It Takes Quite A Lot…

… to make me angry.

I stay out of politics.  I vote for the candidate who I feel will do the best by me and mine.  I ignore the bickering, mud-slinging childish antics politicians feel they have to do so someone votes for them.  I read agendas and look at laws.

However there was one comment that President Obama made that made me want to put my fist through my television.

"You didn't build that."

It's all over the news and he's wailing that he's been taken out of context.  Perhaps he was – but he didn't SAY it that way when he originally said it.  I can give the benefit of the doubt when it comes to "ohshit I didn't mean it that way"… but looking at laws, and how regulations that his regime have put in place have been destroying small businesses, even ones that aren't actually businesses yet, I am going to have to say "not this time".

I was OUTRAGED to hear those words, and the words that came after.  (By the way, what do "great teachers along the way" have to do with his backpedaling "I was talking about the roads!" remark?)

Yes, I had great teachers in my life.  Math, English, German, Music Theory, Violin, Viola, Alto-Clarinet, Shop (I will never forget the smell of burning plastic from 6th grade, the wood from 7th, and metals in 8th), Home-Ec (I still can only sort of sew a straight seam, and cooking taught me nothing I didn't learn from my parents on how to prepare food), Computers (Ahh, Basic coding, I will never forget you!), Chemistry, Biology, Physics (in which I learned how to hold a glass of water on a roller coaster and not get soaked!), Stage-Craft (after school in HS, and in college! I still love working with lighting over everything else, though building sets is very satisfying when you see the final product!), and of course I had crappy teachers, like my orchestra/choir director in college who told me I sucked, after driving through a snowstorm to get to rehearsal to be the only viola that showed up, on crutches from a hair-fracture in my foot… and of course the teacher I had for Microsoft Office that same year who conveniently lost an entire box of floppy disks because I did my homework while she taught the seniors (older people who were newer to Windows 95/98 at the time, not college seniors) how to use the Start button in Windows.  Or the English teacher in HS who failed half his class, honor students and all, because he felt like it.  Or the History teacher who was finally fired after sexually assaulting several generations of female students, including giving them better grades for wearing revealing clothing.

Not a single teacher that I EVER had told me anything about jewelry, crafts, or turning a hobby into a business.

I never LEARNED to make jewelry. I taught myself.  I took tips and hints from online guides, sure, but they only improved techniques I did the hard way.  When I got an idea, I spent yards upon yards of practice wire to learn how to do it.

Business model? Err…  I'm still learning that, seeing as my state wants more than I make to register as a business, so I remain a hobby-level seller until my sales bring in the money I need to register – and I'll register after Obama is out of office, no matter how long that takes, so all of his small-business killing regulations are gone with him – so perhaps I can actually AFFORD to be a business instead of being regulated out of business before I even get started.

That brings me to funding.  I initially spent $50 on my supplies.  I make a sale, I get new/more supplies.  When my mother wants asks me to have something made for her, she buys the supplies, and tells me to keep what's left since she can't use them.  My jewelry FUNDS my jewelry.  I spend nothing that I have not already made.  If it is not in my hands, I don't spend it.  No sales = no new supplies, unless it's from gifted cash (birthday and Christmas alike).

My only "help" has been my cheering section of friends and family.  Does that mean they are creating my jewelry? Does that mean I owe what little successes I have to THEM, when it has been my hands, my mind and my heart creating the jewelry I sell?

I use no government funding, no bank loans, no outside sources.

I am offended, and I stand offended for each and every person I have featured, past, present and future.  We make things with OUR OWN HANDS, and we're now being told, we didn't build that.

I'm sorry, Mr. President, but I stand with that man in Savannah, GA, where my father bought lumber from on several occasions (http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/08/01/georgia-businessman-posts-sign-after-didnt-build-that-debate/)

I am building something from scratch that probably will do very little for me while I work my rear-end off for many years.
I'm building what I hope will be a blooming small-business in hand-crafted jewelry.

I. I. I.

Not the government.

I.

I won't tell our Commander in Chief to kiss my ass, however.  I am tempted to say something much stronger.

Instead, I will just continue as I am, and know that it was MY HANDS that built my business when it catches on, if it catches on.

Yes, Mr. President.

Yes, WE DID build that.  And you will just have to live with the fact that YOU didn't have a hand in it.