TRADE-A-HOLICS SPRING TRADE N STAY

This is my very first exposure to this type of team event on ETSY and it soooo much FUN FUN FUN! I was a little late getting started today and yesterday, still sufferings a bad case of the "worn outs" from hustling to post eleven new items before the whole thing started. My friend who encouraged me to finally open a shop had just raved about these trades she was making and how she loved them. As usual, I was the procrastinator for fear I would do something wrong. Well, I'm a believer now. It is a great way to familiarize myself with other vendors and their wares. It is a super way to meet other Etsians and make friends. AND most of all...I am getting some dynamite trades to use in my work and for gifts.

Alot of people just won't trade with me because they cannot use what I make...but likewise, I have had offers for trades from people that I cannot find a use for their products either. I have learned not to take any of this personally, just politely decline the trade at this time, leaving the door open for the possibility in the future.

My experience with ETSY in the two and a half months I have been selling with them is that they are a great gathering of artists! The company, I believe it is connected to Ebay, offers real genuine assistance to all of us if we care to use the tools they provide.

I had planned on expanding out to other venues for selling. I even have unopened shops on Artfire and 1000 Markets. Etsy activity has kept me sooooo occupied, I just cannot find the time to even set up in the other venues.

Then my ability to multi-task and versatility factors have sunk way LOW since I took on the obligations of a FULL TIME CAREGIVER to my mother who is now being tended by hospice...but still remains my sole responsibility in the home. I don't believe how much I have "AGED" in the past seven years of service to her. My primary care physician, who I have had for over twenty years, explains to me all the time how caregivers end up in worse shape than their wards. He has watched my health deteriorate steadily since the onset of this new role of mine.

Then there is the "only child" factor.....AND that my only family aside from my mother, which is my children and grandchildren, are all located 2200 miles from here (Tucson,AZ) in Fayetteville, NC. I have seen my daughter and her family only once since moving back here, for 10 days.....my son and family, not at all.

Well, I really got off topic and into moaning and misery so think I will call it quits for tonight. I came on here because the ETSY site is shut down for maintenance for four hours or so. Guess I will do something I havent done in a long while and go play QWERTY on POGO Games...LOL!!

Goodnight from the desert............