Raining Hot Coupons Giveaway and why I participated

Ok guys…….I know I have not written in a long time but my life is hectic! I was honestly going to stop blogging because I don’t have much to write about that would interest anyone. At least that’s how I feel.

Well today I just had to write. Kind of soothe the soul writing.

Let me go back a little and then come back to why I am writing this.

I did not want to bring this up, for fear my family would read this, but almost nine years ago I lost a child. (Woooo) Hard to even write this.

She was my daughter and she was three. I don’t want to go into to much detail because it starts to tear down the “strength” wall I have built. You see I give the outwards appearance to my family and friends that I am strong and honestly that is why I don’t want to go into details for fear my family would read this. They hurt for my daughter and for me, I feel as if I show them I am strong I somehow lessen their pain. I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but it’s the truth.

So I was twenty seven at the time and had lived twenty seven FANTASTIC YEARS. My mother was a single mother, worked two jobs to raise us. Ever moment she had with us was made special. Although it was rough for her she made our lives so “rich” we didn’t even realize we (I have a brother and two sisters) didn’t have much. Looking back I am amazed how she did it.

I’m just trying to quickly tell you a few things so you can later understand why I did what I did. (Sorry I am bouncing around like crazy; I hope you can follow this).

I got married young and had my first son (who is now 17) and was a stay at home mom. When he was five I had my daughter. LIFE was great. I had two kids, not much money but enough to enjoy life with my husband and children. O I almost forgot I was the youngest of my siblings AND SPOILED! So spoiled and self centered. I wouldn’t even go to the mailbox to get the mail if my hair wasn’t done; I was scared the neighbors would see me! And I married a man who spoiled me even more. So here I was living a good life and BAM I received the biggest smack in the face from God. I think he was saying HELLOOOOOO wakeup and enjoy what you have.

Looking back I think I took all of it for granted and never realized how truly blessed I was. I was all about looking good and enjoying the materialistic things I had.

After losing my daughter my life just became one roller coaster after another. Every turn a new trial awaits me. Sometimes I look up looking for the black cloud that’s following me. Sometimes I think I should write a book about everything that has happened in the past 8 almost 9 years but I don’t think anyone would believe it; they would think its fiction. Honestly IT’S a lot of crazy happenings. Anyway the latest “trial” was almost a year ago my husband came home and said I think I might be let go from work soon because they are looking to get rid of my department. I don’t think I slept that night. Here I am living paycheck to paycheck barely making ends meet and am drowning. If he lost his job what would we do? So I tossed and turned all night thinking what I can do to change my life. What am I good at that I can make money? For years I have been creating custom made items for my family and have been very crafty my whole life. So I thought why not look into selling my items and using my talent. I researched a little and came across Etsy. So I started my little “shop” and that has been another trial. You see I am horrible at picture taking and no one knows me on Etsy so its pictures they see. So when that wasn’t doing well I turned to coupons to help out.

One of my most favorite sites is Raining Hot Coupons. So one day I am on the site and see a wedding dress giveaway. I am reading all the entries and saying “wow I am not the only one in this world with problems”.  As I kept reading I kept thinking I wish I could help some how. I just didn’t know how, and then I thought WAIT I just did a wedding hair piece for a bride in Florida who wrote back to me saying how she REALY REALLY loved my work and that she would love to tell the world. HEY I THOUGHT that’s IT. I’m going to donate a hair piece. Maybe it’s not much but it is something. How incredible I started to feel knowing that I could help ONE person on her special day.

I then wrote a comment on the Raining Hot Coupons website site saying I would like to donate a hair accessory. I didn’t hear back from anyone that day so I went back the next and couldn’t find my post. LOL who knows what I did, I sometimes have my moments. So I sent another message and OMG the owner of the website responded saying that she would love to accept my offer. I AM SO thrilled.

The contest was held and the winner was chosen. Please read her story at the link I provided below. This young lady is incredible and so deserving of this wonderful dress and hair accessory.

Honestly I offered this hair accessory for my own selfish reasons. I JUST love to make others happy. It gives me so much joy. I was not walking home last night I was gliding. I was so so happy for this young lady that my cheeks hurt from smiling.

Sometimes it pains me that I will never have a wedding day celebration with my daughter but what I will have is a hand in making someone special wedding day the day of her dreams. So while GOD smacked me in the face with one hand he caressed my face with his other hand.

I’m just saying all of this so that others in this world will learn to appreciate life and PLEASE every chance you get do something good for others. You will be amazed how good it feels to help someone even if it is as small as providing a hair accessory to someone deserving.

Also if there is anything that you would like to donate to this special ladies day please contact me and I will provide the information to the family.

http://www.raininghotcoupons.com/and-the-winner-is-for-the-wedding-dress-hair-accessory-giveaway/#comments

Dress # 01

The lady in the purple dress in the middle............yeah that's me wearing dress # 01!!!!

Better pics to follow........thats just alittle teaser.

Bracelet For Dress # 01

.....Continued

So Dress # 01----was loose, so I sent it to a seamstress to “custom” fit it to my body. Some beads where left over and some material, so I created this bracelet.

So what do you think?

I swear my wrist is not AS big as it looks in the picture. Once I post the wedding pictures you will see.

Albanian Wedding

You see, I am Albanian, with some VERY ODD traditions.

Typical Albanian wedding tradition-

The bride in Albanian tradition has a morning ceremony attended by her family and friends (Usually attended by 300 or so) where she is picked up by the grooms’ family (Usually around 15 men). Mind you the groom is not one of the attendees.

