Constant thoughts

The Money Goddess seemed to be more appropriate today than an image of my newest work because as always I spend large portions of my day thinking about money.   When I think of all my family has been through and is still going through, I look for ways to ease things.  I try to stay open minded and even spend time reading what other people do in the kind of circumstances my family is always trying to deal with and survive.  And each and every thought ends the same as in "I need money to do that."

My dad is still hanging on to life, so I am still, seven months later after the start of this journey being his sole caretaker, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  I can't leave him, he can't be alone.  I can't talk to him, he can't here me and often when I expend the effort to make him hear he often does not understand because his brain is being affected by his cancer.  So I continue to be isolated caring for him each day until the day it happens to be over.

My littlest grand baby is growing quickly and I seldom get to see her so she changes immensely between visits.  I am still in awe of her, she is just so cute and smart!  I am so thankful her mom and dad are doing okay because it is the one thing I don't need to spend time worrying about, I am way to busy worrying about my daughter and her children.  Heather's lymes disease is so bad, she is so very sick, and she has no support because I need to be with dad.  I put a lot of responsibility on my granddaughters shoulders.  It's wrong, she is just 18 and should not have to spend so much time taking care of someone else but I am thankful because she is doing the job.  That's were we go back to the big subject of money.  She has been so sick for so long, the illness has devasted her physically, she has been unable to work for many years and without me she is losing everything, she can't keep up with basic things like rent and electricity.  She has little furniture left, she does not even have bed any more. Lets face it when you live with 2nd hand stuff to begin with it does not hold up forever.  While she is fighting for financial help I continue to think about what I can do.  I work hard at my Etsy shop, I try every once in a while to Ebay.  We all know I tried using the GOFUNDME website twice and shut it down as fast as I put it up just because it was way too uncomfortable for me.  I am not one to look for a handout, my parents raised us to work for what we have. 

So the more I think of ideas that I try or reject I keep coming back to the same business plans I have wanted to implement for as many years as I have been creating bead work.  I want my teaching studio.  Once my dad's journey is done the time will be here .  We no longer have a good bead shop in town so if I could open my beading studio and sell supplies besides it would definitely do okay.  I know this because the shop we had for many years always had it's classroom full of people of all ages learning how to make their own jewelry.  But I believe what I would need to do is find a home that I could split up with enough room for myself, my daughter, and grandchildren to live yet have a separate are that I could turn into a studio.  I believe it would work out perfectly because it would allow me to operate the shop around my own illness and disability.  I think I might even have found the place.  But I don't have the money.  Not only would I need several months rent while the shop gained momentum, I would need everything from tables to beading supplies to insurance. 

So we are back to the question I have asked before and I truly need some input.  How do I, using the items I make, create a fundraising sale big enough to start gathering the money to do this?  Obviously right now I cannot do craft shows.  My presence has been constant on Etsy and Ebay and really do not see a benefit in trying more online venues.  When I do not have to be with my dad I can do shows and I think I know a few businesses that would allow me to do trunk shows.  In the meantime I just need to keep creating smaller items such as my keychains and friendship bracelets in the hopes of having lots of items to sell when the time comes.  That is the only real ideas I have come up with so far.   Please if you have any suggestions, things you have tried or have heard of other people trying with any kind of success.....won't you share them with me? 

If you do not wish to comment publicly here you can email me at SerenityCollections@gmail.com

Cold...Cold...Cold

I truly hate winter.  I will never understand how I ended up living my life in Upstate New York where if your lucky summer last's 3 months and the rest is just cold!  I guess fall is okay but each winter, which seems to last forever, bothers me more and more.  It is 13 degree's outside and I don't even want to get out of my pajamas because it is the only way I feel warm enough.  Oh well, we know I am not going anywhere, at least not for a very long time!
I did a lot of thoughtless stitching over the holiday time.  When I say thoughtless, I mean I did not set out to make a particular item.  Did not create with the thought in mind of Can I sell it?.  Thoughtless beading means I just grabbed a handful of supplies and started stitching.  Some times when I get back into a business frame of mind I rip my project apart because I just need those beads for a saleable item, or sometimes it is something I just keep for myself, usually just as a decoration.  My holiday beading created this amulet.  It is bigger than the impression you get from the picture.  I am so very pleased at what turned out of my playtime!  I have named it Ariels Treasure.  I am not one of those people who ordinarily name my pieces but this one just called out for a name!  I used one of my polymer clay cabs as a focal point on the front of the peyote stitched bag.  The seedbeads were a handful of different shades of blue left over from other projects that I was sort of at a loss for what to do with.  Strangely enough, adding them all together in random order just seemed to work for this bag.  I wanted really full fringing so went with branch fringing and used tons of fake pearls and blue glass chips to make it sparkle.  I just love it when mindless playtime produces something I love.  So now I must decide whether to hang it in my room or put it up for sale in my shop.

