So after Rosie and her family left Florida, I felt as though I was punched in the stomach! I started questioning why I wasn't following God's plan for my life. I let things get in the way of what He wanted me to do with my life. Barb and I were heading down to a Panthers game in Miami, we had just left the Dolphins game and I was changing in the car. Before I could talk to Barb, she said to me, you know, if you want this business to go you will have to take the reins. Little did she know that is exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to move all the equipment to my house so I could spend more time on the business. So that is exactly what happened! I started to work on creating the line that Barb and I had put down on paper. I would go out to the garage and work with the kiln, it was challenging figuring out how long I should fire a piece in the kiln but I worked through it and was able to get the line done.

I started to show the line to friends and had some success with that, which kept me going. I also worked part time with my friend Irving and helped him with events for charity. It got me to thinking we should show the line at these charity events. Irving was gracious enough to allow me to do this and we had some positive feedback as well as sales. However, what I kept hearing is I love your designs but I am not a sports fan......I truly believe that that is how God got me back into the jewelry business was through my love of sports. When I had moved back from NYC, I had said I would never work in the jewelry industry again. Never say never! So I decided to change direction of the designs, it was in February of 2002. I had always loved Swarovski crystal, in fact I had recently met a family member of the Swarovski family at an event at Mira Lago in Palm Beach. I was assisting the photographer and had to take down the names of the VIP's, and a woman walked up and said Swarovski. I looked at her and said "Like the crystal! I love Swarovski, it is the most beautiful crystal!" She said "Thank you, it is my family." So I spelled out the name and I showed it to her and she told me that everything was correct except I forgot the v since it was silent! So, I decided to design a bracelet and a pair of earrings for my dear friend Kriste for her birthday. Let's just say the flood gates were open!

I honestly thought that we would be selling to boutique's, I mean this is what we had done in New York and I still had my contacts. So I reached out to a friend who has stores in Pensacola and she gave me a name of a rep in the state of Florida. We spoke on the phone and she just so happened to be coming to the Miami mart in a couple of weeks. I headed down to the mart with about 25 different designs to show her my work. She was a lovely woman and when she looked at the jewelry she really liked it. She asked me to send her the pieces to Atlanta for the show there and she would show it to her clients, I was more than happy to do so thinking "Here we go, we are on our way!" Boy was I wrong!!! I followed up with this lady, I am sorry I forget her name. I kept leaving her messages and never heard back from her. In the interim, I was showing my designs at charity events and they were selling really well. I was finally able to talk to the rep and the first words out of her mouth were "I hate having to say this" I told her it was okay, whatever she had to say to say it. I knew with her not calling me back she didn't have good feedback for me and I was right. I told her no worries, this news isn't going to effect me and I knew that God had a different plan for the business. We as a company made the decision to continue the path that was opening up for us and that was to raise money for charity. We also decided to give a minimum of 20% of every sale to charity.