They then drive her to the grooms’ home where certain Albanian traditions are performed; pictures are taken and so on between the bride and groom.  

Several hours later they (bride and groom) then head to the “night” ceremony which is the grooms’ ceremony, attended by the grooms family and friends. The brides’ closest family members (around 20 or so) usually attend only a few hours of the “night” ceremony.

So now that I gave you a brief description I can explain my dilemma which started several months ago while preparing for my nieces wedding.

Since I am the Aunt (My sisters’ daughter is getting married) I am considered a “close” relative. So I will be attending both the morning and evening party. This means I will need the following;

Morning Ensemble- Dress # 1, shoes # 1, hand bag # 1, and hair accessory # 1.

Night Ensemble- Dress # 2, shoes # 2, hand bag # 2, and hair accessory # 2.

Dress # 01- Last year I went dress shopping with a friend (She needed a dress) and while at this boutique a dress caught my eye so I bought it knowing I would wear it somewhere. IM NOT JOKING I would say I attend typically 10 Albanian weddings a year, never mind the wedding showers, baby showers, Zeppolle parties, (YES We have Zeppolle parties).

Weddings came and went; I did not wear the dress anywhere because it just didn’t “fit”. What I mean by “fit” is it was to fancy to wear to a distant relatives party. (Sorry but we Albanians are difficult to understand, I hope your understanding all of this) So that’s how I ended up with dress # 01. Shoes and handbag # 01 also were items I had. Hair accessory is going to be from one of my hair creations.  

Morning Ensemble- CHECK!!!!

Dress # 02 and pictures ………………to be continued.

New Team- Inspiration

I started a new team and is it called inspiration. I would love for everyone to join and also tell others to join as well. Lets help each other, being inspirational as well as promote each other.


http://www.etsy.com/teams/8842/inspiration?ref=pr_teams

Modern Technology

I am amazed! Modern Technology is so "FREAKIN AWESOME"

But I’m just wondering why I have been stuck in the stone ages.

I started this whole Etsy thing that got me into the whole twitter thing. I’m on twitter today just looking around trying to figure this thing out. I start typing names of people I know or knew. So I type one of my old school girls names (always wondered what happened to her) thinking I wont find her, she probably changed her name.  Well I was wrong she was on TWITTER. Very excited! O and she has a picture on twitter. It’s been around 21 years since I seen her, funny I always pictured her with lighter hair.

Well she was the same “always looked” good girl I remembered her as.  I am really amazed; it’s great to “see” old friends.

After reading her tweets, which by the way made me feel like I was invading her privacy, I was just curious as to what happened in 21 years, any kids, etc.

I then decided to look at who she followed to see if there were any other friends from way back then. I didn’t see anything that rang a bell, figured they changed their maiden names. Then a picture caught my eye.

Yep….. another junior high and high school friend.  So I start the same “stalking” (I swear I really didn’t like the feeling but again curiosity took over). She looked very good…..happy. I won’t mention names to protect every ones privacy but I’ll call her friend # 2. So friend # 2 is a photographer still in the tri-state area. Again I do the same routine looking at her followings. And I see she follows a famous wedding/gown designer. (Again sorry but no names)

WOW, what a small world.

This “designer” is a friend of my bosses. Whom I feel like yelling at when she calls “I am a perfect four, do you have any samples you might possible love to give me”, but I don’t think that would go over well with the boss man. Anyway it got me to thinking, does she know her and if she does could she have been photographing her work in her boutique possibly as the “designer” was on the phone with me. Interesting HUH!

My mind is spinning, so many questions.

1.      Where the hell has twitter been? O I mean why I didn’t venture into twitter land before.

2.      Do I try to contact these friends?

3.      How about if they don’t remember me?

4.      If I do contact them do I want to get into what’s been going on in the past 21 yrs?

5.      So on and so forth.

Guys help me out, what do you think? Should I contact them?

Do i need to hide out from ETSY hitmen?

Hi guys!
SO today started out very nice.
I received an email from one person (sweetleaf19) saying she featured my item yesterday in her treasury, that was very nice.
I received and email from another person (thedancingneedle) saying she featured me in her blog, that was nice also.
SO since it started out so great I decided I should push my first and only treasure "Tooth Fairy" since today is national tooth fairy day and my theme treasury. So I started trying to get the word out and came across a forum (OPPS sorry forgot to mention I’m talking about the website ETSY, and the individuals mentioned are their ETSY names) where they have business advice threads and so on. SO I decided at about 10:30 this morning I should post a questions on “How to get Etsy Admin Attention", FOUR hours later no response. Not only did I get no response but I received no comments either. SO I’m looking around, reading threads and I come across one. "I have one unsatisfactory rating how I can correct that”.

52 SECONDS later he gets a response from an administrator answering his question.

O BOY.... my blood started to boil....here I am….. trying to ask "politely" and I can’t even get a “sorry don’t have time for your stupid question right now” and he gets a response in 52 SECONDS on how to kiss and make up. So I decide to comment to his thread with ……

This is very upsetting.... I posted a question HOURS ago...and no response from ETSY ADMIN.

It only took pmcookie 52 seconds.
Bravo pmcookie

Someone posted a thread response saying try to post your question again because they get in late and possibly missed your questions.

SO as I’m re-writing my thread, umm post, ummm whatever you call it…..I send it then go back to the previous post to see whats been said. SO an ETSY Admin posted that I could contact her personally.

OMG, I AM NOT KIDDING in 14 minutes I received 149 OTHER views to my treasury.

SO……o god! Sorry gotta run……stay tuned for the conclusions of “Etsy Hitmen”