Happy New Year

How is the New Year starting out for everyone?  I am feeling okay because I made it through Christmas and New Years without completely falling apart.  No doubt this was a very emotional time for my dad and I.  Our first Christmas and our first New Year arrival without mom.  But it is now behind us and I think we have covered all the major "first" holiday's since we lost her.  I look forward to the next year coming up being just a little bit easier.  I doubt this pain will ever go away, my mom was truly my best friend, I am so totally lost without her.  But I do hope for more acceptance, I do pray it gets a little easier.  I hope to get to the point that when I think of her each day my thought brings a smile to my lips quicker than it brings the tears.  One day at a time.  I have not accomplished a whole lot over the last few weeks.  I get tired easy and the fact that everyday is the same makes for a bit of boredom which adds to the tiredness.  That said, I watch my dad decline just a little bit everyday.  Just little tiny things, things no one other than me would notice simply because I am here with him day in and day out. 
Now I have to settle in and start working again, and thinking.  I seriously need some new ideas, I need to get to the point where I am doing something that will begin bringing me in a regular income, even if it is small, it needs to have regularity.  I feel like I have spent hour after hour after hour on my Etsy shop this last year with no good results.  I tried Ebay once again, that really has changed so much it is never going to be a working venue for me.  So I have to continue thinking until some brilliant idea strikes!  If my crafty friends out here have come up with anything new that is working for you, I sure would like to hear about it.  I have looked at other selling sites and they just don't seem to be any different.  Time for innovation.  I have not given up hope of the brick and morter teaching shop but it seems I get just so close and something new gets thrown in my path so there is just no knowing when we will ever get there.  Well in the meantime I am making key rings this week and listing them in Etsy as I get them done.  Also working on a very elaborate Amulet bag that I am really having a good time with but have a lot more hours to invest in it until I can call it done!  Happy New Year, Happy Sunday, everyone have a great week!

The day after

I truly hope everyone has had a wonderful, joyous Christmas.  I know it sounds bad but I am glad our holiday season is almost to an end.  Only because after New Years we will have gotten through all the major holidays for our first year without mom.  Of course we have tried hard but the emotions have gotten the best of us.  I truly look forward to working on healing to the point that next year I can enjoy the holidays with my children and grandchildren as I always have.  Even when there has been little or no money we have found a way to have fun and be together. 
I just started back to school last week.  One week of class and then we went on Christmas break.  But that is truly okay, I am out of practice on the school work and the week was a bit overwhelming.  But I look forward to getting back into the swing of things in January.  In the mean time I decided to stop worrying about my shop but while I spend hours sitting with dad everyday I have been stitching a nice stock pile of new pieces.  Sometime in January I will start posting them and filling up all the empty spaces.  Or not.  I am truly spending a lot of time thinking about what I could do different.  Etsy has not worked for me the last year.  All the changes they have been going through are very unhelpful to small shops like mine.  But from what I am looking at there does not seem to be much better out there so maybe this will be the time to work on putting my items up for sale directly on my website.  This will require a bit more thought.
Now that blogger is allowing me to post pictures again I will start showing you some of the new work soon.  In the mean time Everyone have a great New Year!

Sunday's

Well I could not do it again.  Shut down the GoFundMe page this morning.  I just do not have it in me.  I want to earn what I have and use my own common sense on how to handle things in my life.
So now I am brainstorming again.  The problem with my brain storming is that I am just not creative enough and the ideas do not flow freely.  But I have a few forming. 

