Emotion

I just finished this very special amulet bag.  I beaded with purpose with my thoughts on my

mom.  On next Monday we will be observing the one year anniversary of her passing.  It does

not seem possible , my pain is still so strong, my thoughts about her hit out of no where at any

time of the day and night.  I cannot tell you how many times I have gotten up to go to the

other room to talk to her and then remember she is not there.  Any way, my mom absolutely loved

the color gold.  We used to tease her all the time, if she could make it with gold beads she would.

If she could spray it with gold paint, she would.  If she could cover it in gold material...yup, she

would.  So I grabbed a box of gold seed beads, which I normally would not use but I had these

because I got a great price on them, forget the fact that they are not very uniform and hard to

use in the work I do, but I was determined to make something with them.  I still have a good amount

of supplies from mom's stash so I found the faux pearls, very creamy and a good match for the gold.

I found the crystal prism, it seems to have an AB coating in a light shade of gold and everything just

shouted to me that it all belonged together.  So this amulet bag evolved while I thought about my

mom.  I actually like it and will put it into my shop, a tribute to an amazing woman. 

MileStones

Today is a major milestone for me.  It could not have come at a better time.  Seems like I stay away from socializing whether it be my blog or and social media I am on because of the constant things to feel bad about going on in my life all...the...time!  So when any small good things come along I need to grab hold and celebrate!


Today I am exactly one year smoke free.  This is really a major big deal.  I have spent the last 30 years of my life trying to find something that would work and help me quit and everything failed.  I cannot tell you how much money I spent on patches, pills, lozenges, inhalers.  I cannot tell you how much money I spent going to hypnotism classes, I spent 10 weeks in a weekly class given by the Red Cross.  I cannot tell you how horribly sick I got every time I tried the newest pill on the market like Wellbutrin and Chantix.  Nothing ever worked for me but today after a 30 year battle I have made it and it's a happy day with something to celebrate!

Can you share?

 

I have been given a large box of nursing scrubs.  Assorted colors, brands, sizes.  I do not know any one who can use them and we are still trying to raise money for my daughters move.  So I am posting them one at a time on Ebay in hopes of finding them homes to fund my daughters home ;o)

My problem is finding ways to share the information and I thought maybe, just maybe some of my blog readers would know someone who is in need of some new scrubs and would share my link with those people.  Is this you?  If so please, please help me out here so I can get this big box out of my room.  Rather than trying to link to Ebay each new set I put up I am sending people to my website.  My website has links to my Etsy and my Ebay shop and just makes life a bit easier.

If you have someone you can share the link with just send them to my website and tell them just to click my Ebay link and that will bring them right to the scrubs listings.  Thank you so much!

www.serenitycollections.com

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!