Another day

Good morning, how great it is to see sunshine when you get up rather than gray and gloomy skies even though I admit I love the sound of rain on the roof!  I have to show off a bit even though this picture is no where near as pretty as the real thing.  Recently we had an awareness event for my daughter and a new friend fell in love with my beadwork.  She contacted me and said, can I order something from you?  It is a thank you gift for a good friend, she is a ghost hunter, loves black and grey and skulls.  Well that was enough and I was off and running.  The cab on the bag is hard to see but it is from a mold of a pirate skull.  I molded it in black clay and then lightly dry brushed the raised features with white to stand out.  I wish you could see it better.  Any way after finishing using black seed beads, a mottled gray and black bead for accents and the polymer clay skull,  I am truly loving the way it turned out.  It makes me so happy when I start a project with no idea in mind other than the information I have been given and it turns out better than my own expectations.  The highlight of my week.

I have been working on a lot of simple chokers and necklaces, not only do I have lots of little bits of left overs from other projects to clear out, my daughter is having a huge garage sale in June and things like inexpensive, simple chokers will sell well if she gets good attendance.  Other than that things have been at a standstill.  I have not gotten far with my mission to raise funds to move my daughters family.  My dad is still hanging on, a little bit sicker, a little bit weaker every day but hanging on despite it all.  So I was just thinking this morning, I have not been out in public in about 7 months.  What I would not give just to go to the grocery store and spend a few hours picking out my own food.  I am thankful for things like home delivery services which I must utilize for everything but it is not the same and I find much harder to shop this way.  But until the day comes that I can come and go as I please it will get us through!

I have been spending a lot of time daydreaming.  Once I no longer need to care for my dad I believe it is time to open that store that I have been dwelling on for a million years.  My daughter and grand daughter both have a vision of doing the same and I think the three of us together would have a ball pulling it together.  I have also decided that some big bead manufacturer needs to create me a job position.  I often through left over beads into a single big jar when I just have a small amount left over from a project but then I get aggravated because it is my nature to want each type and each color of bead in it's own container.  So every once in a while I dump that big jar on a towel then spend hours sorting the beads into their own homes no matter how little I have of that particular bead or color.  Strangely enough, I love doing this so I need a job as an at home bead sorter!  Some one put the word out for me please. 

Happy weekend to everyone.

Easter Thoughts

Wishing everyone a very Happy Easter, Passover, any holiday or non holiday you are enjoying today.  My day has been so very quiet and different than any past Easter.  I have spent every holiday of the last 36 years surrounded by my children and grandchildren.  Today I am alone with my dad, not really sure if he realizes it is Easter but I think so,  I catch him looking at mom's picture very often so I know she is on his mind, just as it is mine.  I thought when we made it through Christmas and New years we have managed to get through every "first" major holiday without her.  I was wrong, I forgot about Easter, so here we are getting through the day, quietly as if it were any other day, both of us silently thinking about her, missing her, and of course still wondering why this happened.  We know, our common sense kicks in, we also know mom is just fine, we are the ones still dealing with pain.  But none of that helps us miss her any less.  The picture above is one of the last events mom and dad went to while still fairly healthy, my mom looked just as beautiful when she passed as she does in this picture.  I miss her so.  This would be easier if the kids were around to distract me but once we have gone to bed tonight we will have made it through one more milestone. 

Dad is declining by the day,  I can do nothing but watch while it happens and I do not know whether I should be angry that he is lingering and suffering or be thankful that he has outlived the time the doctors have given him.  It shall soon be done and I will decide the next phase of my life. 

I do not mean to bring you down, I just feel the need to put my pain out into the universe somewhere, it seems easier to handle when I can share it and those who have lost a parent or other loved one are already familiar with this feeling.  I have not been real active in the shop but I am working away at some ornaments and I have 5 amulet bags in progress,  Just don't feel in a huge hurry to list right now, seems to make no sense to keep spending money when there is no activity and there truly has been no activity in my Etsy shop for a while.  I spend a lot of time wondering why I continue with it but I really hate to leave the community.  It has made a difference just for the interaction and friendships alone over the years since I first got sick.   So I just keep putting off any decision making and I think I am okay with that right now, I have time, lot's of time and eventually when I do decide what I want to do it will be the right one. 

Enjoy your day, your family, your friends and have a bit of Easter Candy for me!