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What happened to my website?
Where did my website go?
Where did my box of crayons go?
I quit my day job, as some of you may remember from my previous posts. It’s really pretty exciting, ok…. maybe a little bit scarey!
I have been living with my elderly father for the past 2 years and it has been rewarding and it has been trying.
I promised my Mom on her death bed that I would move home to make sure Dad was alright. To make sure Dad ate. To make sure Dad didn’t loose or misplace everything in this house.
My Dad is 89 years old. He looks about 70. He has never been one to sit down and rest unless he was so tired his body wouldn’t let him do anything else. None of this has changed. He can still fix his lunch. Still fixes his cereal in the morning. He became a bit OCD about his laundry in the military and my abilities in the laundry room just do not suit him, so he does his own laundry. I’m as sorry as I can be, but I can not iron creases in all his cotton shirts and darts in his cotton pants. I don’t know this for a fact, but I believe there is reason to believe Mom ironed his blue jeans. Ah, he also still calls them dungaries.
Dad and I have always butted heads. Not severely, and never in a manner that would last for too terribly long, but we don’t do things the same. Dads views are that he wants to know how things work, what makes them work, why do we want them to work. My view, it works so use it.
When I started going through the pantry and cabinets, the frig and the freezer there was a recurring problem. There were 6 boxes of cereal, 4 of which I knew Dad did not like. There were 3 containers of Morton salt, 4 bags of rice, 8 or 9 cans of tomato soup. And enough frozen food with enough preservatives to kill a small army. I spent at least 9 months trying to get rid of that stuff in a fashion that would not cause any more undue health problems.
Ha! This was suppose to be a post about my box of crayons missing and it’s just about Dad. Well, maybe it is about me loosing my box of crayons.
No one thought I would work when I moved back home. Well, Dad didn’t think that I would work after I got home. But, I did. While I was still living in Nashville I worked in the public school system after leaving the insurance industry in 2007, maybe 2008. It doesn’t matter, I left the insurance industry after 25 years. After I returned home to be with Dad I decided to stay in education, but after 2 years, it just didn’t work out.
I am too old to deal with 5,6,and 7 year old children and come home and take care of Dad. Can’t do it! I have just got to start building some more stamina! I just have too! Don’t say a word, I know I told you that he could do for himself, but please try to remember that I also told you he has a bad habit of loosing everything. Everything! And, he doesn’t know how to fry chicken.
Dad can not throw a magazine or periodical or newsletter away. The coffee table is full of magazines from the 90’s. Maybe even the 80’s. We moved all his old paperwork from paper boxes to plastic boxes and there were things in those boxes back to the 70’s. The only reason we need these are because Dad can’t stand to part with them. I found some more magazines and periodicals stacked beside his bed. I won the argument about the plastic containers being safer than paper, but there is no need in even trying to get rid of all those magazines. None, whatsoever!
So, here I am on the starting line of a new adventure. Dad is scared out of his mind. He doesn’t really want me to do this, but he tries not to say anything. I’m afraid! I’m excited! I’m nervous! and now after being away from my own website for a year, or two…. I can’t find it!
I didn’t mean to let it disappear, but I did! Now, I will have to start all over! From scratch. But, my daughter wants to help me. I hope she has time. I’m hoping that if she points me in the right direction, I can take it from there. She wanted me to change it anyway, so I’m sure she is glad. I hope I am glad, but it will be awhile before I know for sure.
My etsy shoppe is still there…. http://www.etsy.com/allbeckyscreations
My facebook page is still there….. www.facebook.com/allbeckyscreations.
And, I’m sitting here writing of my faux pauxs in the life of rediscovery while my Dad just left to go out and spend the day and early evening with friends. While I sit here thinking of all the things I need to do to get this ball rolling.
I really think that both of us are helping both of us!
There will come a time, I hope in the distant future that I will “Need” to be here all the time. Until then, I will once again get this new online store set up and I will enjoy Dad!
Oh yeah, did I tell you that I brought my dog back home with me and now he thinks Dad is his master.
It’s really pretty sweet!
Gearing Up!
As you can see, when I moved into my studio 2 years ago, it was very organized, clean and an attractive place if I must say so myself.
After quiting my day job, I vowed to put my entire self into creating my stores and make a name for myself within the art world.
Now my studio looks like this…
Projects galore, already finished a custom order and working on another. Such a terrific feeling!
I am tremendously enjoying myself, this is just so much fun! I started on my first drawing in a very long time. I felt like my pencils deserved to come to life again.
I am truly excited about this one… As you can see bricks are involved… I love to draw bricks! Yay!
as Scarlett O’Hara once said….” Tomorrow is another day!”
We will talk again…..
