Ideas in motion

Technology is definitely not on my side right now.  Blogger will still not allow me to post my pictures!  I have spent the last three days fighting to get into the forums so I can touch base with my team and I have no way of entering the forums on Etsy.  No button to click, no link, nothing.  The only thing across the top of the page is different categories of things to buy.  I give up!!!


Any way, After my last post I decided to start doing some really serious thinking about my idea of just teaching classes.  I did not have one single person out of thousands who saw my link react to my -gofundme- post so I closed that down and moved on.  Then the perfect idea came along.  The apartment building I am living in has a small apartment right in front of mine coming up empty soon.  My family is going nuts not having enough room so we need to do something anyway.  It would be the perfect solution because I could "move" myself in using just the bedroom for my belongings (which would free up space for the rest of the family) and use the rest of the apartment as a working studio.  I have already approached my landlord about it and he is all for it.  Strangely enough even though there are residences here it is commercially zoned so there is no problem there.  Now I have several months to plan, organize, create class schedules and start advertising (not to mention come up with the money for my first month rent)
I have a really confident feeling, my area only had one real bead store.  She was full every day of the week with people wishing to sit at the table and learn basic beading skills.  When she retired she left the people with no where to go so I have a really good opportunity here.  Once again I have bounced from being miserable and ready to give up to being really excited with more new ideas going through my head.  I can't even express how excited I am...I have sooo much to do and I am starting now.


Now if someone could tell me why blogger won't let my pics appear I will be a happy camper tonight!

My usual disapearing act

Once again I have been missing for a while.  I just can't seem to keep up with life.  Since I posted in January, I have been much busier than I should be.  I babysit every weekend for my littlest grand baby.  It is so very hard to believe she will be a year old in 7 days but watching her grow from the day of her birth to now has been an amazing experience.  I know I have done this before but as the kids grow you do tend to forget all these little moments.  Amelia is so very funny, she has already developed a great personality and I am so joyful that my illnesses have not yet interfered with my time with her.
I am spending two or three days a week every week with my parents.  My siblings and I have talked about finding a better place for them to live, thinking "assisted living"  and that is just not working out really well, we have been looking for months and there is just nothing that the normal retired person can afford.  Even the ones that offer very, very little as far as senior housing had rents that were more than both my parents income put together.  Yet...they are not eligible for any kind of help because they have more income than allowable.  What a joke this has turned out to be.  Mean time I go spend a couple days with them each week to do the vacuuming, the laundry, help my mom get groceries, wash dishes, in general just make her rest a few days a week because she is suffering from one health problem after another,  Not a surprise at their age but that does not make it easier. 


I keep trying to post some new pictures and blogger won't let me, just freezes, I hate that, posts are boring without pictures!


Any way, I moved in the first week of January, gave my little trailer in cow country to move back in to help my daughter and grand kids, for some reason we just need each other to get by but I have to be honest.  I am so far beyond exhausted of trying to hold everything together and make ends meet and failing over and over again.  I keep thinking to myself, that's enough I need to go back to work. And I know I can't.  I know my physical body will not allow it.  The symptoms I am dealing with from the tumor still raising cane in my head (Henry) will not let me succeed. I know this because I failed the last 5 times I tried.  But nothing else seems to work.  Yet I keep trying to be optimistic.  I work at my Etsy shop faithfully, but get little notice these days.  It does not deter me, I keep trying.  I spend a great deal of time on my schoolwork and I have to say I am really proud of this because I am doing really well.  Then I wonder why I bother if my body will never allow me to go to work again. But then I have to remind myself how much it is helping my brain combat the effects of surgeries and Henry, each day I sit and do my school work is one more day that my brain continues to work. 


The constant financial struggle is killing me.  Last week I got my monthly disability check, it only pays the rent and that day we ended up taking my older granddaughter for one more trip to the ER. Story of our life.  Afterward I went to the drugstore and spent over $100.00 in medication for her, of course I took it out of the rent so the landlord is wanting to know when I will make that up.  I am so very, very tired of it.  I am tired of never being able to make ends meet when I strive everyday to do something to help myself.  I am tired of never ever having enough to eat.  I don't spend money on things I shouldn't.  I just don't have enough.  So with the constant battle to find money to live I go through my different moods, sometimes I am just ready to give up.  But...not often.  I am a fighter and I am the eternal optimist.  After a long conversation with a few family members it was pointed out to me that I created a business plan many, many years ago and part of that plan was to teach basic beading classes.  I could still do that.  If I could find a way to do classes on my time (I know what parts of the day I feel well enough) my days (easy enough to set up schedules and work my time with others around it) I could bring in enough to cover the basic living expenses I am missing right now.  I could also involve my daughter and grand daughter which would help them also. 


