Happy Memorial Day

Coming from a family with so much military involvement I could not post without asking you to remember what this holiday is really about.  That said, for many of us this our official start to summer and I truly hope it's a wonderful long weekend for everyone.  Things have not changed much for me, dad is still hanging on so of course our weekend will be a quiet one, just us and the tv.  He is much too weak to go anywhere even thought we have had invitations.  On mother's day we made the trip to the cemetery and it was very evident he is no longer capable of leaving the house.  So it will be one more quiet day in a long line of many.  That is okay, I will get through it, and once dad is on to the next part of his journey I will definitely take a little me time before I decide what path my life will go in next. 
I have been working on more of the little, inexpensive beaded items for our upcoming Lawn Sale,  it will be the final push to gather the money to move my family because we def. want them moved by July 1.  That will be such a load off my mind.  Knowing my family is in a safe place will make a big difference in how I feel every single day. 
I just realized this morning of all the things I am really tired of with our daily routine is cooking.  I admit it...I hate to cook.   I am okay at it, never poisoned any one but it is just not something I enjoy and trying to create decent meals for dad everynight with this endless list of things he cannot or will not eat is really getting on my nerves.  Especially when all I want is a great big old salad full of fresh veggies.  Heaven forbid I try to give him something like that!  And I cannot afford to buy two different kinds of groceries to feed him one way and myself another so yes,  I am hating cooking!!
So there is today's confession, now go have a great cookout somewhere!

Yeah...May is here!

     May 1st is one of those days that make me happy.  For many reasons.  First it is my oldest grand daughters birthday.  She is 19 today and I just can't believe it has been 19 years since this love came into my life.  I hate that she is a grownup now but since we have always had a very close bond, she will always be my baby girl.

May is a true sign that it is time for spring flowers, green trees , and walks around the neighborhood.

May is Lyme Disease Awareness Month...break out your green.  Since my daughters diagnosis I have done a huge amount of studying on this illness.  I did it because I wanted to understand her symptoms and learn what her future holds.  Add Lymes to the list of heartbreaking things that destroy lives and families.

I have gone out of my way to ignore my desire to start the next amulet bag.  I have been working on simple chokers and bracelets.  We are holding a big yard sale at the end of June as part of our fundraising efforts for my daughter and these sell well.  It does not hurt that it's a great way to use up all the little bits of odds and ends of leftover bead projects.  Of course I took a picture for you and of course blogger will not allow it to post so I will try again in a few days. 

I am trying to stay in a positive light today so I will end here, take a walk, breathe in fresh air.  Happy May Day!

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!

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!