AllBeckysCreations
Collage
It’s so much fun! It is official, AllBeckysCreations is now an official full time job!Some times people get distracted by life, and the things that they love become something they loved. I almost allowed this to happen due to some expected and unexpected circumstances. I saw a video on YouTube explaining gelli prints. I had seen so many on Etsy and Facebook, I had to check it out. After watching these video’s I ordered a gelli plate for myself and began experimenting. Sometimes it just takes a spark to start a fire. Well, I’m on fire. I have also been painting, drawing and doing some painted letters, but this collage thing is great! It’s just so much fun and the sky is the limit to what can be done! You will see much more of me in the future, lots of work to add to my Etsy Shoppe. I’ve been doing a good bit of custom orders, which I really enjoy. (hint hint) Stay tuned for more!
YAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Why do you have to lie to me ?
I am so so sick of scammers!
They are everywhere, playing their little games to try to entice you to do just about anything and everything they can think of. Let me tell you what they have tried, and have done to me.
As some of you may know, I have some websites that I sell my art work on. I have several, plus my own website. I’ll wait and list the web addresses at the bottom. I told you that to tell you this……
Last week I get this email from a person who said they were a personal shopper for an “Important import/export mogul.
Ok, I need to stop here to explain something to those that might be novices…. ( any of these jobs are a alert button that should go off so that you can do some digging into this person, because from my experience, they are trying to scam you…. They are – import export moguls, international jewelers, contractors who build big, real important buildings in exotic places, Dubai is a favorite, and of course people from small out of the way foreign lands who have recently moved to the US.)
This person said she was with this company that after I looked it up, did not exist. And, she said she worked for this man importing and exporting his important wares. He had seen my Etsy shop and wanted to make an extremely large purchase.
Ok, I looked the address of this mogul up and it was for a gift shop in Japan. Not a important import export mogul. Just a modest shop. So, my ‘this person is a scammer button’ went off.
I sent this female personal shopper a letter and told her that I would be glad to sell this import/export mogul all my creations, but she and he needed to go through Etsy and purchase them from my Etsy shop.
She told me that she had a liason that would contact me about picking up the items that said mogul wanted.
I told her to forget it, I would not do business with anyone unless they were willing to go through the correct channels established by the company I sold my art work through.
Today, OMG, today I get this damn email from some Asian type giving me the email for this liason.
OMG! How many times do I have to say this….?
I just deleted the email and I will delete any other emails that come, because I am up to my eyeballs in scammers. And,
I wish I could say that this was my first encounter with a scammer, but oh I can not do that. Scammers have been bothering me since I joined Match.com after I divorced and moved out on my own. You might want to say I was easy prey, but I did not stay that way long.
I already wrote about one of these said scammers, not like the one’s that try to steal your bank account, or the ones who try to get into your credit cards, these are the ones that play with your emotions and only to steal your identity. And, I can tell you that most of us don’t understand why anyone would want our identity, but if you give it to someone, it will be hell getting it back.
I had this guy, he befriended me on Match. The photo that he supplied was absolutely to good to be true. He said he just wanted to be friends, because I looked like such a sweet and kind person. You must understand that I had not dated for 32 years. “32 YEARS”!
This went on quite a while, he learned my computer use schedule and he would send me messages and sonnets and tell me his woe’s as he “built a hospital in China”. After time, it got very romantic, and then hot and bothered…. I don’t remember when I first decided he was just scamming me, but I got very suspicious, but what the heck…. we could keep going as long as it took to find out what his plan was….
Ok, this went on for weeks! Usually they attack and run, but this guy played this through no matter how long it took.
One day while at work, I get this phone call from him and he was crying… sounded pretty fake but I listened as he told me his daughter, who he had taken to China with him because he was going to be gone so long was in the hospital. He said that she had been hit by a car during the day while with her private tutor while he was a work. I was sympathetic, but an alert went off in my head. You see Match tells you from the get go what to look for and what to do when you find a scammer. I’m not playing this like they told me to, not at all.
I really got pretty mad that he would try such a despicable reason. I was so torn at first because half of my co workers were saying he was a scam while others were appalled that we would think such a thing. I didn’t know what to do. Until, he called one day to say that he had run out of money and couldn’t afford the hospital for his daughter any more. What, I thought he was an international contractor who affords private tutors and he can’t pay his daughters hospital bills.
He started pestering me for money. Over and over again I told him I couldn’t afford to send him any money, I didn’t have money to send. Then, the minute I quit communicating with him at all was when I received the email telling me that his daughter had passed away and it was all my fault.
OMG! that is about as low as it goes. I thought to myself that I had heard it all. I could not believe that someone would go to those lengths to get my money. Oh, but I was wrong, because that wasn’t the last scammer in my life while on dating sites. Oh, not by a long shot. Every time I would think that no one could top that, and then some despicable ass would show up and prove me wrong!
http://www.etsy.com/allbeckyscreations
somethings in the basement !
