of the things I like to do, don't ask me why cause I don't know, I have this odd fascination for trying to find way's to turn all this stuff into change banks. While I have been dealing with my bad attitude this week I have been creating the picture at top. A coin bank out of an empty cardboard ice tea can, I had these old plastic gemstones that I took off a shirt because after a few laundry cycles they got really beat up looking. Beaded around each one then glued it onto this can. Now I am trying to bead around all the glued on peices until I have beaded the entire can. Probably take me a year, silly, but it is what I do when I have no energy to work on real stuff. I hope your time before the Holiday is going much better than mine I truly wish a blessed time for everyone and I hope to pull myself out of this soon.

First snow

Last night I took the picture of my house with the start of Christmas lighting and it was cold, completely quiet and dry! By the time I woke up this morning, this has happened. My only regret is that since it's my day off I slept in and by time I got up the plows had already been through a few times. As a rule I dislike snow and cold. I should not be living in the north country. But...it truly does help with the Christmas Spirit. Christmas and snow go together. I truly can enjoy looking at the snow if I don't have to leave the house but I have to walk to the market for dish soap and ingrediants for dinner. I make a point of putting a good dinner on the table for the grandkids when I am home from work because cooking is one more thing that is difficult for Heather right now so they eat alot of easy microwaved meals. Although I am lacking the energy today to put too much work into dinner, last night I made a great mac and cheese casserole, tonight....tonight I want a plain old Hamburger. With fried onions and A1 sauce!
Have a great day everyone..... I gotta go find some boots:)

So Many thoughts

Yes I am back once again, for a while. Much sooner than expected because my angel was watching. I say my angel because how else do you describe a friend that lives many, many miles away and you only have email to keep in touch, yet she knows when you are at the breaking point and takes action? I won't go into details but that is the best friend I have and once more she managed to know without me telling her that I needed a boost. Any way, after reading over my last post I realize how very down and discouraged I was and I am so lucky that I don't let myself dwell to long in that place. While nothing has changed much, have alot of things to sort through I have been doing alot of thinking and am forming a few plans. First let me say, I posted this picture of my house, my daughter has started putting our lights up. I do know I have managed to teach my kids and now my grandkids how important it is to celebrate the season being thankful for what we have and not be miserable for what we don't. We may not have a whole lot of stuff for Christmas but we do have spirit. My daughter is far from done with the outside lights. Funny thing is we are the only house in the neighborhood who decorates and when she is done you can see it lighting up a huge area of my block. We will still continue to make crafts involving the munchkins. Every year I make an ornament for each person in our family and we decorate them together. We make food gifts and if I can scrap enough to have the extra supplies we will bake during Christmas week for ourselves. So basically what I am trying to say is we do alot of things for the holiday that don't cost much and have a great time doing so . I truly believe I have instilled some good value's in all of them.

Next I feel like I want to explain, though I am not sure why , things are so tough right now. Everyone who has been reading my blog since the beginning knows already my own story. You know also my delight in starting my part time job , which I must say is still going really well, I still hurt like hell everyday when I get home and I AM STILL loving it. My daughter on the other hand, has been unable to work for the last 5 months. This loss of her income is truly pushing us to the limit. A few years ago she and my grand daughter were in a car accident that left her truly hurt. She had some surgery and while has had certain problems since was doing well. Last year she started having a problem with her hands, they would be very swollen in the morning and hurt badly but she functioned. The last few months though it has gotten so bad, she cannot use her hands for a good part of the day. When she wakes they are swollen 4 times there normal size, (the right is worse than the left and she is right handed). She can not grasp anything, can not hold anything. I have to make her a cup of coffee, wrap her hands around the cup and hold her hands while she gets it to her mouth. She cannot hold a pencil so any paperwork for the kids school has to be taken care of the night before. By later in the day, the swelling starts to go down and she can do a bit more but not much, she is even afraid of going to the grocery store, grabbing an item off the shelf, she drops it because she cannot maintain her grasp. Can you imagine if she needs something in a glass jar? Now she is having pain and numbness in her feet. Our dr. just finished a big series of blood work trying to eliminate anything like R.A. etc. The blood work all came up fine and he started gathering some names of neurologists for her to see but they were all out of the area. Now, yesterday the dr. office called her and said they have to see her. She has an appointment tomorrow and I pray they have some information. In the meantime, besides the fact that we only have my small income for all the bills, and anything the kids need and food, I am trying to take care of things at home besides just dealing with the physical aftermath of my part time job. It's really tough and taking it's toll.

So I have decided so far.......My disability check pays my rent. My part time work check has to be split each week between the electricity and cable on a weekly basis to keep us on an even keel and I need to find another source of selling my own work. That needs to get better to take care of food and the little things that we always need with children in the house. I am thinking on different way's of doing this and I will come up with some answers soon. I will keep you posted as the ideas come along because your feedback is important to me. I thank you for allowing me to get all this out, that helps, it's kind of like thinking out loud.

Update

Hi everyone, hope your Thanksgiving weekend was wonderful and everyone is getting ready for the rest of the upcoming holiday season. I am writing today, simply to let you know that I will not be posting much for the next few weeks. My internet/phone/cable has been shut off again and the plain and simple fact is that I am way to tired to fight everything anymore. I am tired of the more I do to take care of myself and my family the more that gets taken away. So, I for a few weeks have to just sit back and rethink what it is I have to do to get by. Work on just paying the basic's and feed my grandkids, stop putting money into my Etsy shop for no return, not to mention the hours and hours of time I was wasting promoting my shops and staying out there. Right now I will just do my job and as I say , take care of the basics, spend my time at home working on new jewelry items, do what I can to be okay with once again, not having much to offer my family for christmas. AFter a few weeks of just accepting that I can not do it all, I will work on getting my ducks in a row and keep moving forward. When I am able to post, it will be from the local library where I am right now, I am lucky to be able to come almost everyday to check my email and check on my shops. But , I will be back before you know it. I will find a way to pull above all this crap just because I alway's do. I know I am strong enough, I have lost alot in my life and it hasn't stopped me yet. So, now I have once again bared my soul, don't lose faith in me while I work this out. I will be checking up on all of your blogs during my visit's to the library. Have a good day, blessing's to you and yours.
Debsparkles