So after spending days thinking about all this and realizing I have few options I did something that I am not quite sure I am comfortable with.  And yes, now I am appealing to everyone I know.  My facebook friends, my twitter friends, my blog friends, my Etsy friends.  Could you please share a link for me?  It's a long shot that this will work but I see people raising thousands of dollars to have their pets fixed so what do I have to lose?  Not a darn thing, my pride disappeared long ago and now that desperation has set in I will just move forward and keep trying.


Please, share this link and I will be forever grateful:
http://www.gofundme.com/8046vc

A new year, new life changes

Life has been crazy once again.  I spend a great deal of time with my youngest grand baby and in mid December I decided I have to move.  Don't get me wrong, I love where I have been living for the last 6 months but the fact is I cannot afford it.  Matter of fact I have finally realized I can not afford to live anywhere on the amount of disability income I get each month.  So, after a good amount of thought I gave my landlord notice that I had to move.  I am going to once again try to share a home with my daughter and see if we can help each other get on our feet.  My dog Alex has been staying with my daughter for almost 2 weeks now anyway.  The night after Christmas we had to rush my mom to the hospital, she had a rather serious case of pneumonia.  My mom is a stubborn woman, does not like to bother people, does not want anyone to have to take care of my dad who cannot be alone, an amputee with very poor health, so she tends to suffer in silence until there is a really major problem.  I am so very thankful my brother and I decided we have to check up on her because if we had not we may very well have lost her within 24 hours.  So instead of being at home packing I have been babysitting my dad so my mom would stay put. 

I am working like a crazy woman to get this move done this weekend.  Monday ends my vacation from school so I want to be ready to sit and apply myself to my schoolwork.  I also have been doing a lot of thinking about my Etsy shop.  The sad fact is if I could improve sales just a little bit, I would have that extra bit of money to make ends meet.  So I started doing some research.  Here is what I came up with:  My sequined ornaments sell twice as often as my beadwork.  That tells me I have to concentrate more on my ornament work.  My beadwork?  Well I have a certain loyal following that purchases my amulet bags, thank goodness for that because I would never be able to give up making them.  But that said I have to start making a lot more other things than the amulet bags and I think it is time to start putting the time into doing some of the more funky beadwork I enjoy that also commandeers a bit higher price point. 

I was also recently was contacted by a friend.  Her fiancé owns a woodworking business, does kitchen cabinets and that type of thing.  They are in the process of building a new workshop and adding a gift shop besides.  She has asked to carry a line of my jewelry.  It would be on consignment but she is a person I trust completely, she has sold work for me before on consignment and has never let me down.

So I do have a full plate setting in front of me just waiting for me to take advantage and work for it.  This is exactly what I shall do because it is time for my life to change and I only I can make it happen.

Happy 2014 to everyone!

Welcome November

The season change is getting a bit obvious, it is starting to get really chilly outside,  We actually spent a few days last week raking, I have just enough trees to give me a yard full of leaves and pine needles.  Yesterday morning it was snowing.  It did not stick around but Yes it was snowing. 
So I have decided I am going to use this as an excuse to slow down and take care of me for a while.  I will keep up with my schoolwork and create beadwork when I can sit and enjoy doing it.  I will spend a lot of my free time with my grand baby because now I can have her come stay at my house more often than I have to go to hers.  Now I just need to find a playpen so I have a safe place to put her when she is sleeping.  She is right at that point where she is going to start really rolling on her own with no warning ;o)

I ended up with 8 custom orders for Amulet bags which means forget getting new items in my shop before Christmas.  First order was for a large bag, large enough to hold credit cards.  that is finished and mailed.  I have 2 that are required to have metal feathers, they are almost done but running into a problem,  the feathers I have bought in the past, well I just can't find them, I have found larger ones but not the size I use.  But I will find something.  One the next order I have one bag finished, one almost finished and 3 more to start!
I will not stress, I will not stress, I will not stress.  This is the winter I stay tucked in the house and work at my own pace, even in my jammies if I don't feel like getting dressed and enjoy being home doing what I wish without stressing about what I cannot do anymore. 