When I was a little girl the basement was a scarey place.
Each stair was just a step without a back, so I thought that if you were small enough, you could slip right through.
Mothers sewing room was in the very back of the house. A large and stark room with concrete block walls and a concrete floor.
During the day, it was no problem going downstairs for any reason in the world, but at night…. Ooh, that was a different subject. I mean, to walk quickly might cause me to go through the back of the stairs and fall to my death, but if I didn’t run…. that evil thing that lived in the basement might attack! It was such a dilemna in my life!
Sometimes Mom did minor alterations upstairs while we all watched tv. There were many occasions when she would realize that she had forgotten something and needed that something to complete her work. The next thing I would hear was, “Becky, go get my seam ripper from the drawer of the sewing cabinet please.” Oh no! “MOM! I don’t want to go, can’t you take a break and run down and get it ?”. She would just laugh and say, “Nothing is going to get you, silly!” But she just didn’t know! Then she would say, “Just go turn the lights on before you start down, then wait til you get to the top of the stairs before you turn them off. If you see anything, or anyone that’s not suppose to be here, hollar.”, oh I was gonna hollar alright! I figured I’d scream so loud the neighbors would hear, and they would come save me! I would reluctantly run down the stairs as Mom would hollar, “Don’t fall!” 
Oh God! What if I do fall? What if I fell on that concrete floor and died! It was a horrilbe situation I am in right at this moment. I will either be kidnapped and attacked by the evil troll from the basement or fall to my death. What was I to do? Why would my Mom send me to my death!
But hence, nothing happend. I know you knew I would say that. I never fell to my death, and no one ever kidnapped or attacked me.
But, then there was that monster under my bed!
Now, that concrete block sewing room is my studio!
There are no boogie men! No evil lurking in the dark. Just my art equipment, my sewing machine and all my creative implements for creations. Oh, and Mom’s sewing machine. And, her seam ripper.
What is normal any way?
Is it normal to have ducks in a row?
( disclaimer – I found this picture of the ducks on the internet. I am only using it due to relevance.)
I have recently moved back in with my Dad after my Mom passed away in May. I got here the first of July and it took just about a month to get the stuff I planned on having in the house arranged, getting storage for the rest of my stuff and settling in.
HA!
What is settling in anyway? Here I am, August 17th and I am just now finishing in on getting all my things in the house. And, I still have a storage locker full! Full!
I wanted to try to get a job with the school systems here, since I worked pre-k in Nashville. No such luck! I don’t know who you have to know or what you have to know, but it’s un penetrable. I went to work with special needs children in 2008. I absolutely love it. There is no greater satisfaction that anything has ever given me. I started wondering if I would be able to continue, but felt that maybe it wasn’t in the cards.
Oh well!
Then Dad and I were at the shop where he gets his car fixed because my battery was dead. Dad parked in a lot right next to the shop while I told the mechanic what it was doing.
When I got out to the car Dad said, “Look!” pointed directly out the window to the business next door to the garage.
I looked out the window and saw a sign for a non profit center that caters to, lets call it children in need. ( special ed) This center keeps infants to five years old.
In 1984 I gave birth to a little girl born with birth defects. Her name was Audrey Ann Burnette. She came into the world with an extra chromosome in the 18th set. Rendering her incapable of sucking, she had a hole in her heart, cleft palette. Anyway, bottom line was that she would not live long. Someone told me that they were surprised she made it into the world at all. At her heaviest she was 5 pounds.
This center was where Audrey went during the 3 to 4 weeks we got to have her at home. These people took care of my Angel. And, they did an excellent job that I was always enormously grateful for.
I told Dad to drive down their driveway. He did it without even one hesitation. I went into the center and asked about a job. The lady at the front desk was a nurse. She gave me the card of the lady I needed to contact about a job.
I immediately went home and sent an email to the center with my resume and cover letter attached. I then went into their website and sent another resume to their job line.
After speaking to several people and sitting down with the lady responsible for hiring parapro’s for their center, three days later I was employed.
Not quite a month home and at the age of 58, I already have a job. Call it kismet if you like, but I believe that nothing more perfect could have happened.
********************************************
So, now to date… I am for the “most part” moved in. Although every day I think to myself about something that isn’t here. I think about 32 years of marriage and raising 2 children and how much stuff you have when you are done. Mom and Dad had 63 to cram stuff into this house. The two are having a hard time meeting.
I have met with many of my old friends from high school for dinners, lunches and coffee. It’s so much fun catching up. Thirty nine years is a lot of catching up to do.
I have successfully finished setting up my “studio” and have now started actually producing some art. “Yay!” I really didn’t think my creative juices would start moving again this soon.
