Hello and welcome to my new blog! This blog represents a new chapter in my life. A new beginning if you will. My journey to this point has been a crazy one with lots of twists, turns and bumps in the road. Those of you who know me may know that I was once the owner of a successful on-line bridal jewelry company. This great little business was something I was extremely proud of. It was my creative outlet, my source of income and like a baby to me. Then, I had a real baby. My beautiful little boy was born in January of 2008. I took only 6 weeks off before I returned to my business. Luckily I worked from home and had great support so it was manageable. Stressful, but manageable. Then less than a year and a half later my world was turned upside down. My little boy wasn't meeting some of his milestones and was later diagnosed with PDD-NOS a form of autism spectrum disorder.
My entire world came to a halt and the path that I had carefully laid for myself became unclear. I knew that things had to change. I started reading every book I could get my hands on about autism and learned that it was treatable. There were things that you could do and that some kids even recovered, losing their diagnosis completely. This gave me hope but I knew there was a big hill to climb and much work ahead of us. It was then that I decided to close my beloved business to focus on my son's care. It was a very difficult decision. I felt like I had lost a part of myself. But I kept moving forward. I continued to read, found some great doctors and therapists and began seeing some positive changes in my son. With the help of my husband we kept moving forward, trying new things and little by little Tyler began to improve. We are still on that journey and have high hopes for our little man.
Tyler, August 2010
But then there was me, missing my creative outlet and feeling like my life was out of balance. But what could I do? There simply wasn't enough time to reopen the business but I needed something. I went downstairs to my studio, which was disorganized and covered in dust. As I began to reorganize my beads, bracelets, earrings and necklaces began to take shape. Before I knew it I had a small stash of jewelry. Not bridal jewelry but wild, bright, fun everyday jewelry. But what's more, I felt a sense of balance and peace within myself.
Emerald City Earrings I found part-time daycare for my son which I knew would benefit him as well as me. I played around with my beads when I had the time and each time I did I felt a little more like me. The old me, before any of this happened. I knew this was something I had to continue for myself and my sanity. And so, Lisalu Jewels was born. I hired a fantastic web designer Emily from Emmarie Web Design to design my new look and here we are! A fun logo and a great new website!
My hope with this blog is to share my love of beads and jewelry with you and to take you along for this crazy "stay at home autism mom/business owner" ride.
There's a quote that I love in my sidebar:
"Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, it's about learning to dance in the rain."
Let's dance baby, let's dance.
