My New Beginning

Welcome all! I have finally decided to start my blog. It's been a long time coming, but I find that when I get to looking around on the internet, I get so distracted by reading what everyone else has written, that I forget I ever intended to write my own blog. This blog comes at a time of transition in my life, and while I won't bore you with the mundane details of how I live, I should explain that I just closed down one business and started another. You see, years ago my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer's Disease. For those of you who aren't familiar with the disease, you can read all about it at Alz.org. For now I will keep the details simple, and just say that I got involved with racing horses so that I would have the flexibility to help my mom when the time came. I quit a bank job after meeting Mike (more about him later) and went to work with him. While racing horses is super-cool, especially when you're a girl who spent her whole life asking for a horse for Christmas, it's a sport, and accidents happen. Our best horse (and my best friend in the barn) Flawless, busted up his leg. My other best horse, Slim... well, she kind of did the same thing. So, in order to help pay the bills, my mom and I got together and started a business. We wanted to focus on wedding cakes, but since those were (at first) few and far between, we got into cookies and birthday cakes and brownies and all kinds of things. Business was good, and the wedding cakes starting coming, and after a few years we had a pretty decent thing going(see some photos here: MySpace.com - Sweet Traditions - 31 - Female - ELMA, New York - www.myspace.com/167897916 ). Now, we weren't getting rich, because you never do in a business like that. It's time consuming, and although I could have been the Buffalo area's "ace of cakes" it turns out that fate had other plans for me. About a year and a half ago, I started having pains in my right hand. Now, being the main decorator for the business, this presented certain problems. It got to the point that I couldn't get through putting the border on a cake without having to stop and rest my hand. This was not productive. Along with all this, my dad's cognitive health had really started to decline, and since we were working out of my mom's house, eventually we decided to shut the business down entirely. So, there I was, slightly displaced. Now don't you all go getting sad and sorry feeling for me, because I just kept plugging along. Shortly thereafter, a friend of mine sent me a link for this thing called Etsy. I hadn't heard of it before, but she thought I might be interested, since she knew that I was into quilting and whatnot. Well, I didn't think that I could part with a quilt, and I'm kind of slow, so I thought it wasn't good to have to work for ten weeks on something to sell it for $200. Instead, I thought up some clown dolls that my mom used to make when I was a kid... I was banking on the nostalgia of my generation. So, I listed them on Etsy (at my old shop, which is here: Etsy :: Sweet Traditions ) and waited. And waited. And... well, I sold one. And that was that. My mom made some of the most amazing polymer clay ornaments. People looked, and people marked them as favorites, but no one bought them. My mom got discouraged, and I got frustrated. I decided that this was not the avenue for me. I liked making the first doll, but after ten, they got monotonous, and by the end I was kind of sick of looking at the darn things. They're packed in a box in my workroom, waiting. Then around Christmas I struck a deal with my sister who makes jewelry. Mike's daughters live out of state, and I wanted to send them something nice, but I didn't have a huge budget. So I offered my sister a trade. I made a tablerunner for her mother in law, quilted with fabric that I fell in love with and have been saving for probably six years. I made another runner and set of placemats for her sister in law. They were striking, if I do say so myself. In return, she made a necklace and bracelet for each of the two girls, so we had nice gifts to give, and didn't have to spend a fortune. She suggested that I start making runners and placemats and putting them on Etsy. I thought about it... and thought about it. In the end, all I did was think about it. Apparently I wasn't all that inspired. I enjoy quilting, and I don't want it to become a job. So that was the death of my first Etsy shop. Oh the items are still there, but eventually the listings will expire and they'll fade away. I'm hoping that a cousin of mine decides to do a craft show soon and will need stuff to fill out her table, and I can send the little devils along. I didn't know so many of my family members were afraid of clowns. At any rate, that brings me to the here and now. I have always loved taking pictures, and I have driven Mike up a wall because every track we go to, everyplace we've been, I'm constantly snapping pictures. It was just a hobby, until now. I have a new Etsy shop, and I feel better about this one than I ever did about the first one. I am keeping my fingers crossed, but I got my first shipment of prints in that I ordered, and I'm off and running. (check out my prints here: Etsy :: Stacy M. Smith ) So from here on out, I will keep you posted as to the things that I am taking pictures of, my horses (which I am still involved with to a certain degree, since I'm home with our two year old daughter Hailey most of the time) and various other things going on around me. I hope that you'll check back from time to time, and see what's new. Until we meet again...