2011 Year End Review

As I look back on what this year has brought me, I find myself filled with grief, sorrow and pain.  But I am also filled with gratitude and hope.  

I can remember when Liliana and I moved back to the States in May.  It was one of the hardest decisions of our lives.  We were having such a hard time in El Salvador and Eduardo and my relationship had just begun to start it's healing process after a rough few months.  We mutually decided it was best for the family, but it wasn't without rivers of tears on my part.  

I can still remember how I felt when I arrived.  I was so lost and so vulnerable.  I knew coming back was the right thing, but I didn't know who I was anymore.  I had lost so much of myself to El Salvador, yet I had also gained more as person than I realized at the time.  

I wasn't easy to be around in those first few months.  I struggled with my decision and my loneliness.  Liliana and I both had our bouts of being sick, what I call "detoxing from El Salvador."  

I finally got back to working on my Cultured Veggie business and my Esperanza Imports business and I delve myself in completely to my goals of making money and supporting our family.  

I formed some great relationships over the summer working the farmer's markets.  It was my little family for a while and where I most felt at home.  I can honestly say I love my work and wish I was still doing it now.  

The fall and now winter brought some opportunities for my import business, but that has now dropped away after the holidays.  I am now jobless and almost moneyless, but not quite yet!  I'm still hanging in there.  As my stepdad recently said to me, "You aren't going to go hungry here!"  And I'm thankful for that.

Throughout this year, I have had great opportunities to grow as a person.  I have experienced pain beyond belief and I have risen above it all.  I have found strengths within myself I knew not existed.  And most importantly I have grown as a mother.  

The most important relationship besides my husband is Liliana.  She is whom I wake up next to every morning and whom I go to bed with every night.  I play with her and laugh with her and watch her grow by leaps and bounds every day.  I'm constantly in awe at this little human being that has consumed my life in the best possible way.  She is my light in the darkness.  She shows me that through it all, love conquers.  

I am blessed that I have had the opportunity to continue to live my dream, which is to stay at home with my daughter.  Absolutely nothing else brings me a greater joy than being with my baby girl throughout my days.  (even when it's not so easy and I'm desperate for some time alone with adults).

And even though my husband is thousands of miles away and we have not physically lived together in 7 1/2 months, he is in my heart and thoughts all the time.  And I have to say that this time apart has made us grow as a couple in so many ways.  I'm grateful for the relationship we have and how much we are both willing to continue to grow together and make things work.  

So I'm not really into the whole New Year's Resolution thing.  It may be a downer, but I'm just not.  All I want is a New Year's prayer.  I'm praying that 2012 brings more peace and joy to my family than ever before.  I pray my husband can come home soon and we can be together as a family the way we have always imagined.  Amen!!

Happy New Year's to all my blogging friends :)  You are all in my thoughts tonight!  (especially since I won't be drinking any champagne)

A Summer of Markets!

Most of our summer here in Indy has been spent focusing on Cultured Veggies and Esperanza Imports.  When Liliana and I are not making veggies, I am at a farmer's market selling them.  Right now I have 2 markets I am doing each week and I'm trying to get into a couple more.  I mostly focus on selling CV's, but at one of the markets I get to have a small table of my Artisan stuff.  It's pretty fun.  

I have done a couple other fairs/festivals and have a couple more scheduled for August.  I'm really glad that this is how I've been blessed with being able to work :)  I'm not a 9-5 kind of gal and I insist on spending my days with Liliana so it works out perfectly.  I hope to get into even more markets before the end of summer, but we'll see what happens!

Farmers Market Fun!

Last weekend I started my season of Farmers Markets here in Indy.  Last week I did the Binford Market Craft Day which they hold once a week.  I took all of my artisan stuff from El Salvador and Guatemala.  I did well and had a blast.  This week I took my Cultured Veggies and a small amount of jewelry.  It went really well despite the rain that creeped in at times.  I talked for about 3 hours straight about cultured foods and the importance of them in our diets.  I also got to share about my beautiful beadwork out of Guatemala that everyone seems to love!  The market master, Jane, even commented at the end of the day how impressed she was by the amount of people and interest at my tent :)

I had forgotten how much I really love to do Farmers Markets.  I used to do the Trader's Point Market before we left for El Salvador.  I'm not doing that one anymore, but am loving the ones I'm doing.  It is a lot of work and I always get nervous that I won't remember to take everything, but it always ends up different and great no matter what happens.  I LOVE getting to chat and share with people and make new acquaintences.  Although I'm working, I feel like what I'm really doing is sharing my passions.  And now at the Binford Market on Saturdays they are letting me share BOTH my passions and I am so grateful for that.

This Thursday I will be starting the Abundant Life Farmers Market off of 82nd and Hague just east of Castleton.  It seems like a really good market and I'm looking forward to it.  I will just be selling my Cultured Veggies there, but may ask about bringing some jewelry as well.  We will see.

I have also started a Facebook page this week for Kelsey's Cultured Foods that you can find here.  And I also have my Esperanza Imports page you can find here.  I will be updating the pages with new products and locations I will be with various events.  I'm really excited.

