Have you tried Heritage Makers yet?

Yes, I’m no longer a consultant but you GOTTA try it. FREE.  Everyone loves FREE, right?

Heritage Makers is having another Free Premier Weekend. Click here for more details:

http://heritagemakers.com/comm/go/2012/FreePremierWeekend/

Check out all the cool art and templates. Let your creativity run wild.

To participate in FREE Premier Weekend simply log into Studio and click on the “unlock Premier” button. This button will be available from November 2 – midnight November 5(MDT).

And then there were two.

Helloooo….

So, again, here I am back at my blog and no more further into the business than when I left… in fact, I am no longer a consultant. Wish I could say I regret not renewing and not getting more involved in preserving memories – both mine and others, but I don’t. Not really.

I did make a sacrifice when I entered the realm of being a system engineer…. aka became a “server chick.” Servers – maintain and patch at night, when the business is not using them. I knew long days and nights and work afterhours were part of the job description and, in the persuit of expanding my career opportunity, and I figured it was worth it. That is, until we had the unexpected chance to have my stepson live with us.

Situations arose with his biological mother and in the beginning of February… in the middle of everything (his 3rd grade school year, my hubby’s college semester, and my security audit at work) we had him move in with us. My hubby goes to school full time and works full time on swing shift. (I’m usually asleep when he gets home or up late working on servers). I work full time and afterhours as explained previously and… I’m a full time “single” mommy in the evenings. Not an issue before but with my stepson living with us, it’s been overtime mommy, too. You see, my stepson has ADHD.

I wish I can say it were that simple that he has a short attention span or is hyperactive. He also has OCD tendencies and is aggressive. I remember one summer when he was with us and 6yrs old, prior to pills, every night he had a yelling fit. He was absolutely angry at the world and said as much. I did not need my 4yr old (at the time, she is 6 now), learning phrases like “I want to kill…! or “I hate…!” Also, back then, being that we only had him three weeks at the most and a week around major holidays. Anything we tried to help him was fruitless, only to be forgotten by the time he came back. Much to our dismay, he was put on 2 different pills.

Fast forward to the present. He moved in with us. As soon as my hubby was able to add him to his medical insurance, we made appointments with doctors to re-evaluate his need for his pills. Not only are the side effects scary, but we wanted to spend the time and dedication to try behavioral plans and other means of trying to address his ADHD… if that’s what it is. Under guidance of his new pyschiatrist, we took him off his daytime pill and for a while he did good. Talks and rewards vs. consequences – methods of parenting that has worked on our daughter all seemed to be working for him too. Then it happened. Yelling, crying, screaming, disrupting, licking attempts, nose picking, outbursts and finally utter disregard towards his teachers and my father. That is when realization hit. He’s broken…. and pills may just be the only fix.

I ALMOST gave up. I ALMOST took that as the final say so. But, no, we haven’t given up. Things don’t change overnight and neither was he. The good news is that we HAVE made some strides. We have totally taken him off of his night time pills and he gets Chamomile tea to calm him down so he can sleep. We have not yet found an alternative to the Concerta but we are trying along with some daily reminders, encouragement, schedule and structure to get him to focus. Every day. EVERY DAY.

So, anyway, back to my “jobs.” One could say that I’m a little busy. Full-time mommy *still* adjusting to a new position and adjusting to a new family member who requires a little more care than the norm. Did I mention that the company that I work for may not be in business next year and that I may need to find a new job? All this on the back of what may have been our most crucial audit – ever?? Nah, no pressure. No pressure at all. HM, at this point, became a luxury for me. A year. I’ll give it a year. In a year, we might have gotten the intricacies of ADHD down. In a year, I may not have a job and I’ll have more time for HM. Or, in a year, his mother might actually be true to her word and realize she needs to give up her “luxuries” and not her family.

For now, my priorites are: Living MY family memories and the job that supports my family. Just two priorities. But the only two that matters.

For my clients, sorry to have to lose you but Leslie is uber cool and if you have any questions or guidance that you need with Heritage Makers, she will be happy to assist you. If any of you just wanna do a digi-crop, or just wanna hang out and be creative, I’m still here…. just with extra loud and rambuctious kids running amok in the background

Don’t forget what drew you to Heritage Makers!

Check out some of the things we have going on at Heritage Makers, like Club HM. You get Premier Membership + 40 publishing points for only $30 a month.

And, if you haven’t seen Premier yet, check it out this weekend – for FREE. 

