Some of you may have noticed a lack of gall bladder discussion the last couple of weeks. I got laid off from work 8/22 and have been busy trying to establish myself at home. That, and I've been working on starting a business. Right now I'm making wedding jewelry and some knitted items, but I hope to add church vestments, religious jewelry and regular jewelry in the future. My biggest hinderance in making church vestments (and maybe a wedding dress or two) is that I don't have enough room at home to sew on that kind of scale. I have room in the upstairs of our barn-garage, but it needs to be finished out since it's not sealed and the glass is out of window. My dad can help us build it out (he is also a licensed electrician now, so he can wire the upstairs too), but I'm going to have to put the money together for supplies first. Even assuming I can get almost everything I need at the Habitat for Humanity ReStore (check out Habitat's website for
locations; it's like a thrift store for building materials), I still figure I might need upwards of $1,000. That price has to include a space heater and a window A/C unit too.
Anyways, I'm plugging along with the jewelry on the kitchen table. I just put 5 things up for sale last night on Etsy and I sold two and have an inquiry about a third! In one day! I'm very excited. I've always loved making things and maybe now is my chance. I was already planning on going into business for myself because rumor had it at work that our office was going to be moving to a more remote section of town, which would have made my commute too long anyways. But then I got laid off instead. So the business thing has started a few months earlier than I was anticipating, but I kind of took it as a sign, you know? A friend of my parents' had found a piece of land where we were thinking of moving too and we were scheduled to go look at it, although I was having second thoughts about buying land. I knew if we bought the land, we couldn't live on just my husband's income and if I lost my job, I would have to work at least part-time somewhere to have a guaranteed income. Well, the day we were going to go look at it was the day I got laid off. I wanted a sign about whether we should go forward with land or I should go forward with my business and I feel like I got it. We canceled our trip to go look at it. I'm hoping that these fast sales is also a sign that I'm going to do good in business! I'd like to be so successful one day that I can turn my website, photographing and bookkeeping over to my husband and contract out a re-enactor friend to do a lot of the sewing and I can make jewelry to my heart's content. That's what I would like best of all!
The benefits of working at home have already paid off. Apparently Stuart and I got some sort of stomach bug yesterday. He was complaining of D when he got home, but thought it was from eating too much spicy stuff lately. But then I got up in the middle of the night with terrible, terrible sharp gas pains. This was a very different kind of pain than what I had when I had gall bladder attacks, and different from pains I get when my guts are all messed up. I have newfound sympathy for people who bloat and swell up with gas regularly; I could feel my belly swelling out and getting harder as the pain increased. What's worse, I couldn't pass gas. I finally had a bowel movement, then had watery D several times. I tried laying down on the couch, but the pain started building again and I had to go back and have some more watery D. After that bout, though, I was finally able to lay down on the couch and stay down. I was so tired I fell asleep on the couch and didn't get up until Stuart was leaving for work. I was able to go to bed and get a few more hours of sleep. My guts were still touchy this morning--I didn't even eat anything until 1pm, but had watery D again before then (I hardly ever have gut problems before I eat)--but because I am working from home now I can work on the computer or make jewelry and get up and go potty for however long I need to without any worries. If I had still been at the office, I would have had to have taken the day off. But I got a lot of work done at home despite my gut problems. So I can actually do more from home!
Speaking of food, it's suppertime. I'm hungry from not eating much today and I think I'm more or less straightened out now. Time to go cook something.