Farmers Market season is in high gear, so get out there wherever you may live and support your local farmers and artisans.  There's something about buying from the small businesses that may you feel better than buying all the commercial foods.  If you've never been to a Farmers Market, than what are you waiting for?  Get out there and check em' out.  It's heaps of fun :)

Big Decisions

I have a hard time with big decisions.  Little decisions are one thing, but the bigger they get the more stressed out I get.  I think so much my head wants to explode.  The past week Eduardo and I have been dabbling in the idea of Liliana and I returning to the States for a while.  We have many reasons for this, but I was really scared to actually take the jump and commit to it.  I can't even remember what the thing was that finally got me, but I woke up one morning a couple days ago and just knew we had to go.  I talked with Eduardo about it and he was supportive.  Not that he wants us to leave, but he has been saying how he would feel more comfortable with us going because of all the violence here at the moment.

The next part of commiting to this venture was buying the plane tickets.  That is the most stressful thing I ever do. Having to commit to a day and time and shelling out so much money scares me.  But I took the leap of faith and did it.  Today I bought our plane tickets.  We will be flying out of Guatemala as it's significantly less expensive.  I'm excited about it because we will go the day before and head to Antigua, which we LOVE.  I can also buy all the artisan stuff for selling in the States.  A lot of the bead jewelry I buy is made in Antigua and we're excited to meet with our friend we met there who owns a store.

But I'm also sad.  This is never what I intended to happen.  I never wanted to leave Eduardo alone here and I never wanted to separate him from Liliana.  I have to admit I start crying every time I'm alone for even a minute.  It's breaking my heart, but I know it must be done.

I can make money at the farmers markets through the summer selling my Cultured Veggies and selling my Artisan crafts.  I hope to make money to take care of things like going to the doctor if I need to and seeing a therapist, which will help our hardship case as well.   But I also have to pay back the plane tickets and still buy the next round so we'll see.

I don't have an exact plan, but maybe it's better that way.  We will stay with my mom unless it doesn't work out and then I have a back of plan of staying with my best friend.  My thought is we will stay for 2 months, but I'm open to more or less time depending on how everything goes and how Liliana handles it all.

So we leave this Wednesday coming up!  We will head to Guatemala on Tuesday.  Since we are leaving before Eduardo and my anniversary we will have a day to celebrate just the 3 of us.  And then we are on to Indianapolis.  Well first Ft. Lauderdale, then Atlanta and then Indianapolis.  It will be crazy, but I'm praying we make it through.

I will write more about all this and our reasoning, but wanted to share our big decision with you all!

Preparing for our Upcoming Trip

So Liliana and I are headed back to the States in 2 weeks.  Now that it's reached the 2 week mark, I'm starting to get nervous AND excited.  We will be staying with one of my best friends, Sara, and her 2 children.  She has a daughter that is a few months older than Liliana and a 4-year old.  I am so grateful Sara is letting us stay with them and most of my excitement about this trip now is because we are staying with them and Sara and I will get to see each other so much.  It will be great.

I planning on making my Cultured Veggies for Cleansing Waters the first week or so.  It's going to be crazy, but I'm determined to make it work this time.  I need to make about 10 batches, which is roughly 120-140 pint and quart size jars.  I'm creating my list of flavors and ingredients I will need to buy.  I wish I had the money to pre-order the jars because they are hard to come by in Indy and it's a lot of driving around and searching for them.  But I don't, so I will deal with it.

My mom has given me her dates of when she is not working so she will spend those days with Liliana.  It's much easier for me to make the Veggies without having to entertain a toddler as well.  Though I will have days when Liliana will be "helping" me and I must say the age she is at right now is a good one because she likes to "help" me with everything, especially cooking.

I will be putting up a display of Esperanza Imports items at Cleansing Waters for the weeks that I am there as well.  Hopefully with the traffic my mom gets in her office, they can sell a bunch of stuff for me.  That would be a godsend!  I'm trying to stay very positive about everything.  I will have to sort through and put labels on everything the first day I get there as well as shopping for the jars and veggies, but I don't want to think about all that or I will get totally overwhelmed!

I also recently found out that the Binford Farmers Market indoor market will start on April 2nd and I am planning to be able to stay until then and not pass up the opportunity to take my Esperanza Imports stuff there.  I have done several markets there last summer and winter and they have said they would welcome me back anytime, so I'm going to do it and sell, sell, sell.

For now I will do what I can from here.  Any organizing and list making I can do, I am attempting to do now.  I've already started packing bags and am taking back anything we aren't necessarily using here as well.  Since all my Import stuff is already back in the States, I don't have to take much.  I know whenever we end up leaving El Salvador there will be a lot to go back, so if we are not using it now, it's going this time.  I'm also planning to take back my food processor.  It's a larger one than my mom has and I just plain like it a lot more.  The Veggies seem to go a lot faster with mine.  It's really heavy and I will have to cusion it a lot, but I'm sure I can do it.

I'm staying positive about this trip and am trying to only send out positive vibes to the Universe.  We certainly don't need the negative energy that has been around us the last 2 visits.  It's just not fun!  So we want to be happy and have fun.  And let's not forget our purpose, which is to make MONEY!  I was going to say I really need money to put food on the table.  It's been a pretty sad state of affairs here the past few weeks.  But I don't want to limit myself.  I would love to make enough money to be able to take the kids somewhere fun, do fun things.  We are in El Salvador for goodness sake!  I want to experience more of the beauty this country has to offer.  Unfortunately no matter where you live, things require money.  So I'm opening myself up to receiving all the bounty that the Universe has to offer!