From Sept 30 -Oct 3rd, log into the HM Studio and click on “Unlock Premier” and check out all the new products and cool, cute art! 

If you’re on Facebook, I hope to see your creations on Club HM’s Facebook page!

Remembering You

 

Don’t wait until it’s too late

I feel like I failed.  I feel like a hypocrite.

Here I am promoting, embracing and preserving family, your legacy, your heritage and… I neglected my own.

On May 19th, 2009, my mom passed away in her sleep.  She was only 60 years old.  Yes, she was still young.   Was it unexpected? Yes and no.  She had been on dialysis for nearly 15 years… that is about the average life span of someone on dialysis.  Did I know this? Probably.   I think it was mostly denial on my part. 

When she was first diagnosed with kidney failure, she had the option of getting on a transplant list.  She did not want to.  She said she did not want to risk of organ rejection and taking the pills every day for the rest of her life.  It was a hard decision to swallow when we first heard her share it – but the decision was hers to make – not ours.  And she began her treatments with great strength and devotion.  She drove to her treatments, she followed her diet and as time went on, she remarked how some people who had started on dialysis and got transplants, ended up back on dialysis because they did not take care or went back to bad habits.  So she was doing good and I was proud of my mom!  

In 1999, she had a bad scare and they had to medi-vac her to Oahu, where the medical facilities were more eqiupped to handle her condition.  Her heart rate was alarmingly low.  I left my new job and career to go back home and stay with her.  Well, she got better and reluctantly I moved back to AZ. Two years later, I found her a good kidney specialist and my parents moved to AZ.

Over the years, she became more and more frail.  ER visits were frequent – for various things.  Bad reactions to new pills doctors gave to her, pneumonia, congestive heart failure but she always bounced back – and alwayswith a smile and her famous sense of humor.  She stopped having the energy to go places with us and for a while there spent a good amount a time sleeping… but she was still strong and had her wits and humor.  I saw who she was and not the frail body that she had become.  I talked to her like I did every day: New funny stories, new places we should check out, new dishes to make, how to make her famous dishes for dinner that night… you know, chit chat.  Once in a while we’d talk about “the good ol’ days” and she’d tell me stories about my gramma or grampa or when she was a kid.  I always thought, I should really get these in a book one day…

I always thought there’d be one more day…

I miss her terribly and although I hope that the tiles I gave her on Mother’s Day told her how I felt, I don’t know for sure.  She was there one day, and gone the next.  I never told her goodbye or that I loved her that night, I was so sure she’d be there in the morning… same smile, same humor, same mom…

As I look at the life story guide, I am coming across questions that that I thought I knew… but didn’t know about her.  Her favorite childhood memory, friend, or place.  I could ask her anything.  She always had the answers I needed.  She was always there. And now she’s not. 

Don’t wait.   Record those memories - and learn from my mistake. 

 

12/14/48 - 05/19/09

 I love you, Mom

The best Mother’s Day gift

Did you all have a wonderful Mother’s Day?  I did!  Not because I’ve been a mommy for three years now, but because I had the pleasure of giving MY mom something that showed her how much she is loved by her daughter.

Every first Friday of the month, the West Phoenix HM gang hosts a DIGI-Crop at Fire & Friends Z Art Studio and for April we designed 12×12 or 8×8 sheets to decoupage to a tile.  (Doesn’t sound like much but they look fabulous, trust me.)  The sheets came in well before the workshop and I took my client to pick out some tiles that would compliment his sheet desgins.  Then, we used May’s DIGI Crop time to “Modge-Podge” the sheets to the tiles and let them dry.

Well, the Mother’s Day Tiles turned out AWESOME!  Check it out.  This is one I made for my mom “from Haylee.”  The wording in the middle says, “When a child is born, so are grandmothers”  It’s one of the many quotes found in the Studio library.

Mother’s Day Tile from Haylee

 And here is the one I made from me…

The tile I made for my mom

I put them on the dining room table in the iron stands pictured and put a bouquet of pink roses in a vase between them the night before knowing that she would be up early on Mother’s Day and would see them.  What I DIDN’T expect was for her to start crying. 

I had gotten my mom cool stuff from fancy kitchen gadgets (she LOVES the Food Network) to jewelry and stationery but this simple item – that doesn’t have buttons or switches or smell nice – brought mom to tears!