And, ” I have a job!”
Don’t get me wrong, I am not stupid enough to believe all the excitement of moving is completely over. But, I am definitely on my way.
A Word A Week Photo Challenge: Transport
I seriously don’t know what we would have done if someone had told him the truck could not be fixed. It would have been sad! Ha!
My Dad’s Old Truck
It looks much worse in person than in this photo, has only been washed maybe twice since the late 1980s, and is my 85-year-old father’s favorite means of transport. It sat without being driven for several months while my mother was so sick. When my dad decided to drive it again, it “cranked up just fine,” as we say here in the South. Last week, the keys were temporarily misplaced which caused a great deal of consternation. Right now it has a serious gas (petrol) leak and is in the shop. Here’s hoping it is repaired soon!
For more images of transport, check out: http://suellewellyn2011.wordpress.com/2014/07/31/a-word-a-week-photograph-challenge-transport/
Friday morning….
I woke up at 5am this morning…. I don’t know if I woke up because I have a job interview this afternoon, or I woke up because I can’t breathe. Or, maybe both….
I have been sitting here in bed drinking coffee for an hour, I can’t help but think of Mom, in th early hours all alone, that’s always the only thing on my mind. After my first cup of coffee I went back into the kitchen to get another and I looked across the den to the big red chair where Mom had her morning devotional…. Sometimes, it’s more than I can handle.
Mom was diagnosed with cancer over 3 years ago. ( give or take a month). She went into remission after a year of chemotherapy. That alone spoiled me into thinking we were done with cancer. Then it reappeared in her kidneys, and I thought, ” She beat it once, she will beat it again.” She was in pain this past Christmas, it just got worse. ( but I keep thinking that everything is going to be ok) My left brain knew that Mom’s body was failing, but my right brain was in such denial that it would not allow me to fulling understand. I didn’t want to loose my Mom, I didn’t think I could live without her, So, I immaturely “believed” that she was going to beat this thing.
My Mom’s mother, ( my Nan-Lu ) lived to be 99. Mom’s grandmother, ( Momma Dorough) lived to be 111. So, you can probably see why somewhere inside I would talk myself into believing she would be ok. I just knew she had at least another 20 years with us.
I have come to believe that denial is a bitter enemy. I understand that it doesn’t matter if someone goes suddenly or it takes a good long while. The pain of a loved one dying is traumatically devistating. I know and have talked to many that have lost their mothers in years past. No matter how long ago it happened, they talk about the death painfully and sad. I realize that I must get to a place where I can live with it tolerably, but maybe I will always have to live with the sadness. I’m trying to figure out a way of making it a little more tolerable.
I have so many happy, wonderful memories. Ha! I have a lifetime of them. Except for the years between 13 – 18 I had the most wonderful and loving relationship with my Mom. I will focus on remembering the love, the compassion. I will remember all the advice, all the prayers. I will try to understand. I did say “try”.
does she walk these halls?
I’ve recently moved home after my Mother’s passing to stay with Dad….
I have very mixed emotions about moving home, to this place I grew up. So many memories and Mother a part of every one of them.
I’m staying in my old room, the furniture isn’t the same, but I left my curtains up. The curtains that Mom bought when she renovated my bedroom with a new canopy bed when I was twelve. To say it doesn’t match my bedroom suite now is an understatement, but they will remain up. My re done bedroom from my past was more than just a good memory, it is one of the best. Every time I look at them, I remember how much Mom meant to me. How much I miss her.
Mom bought a cabin in the woods when I was beginning college, it has been “Nanny’s Cabin” ever since. Dad and I have begun going up on weekends again. I sit in the chair Mom sat in, I use her computer, cook in her kitchen. Remembering just how she liked everything, I procede through my day.
Dad and I watched her favorite British comedy on PBS Saturday night. I had to go to bed after it was over. Almost couldn’t handle it.
I learned the hard way a few years back how important it is to go through all these stages of grief. I somehow got lost through my grief on another occasion in my past, and it almost cost me my sanity. But, it is so hard. I sometimes think that no more tears could possibly come, but then they do.
I hear her voice, I feel her beside me. I know that if God were willing, not only he could truly separate Mom & Dad, ever. I have never met two people who were as in love. They couldn’t bare to be apart. The perfect couple! I have sometimes wondered why I didn’t look for that kind of relationship when I was young. Another lesson from the past, not to take love for granted. I grew so use to two parents that adored each other, I didn’t realize others didn’t have the same thing.
I will be strong, because that is what Mom would expect. I will, for my own sake walk patiently through these stages of grief. I will hold on to my sanity with my entire heart. But, I will never quit missing Mom! And, I will never believe that my Mother has gone completely. I will never believe that she is never to be here again, that her spirit is not still among us.
