As many of you know I have stepped out into a world, that until recently, really had no knowledge of and for the most part no need for. After spending 27 years of my life working a labor intense job being told when to show up and when to go home and retiring early due to health related issues was faced with the reality that life is precious. Don't get me wrong I was thankful for those paychecks every two weeks with the insurance benefits and holidays and to have a pension check that shows up now once a month but,..... Always a but right?!?! It isn't even close to enough to survive on and as a two time cancer survivor and parents who are still alive in the late 80's I AM A SURVIVOR!
Looking at a possibility of living another 30 years and after surviving the chemo and all that whole breast cancer package has wrapped up in it My options were pretty limited. The only thing I knew how to do was service related. So like a lot of people in my situation I went to a employment service, peed in a cup and was swept off into the midnight world of factory work. Mindless repetition with the same song every night, work faster. Lofty goals for all of us minions to reach with a continues group of new minions who eventually either settled or were gone because the fit just wasn't right.
Coming from a large family and being the second youngest also made me think my family and extended family may need me one day. That reality came to my mind after I spent two years as the needy one. Mom and Dad, Grandkids, Kids, brothers and sisters. Unfortunately I was right about that all too soon. My sister shared with me what she was going through with her health and we decided it was time to leave that factory life and become her caregiver. I would become her helper, cleaning lady and what ever else she needed. Fast forward three years and we lost my sister to the health issues she just couldn't overcome.
But you know how they say when God closes a door He opens a window? Well that is exactly what He did, I just didn't realize it and now wish I had come up with my idea before she was gone because She is the reason I even have this opportunity and probably wouldn't be stumbling around the marketing and sales world trying to figure it out on my own. You see, My Sister loved to make people smile. She was very talented and smart. First borns get the smarts, the multi tasking abilities, and with a family as large as ours by the time it got down to me the only thing left was cuteness! Haha!
So Your asking okay Junie share with us what all this is trying to say. I can't go get another labor intense, midnight shift, service oriented job. If I get a job and someone needs me, because my family comes first, then when they don't need me I have to look for another job. A minimum wage, tell me when to show up and when to go home job. Well here it comes, the way my sister made people smile beside her infectious love for others and willingness to listen to any crazy idea someone has and instead of discourage them, problem solve with them on how it could possible work, was with sentiments. She created lovely, quirky, loving, funny, encouraging, heartfelt sentiments in the form of greeting cards. She folded, spindles, crimped, glued, glittered, glazed, stamped and gathered! From paper to ink, from stickers to embossing, from watercolors to colored pens. Cutting, gluing and creating things she knew would bring a smile.
One of my other sisters has been making the most amazing Yummy roasted pecans, smothered in handmade caramel and sweet chocolate turtles for the past ten years. She blames me for the success because I came up with the caramel (even though she perfected it) and started selling them locally. While trying to come up with a way to carry on the tradition of making smiles and what to do with all the paper, ink, cutters, crimpers, glitter and glue and needing a way to create an income, the idea of Turtlegrams was born. An online business that would allow me the freedom to go when God says go and do it with a product that is already loved by so many.
I launched
www.Turtlegrams.com
in January of this year and honestly, I sure miss having the advice of my very smart sister but I know if she's watching from above she's smiling!
The whole blogging thing is still pretty foreign to me, just the idea of kind of an open diary of my struggles and trials is just not as comfortable with me when it comes to asking for myself as it is when others are going to benefit. But then I thought about it and short of giving you an on going diatribe of the daily struggles of the Turtlegrams.com business I thought of it from a perspective of what do I have to offer that would be beneficial to more then just myself and realized, I am not offering anything people don't already utilize to some degree or another and just have to make sure what I offer is as good if not better them what the competition as it were, has to offer and why they should choose what I have to offer, short of the fact they I am someone they know and they want to help me. (fwwww that was wordy)