See, my mom was one tough cookie.  She spent her youth keeping up with her three brothers and multitude of cousins who loved camping and fishing.  Even in my youth, I watched her as she never hesitated to climb trees to get the best fruit. She scaled steep drop offs and hills to get to the best (and often hard to get to) fishing spots then going out to the farthest rock on the beach.   As you can see from the pictures, we were pretty close and some of the best memories I have of her are when she used to pick me up from work for lunch and we’d just talk story and hang out at the beach behind my work.  We laughed joked, gossiped and when I left for college, she wrote me practically every day.  When her health started to deteriorate, it was hard… but even so, I rarely saw her cry…

We don’t do much the things we used to do together anymore, more than not it’s because she is too weak.  I miss her spunk and energy.  But most of all, I miss her. 

And when I found the graphic embellishment above that said “A Girl’s Best Friend is her MOTHER”  it was the perfect touch.  I couldn’t believe something so simple and from the heart touched her so deeply.  It is, by far, the best gift I ever gave her…

(At least , until I finish her book! ;o) )

May Madness

May is absolutely an exciting month!

My hubby and I celebrated a whopping 2 years of marriage on the 5th.  My wonderful hubby took me out to SKYE Restaurant As a fellow diner said from the next booth over at SKYE restaurant, “That’s nothing!” 

Sure. Maybe for her, but not to us. 

So far, every year has been is a magical one.   Ours is not an extraordinary story, just a special one.  Click on the picture to see the highlights of our wedding.  

Saying our vows

I love my husband and I am proud of him for working full time, being a full time daddy AND going to school to pursuing a degree in aerospace engineering.

Who is the Heritage Maker in your family?

I just got back from spending a few days with my husband’s family in Wyoming.  It wasn’t exactly a planned trip but any time spent with them was an opportunity not to pass up.

The first time I met Troy’s parents, I was already pregnant with our daughter.  Yes, not exactly the perfect circumstance to meet your future in-laws but they took me in with open arms… even after we broke the news to them.  They had reason not to like me, they had reason to be upset, they had opportunity to make me not feel welcome at the family reunion that Troy insisted I go with him to.  But they didn’t.  Instead, they enjoyed filling me in on the wonderful stories of the family.  And as I sat and listened as everyone shared their favorite memories and antics, I remember thinking these stories probably never grew old – especially the stories told by Dad.  To me, he was a natural storyteller; everyone listened intently as he spoke.  He had a story about everything and about everyone and it always drew a smile or laugh from people who heard them.

This past trip was to help Mom get some things done around the house.  To tear down the old shed. To knock down the broken and fallen fence.  To take care of things that Dad no longer had the energy to do…

Dad slept most of the day and and got up in the afternoon or evening and did not stay up for long.   This man, full of charisma and inner strength seemed strong to me but I know to the family who had heard his stories of carrying 5 gallon steel milk cans as if they were toys, this was not the man they were used to seeing.

Several times during our visit, Dad jumped into storytelling mode again, the rest of the family laughing and chiming in. Some stories I heard at that family reunion four years ago, some new.  All were as entertaining and captivating as the next.  I glanced over to my 3 year old daughter who was busy gabbering her own tales to no one in particular, oblivious to the events going on around her.  

I thought, “Will she get a chance to hear Gramps tell his stories?”

I hope so.

But if not, she can read them…

Deadline for Mother’s Day Orders

May 10 will be here before you know it and now is the time to get your gifts together.

Get a 7×5 or 7×10 storybook and receive a FREE greeting card.

What better way is there to say “I love you”? Contact me for more details.

Mother’s Day Deadlines

For all books – US only

• April 20 – ground
• April 24 – 2nd day
• April 27 – overnight

For all other products – US only

• April 27 – ground
• April 29 – 2nd day
• May 1 – overnight

All Products – Canada

• Recommended by April 13 (We do not guarantee delivery times for Canada.)

Create your book in a couple hours!

Create your book in a couple hours with templates! 

Have you checked out our template gallery yet?  I made this book in a few hours with the help of the wonderful templates created by other Heritage Makers like yourself!   See the original by Melissa Skocypec here:

http://heritagemakers.com/index.cfm?event=projectBrowse&projectID=65470a18-c154-4699-b5aa-5668c7d4b648&productId=5

I fell in love with this template and it was just what I was looking for – an Alphabet Book!  When you just want to focus on content and not designing, templates are the perfect solution.  I just changed a few things, popped my own pictures and words and I’m done!   Check it out and see how quick and easy it is to go from TEMPLATE to YOUR book.