I’ve been selling jewellery through a direct sales company for almost 70 days now.  I never would have conceived, six months ago, that I would even attend a jewellery party, much less sell at one.  But circumstances have an interesting way of changing one’s point of view.  As a writer, I’ve struggled for the last two years to earn a few bucks.  It has not been a fruitful endeavour in the monetary department, but I’m determined to keep muddling through.  And that’s where the jewellery came in.

I considered getting a full time job working in an office like I’d done before I had my three boys.  Of course, I would have to virtually give up on my writing dreams completely.  That would certainly make me miserable.  Then came the opportunity to sell jewellery at parties in the evening.  I could think of worse after-hours work for a woman.  And I realized, sometimes a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do. 

That’s why I love this photo of my grandma.  It was taken in 1986 (I was 14 years old at the time).  She is trying on a fur coat at the Eaton’s Fur Salon at Sherway Gardens where she worked as a salesperson.  I remember visiting her there, among all the luxury furs, not too far from the display of wigs.  It seemed a cool job to a young teen, but now I know she likely did it more out of necessity than desire.  Today, if my grandma wasn’t so afflicted with Alzheimer’s, I’d ask her why she sold furs and what was it like?  But I think I know what her answer would be.  “It was a job,” she’d probably say then she’d dispense the same advice she’d always given her daughters and, certainly, applied to herself:  ”You do your duty.” 

And sometimes that means selling fur coats in the 80′s.  And sometimes that means selling jewellery in 2010.