What do you know!!!!! Blogger let me post a picture.  I love this one because I have so many family members in the service,  this morning my nephew Cory posted pictures of himself, He left in October to spend another year in Afghanistan.  He has been oversea's so many times but he has also been in the service for almost 20 years.  I feel really bad for my niece.  She and Cory have 2 boys, one is 13 and one is 7,  how hard it must be to constantly face a holiday or significant day such as birthdays and anniversaries knowing that dad will not be there to celebrate.  All they can ever do is pray he gets home safely to them. 

Things are quite here, dad is declining, little by little.  One of the Hospice Nurses told me yesterday he could be going into renal failure.  That is not fact, just an educated guess.  I hate getting up each day and not knowing what to expect next.  I wish I had a crystal ball that would tell me what is going to happen day by day so I could make a plan with my life.

In the mean time I will keep stitching away at my piles of beads while I come up with my next idea on how to raise money to fix everything. 

Have a great Sunday!

True Desperation

This week I hit a new low.  All the issues I have tried to be strong and deal with on my own for so very long have hit me upside the head and left me taking desperate action.  Last year, I opened a go fund me account,  I felt so very guilty.....I don't ask for handouts, I don't ask for any one to do anything I can try to do for myself....I shut it down within a few days.  Well the brave act has faded, the strength and willpower to continue trying on my own has been totally exhausted.  I can pretend all I want that my sense of humor will carry me through anything and my good upbringing will help me find the way to fix everything eventually......those thoughts have completely disappeared.  I am giving up because I am beyond tired.  I am once again reaching out for help.  I have started a new go fund me account.  With a bit of a twist this time that makes me feel a bit better about it.  I let it be known that if any one donated to this account I would send them one of my hand created items.  I will let them have choices of what they receive.  So in my mind, I am not really asking for charity...I am still working for every dime just like I was taught and just like I always have.  Of course it's only been up a few day's but I haven't even got traffic yet to look at it.  Would you do me a favor.....would you go take a look, read it, then come back and tell me what you think?  What could I do to make it more appealing?  Just a bit of feedback would help because I can't walk away from it this time.  If I do not get some help I am going to lose it.  I realize people that raise a lot of money on places like Go Fund Me have many family and friends that help raise the money.  I don't have either.  My family or what is left of it is not in a position to help.  My friends,  well I consider myself lucky in a way, I have many online friends.  But that is not the same as real life friends that really know me.  There is a difference when it comes to a situation like mine.  So please, if your willing to do what I am requesting,  go read it, come back and give me your thoughts and advice.  If you like what I have done, share it.  This is probably the most desperate cry for help I have ever made at what is probably the lowest point in my life ,   I thank you.  I know this is not the type of blog post to cheer up any one's day but I just do not know what else to do.  I have officially tried it all starting with working my butt off to market my business and then down the line to organizations and agencies that are supposed to be there to help, down to any one I know that might have a few dollars to spare.  But of course it is Christmas time so even those people have nothing to spare right now.   Any way here is the address of the post, I will be waiting with fingers crossed that someone here in blogger land will have some good advice to share:

http://www.gofundme.com/ijeltc

Still ticking away

Several more weeks have passed, the clock still ticks along and I wonder where the time goes.  My thoughts go from one extreme to the other because time is going by quickly and I wonder how is it that I feel like I have accomplished nothing.  Yet the time drags, day after day, dad and I have our routine set and we have the same things on our schedule every day.  Truth be told I have a lot of time on my hands to create that I did not have when at home with my normal day to day things.  I seem to be always working on a tray of beads, yet never seem to have much done.  My common sense tells me this is not true, beadweaving and stitching is a very time consuming craft, which means if I get several items done in a weeks time I have actually done a great deal of work.  So why do I feel like I am not accomplishing?  Maybe it is just the isolation, having no one around to talk to, share my progress with, bounce ideas off of.  Lets face it, living with a sick person who can not hear means there is never any type of conversation or interaction that will speed my day's along. 

The fact is I am settled with our routine for how ever long it lasts.  When it changes I will truly be ready for changes.  I am accomplishing things and if blogger would let me figure out how to put my pictures in, I would show you! 

For now I will continue to trudge through our days, follow our routine, miss my mom a bit more every day, and spend time thinking about what I want out of life in the months to come.  I do hope each and every one of you are looking towards our holiday season!