It's about time...

Hi all.

I'm going to take a quick break from all the project showcase in the blog and share something personal.

My husband has been working (pretty much all of his adult life) in the family business. It is a machine shop that his grandfather started in the 1940's. The business has maintained a certain stability up until the housing market crashed about three years ago. Hence, the reason why I have my part time job in retail.

Anyways, we rode out the "nation's financial crisis" all this time, hoping that we will survive the troubles and still come out "alive". But unfortunately it was not the case.

As of tomorrow (March 31st) Tolman machining will be officially closed for business. My husband, his brother and their dad made this decision in February so we've known for a while but I felt like there's no need to talk about it in the blog up until today.

I know that my family and non scrappy friends visit this blog for family updates and I thought that it was necessary to add this so that they can know where we stand.

What now? you ask. Well Mitch and I have some plans. A major one will be to leave California. It's a tough decision for us to make but with our "security blanket (the shop)" gone, there's really nothing here that can help us continue to provide a good life for our family.

So now we are in the process of getting our home ready for sale and looking for careers that both Mitch and I can do when we move. He has plans of going back to school and I (while my heart still wants me to stay home) will probably find a career that will be good for me and the kids. I'm thinking something in education so that I'd be around when the kids are home.

Another reason why I finally decided to talk about the "big elephant in the room" is that if I started to become silent in the blog, you will have some idea on what's pulling me away.

But know this..... I won't stop crafting even through the transitions. I have commitments to make and also this is where I can keep my sanity. Just the other night, I was feeling very overwhelmed with all of the things I needed to do. I listed all my tasks and yet the feeling was still there. So what did I do? I put the pen and paper down and walked towards my scrapbook table and in a couple of hours made a page and a couple of cards. It got me to relax a little and take my mind off of the "stresses of the day". Just one of those things that makes papercrafting even more important in my life.

So that's it. Thanks for letting me share and till next time.

Grace