Retirement

As some of you may have heard by now...either by a birdie or by my absence at the Sewing Show, I have, with a lot of heartache, decided to retire from teaching.

For 15 years, I have designed bead and wire projects, manufactured them myself into kits and sold them at trade shows, on the internet and at various retail outlets throughout Canada and the US. I have also taught at trade shows, bead stores, schools, cub scouts, birthday parties and even at museums.

During those 15 years I have encountered many of life's challenges but I always made sure my committment to my business was never compromised. At one point, during an 8 month period my father and two of his sisters died from a heart condition that I was also (during that 8 month period) diagnosed with. Within a day of finding out that not only did I have this hereditary disease, but that it was quite far along, I was seeing specialists all over BC and surgery dates were quickly being arranged. However, the surgery dates were a week before I was to teach classes at the Sewing Show and my classes were already oversold with eager students. Much to my family's objections, I had my surgery date reset till a week after the show. I made that decision knowing that two of my aunts had already died and my father was in the hospital awaiting a heart transplant.

I taught at the show, had my two surgeries and two days after that, my father died (at the young age of 64) before he could receive his new heart. A few months later, I was advised that the defibrilator they permanently implanted into my heart was faulty. What could I do, I trugged on with life, went back to work, kept raising a very active 3 year old angel and a very scared sensitive 14 year old, kept being supportive to my husband who did a lot of travelling for his work. I kept being a Creative Advisor for a new international magazine, I continued to help organize a fabulous local bead show, I kept designing and selling my kits and kept trying to come up with new classes and the million and one class samples, that I'm known to always have in my classes. Because that is what I had to do and that's what I loved to do.

But I knew something had to give so I gave up designing and selling my kits and having a booth at trade shows.

The next year, while I continued to teach at trade shows, I would always hear students say they wish I would have my booth again. This always made me sad and I would often think about restarting that part of my business....and I really, really believe that's why I was smacked up the side of the head with being sick again.

About a year after my heart surgery, I got a simple cold but that damm cold just wouldn't go away. I coughed non-stop, couldn't sleep, was weak, dizzy, so achey and each week the doctors came up with a different diagnosis - cold, bronchitis, infection, pneumonia and each week they gave me different medications but for six months I was barely able to function. I was late on supplying descriptions of my classes and making samples, I was missing deadlines, my work was not up to my expectations and everything I was doing was taking so long. My body was so sick and I was so incredibly dissapointed in myself. Finally, after a few days of intense pain in my chest and thinking I had done something to my heart, I drove myself to emergency where three days later I was told I had a severe pneumonia in both my lungs and once again, the doctors were amazed I was still alive.

Despite that, three weeks after getting out of the hospital, I was teaching a class at a trade show because it was a commitment I had made well in advance of getting sick. And for the first time in 13 years, I had a terrible class and I still cringe when I think of how disorganized I was, how scattered my teaching was and how my jokes and stories sucked so bad.

Due to the stress and emotion of that past year (wherein my husband also lost his job of 16 years when the company went bankrupt) and the worry of almost losing me twice in one year, my family was falling apart and going into their own separate shells.

So I decided it was time to again give up a few more things, take a step back on a few other things and put aside my anger, my resentment, my pain, my hurt and most importantly, my self pity. I have an amazing husband, a bright beautiful daughter and an incredible son and more than anybody, they don't deserve to be dissapointed.

It still took awhile after my second smack up the side of the head, but I have taken the last step and advised all the trade shows, museums, etc, that I am retiring from teaching. Now I am letting all my students know that I have thoroughly enjoyed teaching you, I have made many, many friends, have laughed so much and been so inspired by you all !! Thank you.

That being said, I get giggly when I say "nothing" when asked what I'm doing on the weekend. I feel alive when I wake up in the morning and decide the family is going to skip out on school and work and we are going on a road trip down the Oregon Coast with Grandma (which was the best trip ever !!). I am thrilled at the stunning creations I am making for myself. I'm excited to take Cassidy to afternoon animated movies (Tangled is really, really funny). I'm truly enjoying watching horror\zombie movies (the older the better) with Dustin till the wee hours of the morning. And I love having the time to just lay in bed with my husband, talking about our day (good and bad) and how beautiful our two children are (even when they drive us incredibly insane).

And it only took two smacks up the side of the head and 43 years to realize that !!!