All my life, I had worked for someone else. When I decided to start my own business, I was currently working for Bumble Bee Seafoods, the tuna company in San Diego, California. It was the mid 1990's. My hubby was selling real estate. My job was becoming more and more stressful, as I managed the consumer affairs department with all its complaints that came into the company. Negativity surrounded me daily. One day, my boss had asked us all to write goals for ourselves.....so I did. I wanted to create my own business -- one I was in control of, set my own rules, hours, and could personally run, giving awesome customer service. I loved antiques, so what better place to start.

After some years in the antiques business, I grew tired of lugging all the ceramics, glass and other heavy items to shows and packing it up to ship from my online business with Ebay. Ebay became less desirable. So my business faltered.

At about the same time, we lost our only child, our son Ryan. Life now had lost all its joy and happiness. My husband and I became distant. It was 2006, his real estate business declined, soon after the economy tanked, real estate sales were nearly non-existant. It seemed like everything had taken a turn for the worse, and so did our desire to help ourselves. Nothing is more heart breaking to a parent than losing a child and so nothing in life mattered anymore. Depression set in for both of us. We struggled with debt and making our house payment. For the first time in our lives, we couldn't pay our bills! We struggled for years with depression. Then one day, while I was managing a local antique store in town, I decided it was time to live life again.....I don't know exactly what triggered it, but I found my desire to live again through my jewelry business. I love jewelry, vintage and antique jewelry primarily. I started educating myself and collecting. I found I had a real eye for it. Got back on the computer and started selling again, along with doing shows throughout California and Nevada and selling in the store I was managing. Eventually, my husband got in on the act, woke up and decided he wanted to join me. So we began our business together and started the process of getting back on our feet.

Then, one day a friend introduced me to Etsy and it has been a God Send. I love this site and the people in it. Etsy is so helpful and forward thinking. It is not like any other website business I have seen online. It has afforded my husband and I a living and business that we are very proud of. I quit my job as manager and worked full time building my Etsy business. I never get tired of it, and enjoy jumping out of bed each morning and taking my long commute to my office down the hall to sit down at my computer and start selling. My husband is my partner in life and in business and we work out of our home. We also have a space in a local shop called "Whiskey Flat" in Kernville, California. Hubby likes being with people rather than working on the internet, but I love both, so we make a great team. Then most weekends we are traveling off to some antique show or street fair to sell our wares. Or, leaving on a buying trip. I'm IN LOVE with our business!!!! It has given us the desire to succeed again and enjoy life once more. Through all our struggles, losing our son, getting into debt and almost losing our home, and almost losing each other, we are now on the road to success and recovery. We saved our home, sold it, got rid of all our debt, moved to the mountains which we love (almost as much as we love each other) and we have an up and coming thriving business......we love our life and each other very much.

As a friend of mine always says, life is good, and getting better! Thank you Etsy!!!!