Tomorrow is Veterans Day, coming from a family who has many members past and present, close and distant, of the armed services, it is natural for me to remember what this holiday is about.  Remember to say thank you if you happen to come across someone tomorrow who is in service.  If you or someone in your life is in any of our armed services, I thank you and honor you for what you do for us.

Finding Balance

How do we find balance when we are trying to juggle to many things?  I have been pondering this all weekend.  How do I find balance? My schoolwork, my beadwork, my housework, my grandchildren...It just seems that I am alway's trying to do a bit more than I can and something along the line suffers.  I have to admit these day's it is usually my beadwork.  It seems like my school work is taking many more hours a day than I ever imagined an online class could.  It seems like I just finish babysitting my newest grandbaby and then I am doing it again.  I am not complaining, I love the time I spend with her, my other two grandkids no longer need me that way but I cannot do much else when I have her, she does not sleep, she is very alert almost all day and needs to be interacted with.  So now I sit and wonder how to keep up with new shop listings on Etsy when I don't seem to find the time to make anything.  I listed the amulet above today, it has been sitting in my "done" box for weeks and I haven't done another since.  Right now I have three custom orders for amulet bags, each one is started, but I am not making progress.  I did my schoolwork this morning.  Then I babysat until 9:00 tonight.  Instead of sitting down to pick up my beading needle I sat down at the computer and went into my classroom to do......more schoolwork!... So now it is 11:00 at night and my eyes are telling me I can do nothing more than climb into bed.  Seems like a very typical day so how do I find that balance that gives me the time to do my schoolwork, be with my family and find the time for my creative needs? This is going to require a bit more thought, maybe I'll sleep on it.

A reason to laugh

It seems like I have not had much in my life as of late to make me laugh.  But this week we stood on my porch and watched an event that had me laughing so hard I had tears running down my face.  The farm next door has a number of pastures and they move different sets of cows around occasionally. Apparently this week it was moving day for the cows that have been across the street to the pasture next to my house.  Well, it did not go really smoothly.  The cows decided they weren't in the mood and decided to go in all directions causing bedlam to break loose.  The cows were running back and forth across the road, Have you ever seen a huge cow run?  There were three farmhands with big sticks running around to try to herd the cows in the direction they wanted.  That did not work out so well.  The farmhands ran right and the cows ran left.  Then the farmhands ran in a circle to the left and the cows ran backwards to the right.  There were cars stopped on both sides of the road because some of the larger, older cows decided to stroll up and down the road.  Three of the youngsters managed to get up into my driveway.  I literally stood on my porch staring down at three young bulls, they were just babies when I moved in here.  Here comes a farmhand on a tractor chasing them and they ran in three different directions.  They sure gave him a run for his money.  All the cows got eventually rounded up into the pasture next to me so we had a happy ending but it sure was fun watching this comedy while it unraveled.  Hope those farmhands got a pay raise!

Thoughts

Life just does not seem to settle down.  Every time I think things will slow down so I can catch my breath and figure out how to catch up, another something or other comes up.  I am just not getting any time to myself other than when I just do not feel well enough to do what is normal.  So I sat once more thinking what I can do for my shop to try to get through the holiday season.  Just cannot accomplish what I wanted and am now resigning myself to the fact that things aren't going to change much.  So I decided if nothing else I would concentrate on my mini amulet bags that I created for my "Love for Tori" line.  And then I would put them all up for a very special price of $10.00 through the holiday season which will fly by us just as it alway's does.

For anyone who may have not been reading my blog for a long time this particular line of mini bags are named for my grand daughter, Tori.  Tori is 17 and she totally owns my heart.  She also struggles with more illness than any 17 year old should have to.  She has a number of problems starting with a type of mono that never goes away.  It lives dormant in her blood stream and flares up when it feels like it. At least once a year and she is bedridden for ages, it has darn near killed her 3 times. 
Then a few years ago we went through the thyroid cancer scare, which is when I created these mini bags, not big enough for much but the perfect size to write a wish on a bit of paper, roll it up and tuck in your bag so it is alway's close by.  A bit over a year ago we finally got a positive result that Tori has both Rhuemetoid Arthritis and Psoriatic Arthritis, a gift from her father.  So at 17 she lives with the pain of a 70 year old.  This child is such a brave soul and I love her dearly.  I joke with her that we make a great pair with all our illness and fighting to have a normal life when I am rich I am going to go buy us matching lazy boys for the living room. 

Why I am going into all this is a mystery, just deciding to do some more of these bags for my shop just gets me thinking about how much we have gone through over the last 10 years.  I forget what tough people we are.