I have been debating if I should write this post.  Will I open up a can of negative worms if I do?  I want Refunk My Junk to be a positive place to come, get inspired, share tips, tricks, and ideas, and be a forum for DIY opinions and products knowledge.  But owning your own business and DIYing furniture is not all roses and fairy wings.  Sometimes it’s ugly, nasty, and just plain scary. 

This past Saturday I held a workshop and my camera was stolen by a student in the workshop.  Yes, my brand new Nikon D5100 with a special lens, professional memory card, and awesome chevron camera strap.  I set the camera down prior to the class starting and by the time 10am rolled around, we started doing class introductions, it was gone. 

My Mom felt like it was stolen.  I wanted to believe that I had just set it down in a weird place.  So I proceeded to tear everything apart for the entire 4 hours of the class, attempting to act calm in front of everyone, while holding back tears.  Deep down I knew it was stolen.  But I didn’t want to believe that someone would do that to me.  Especially someone who took a class from me.  When someone can afford to pay almost $200.00 for a furniture painting workshop it’s not like they are from the low-end of society.  As soon as everyone left I proceeded to cry on my Mom’s shoulder in disbelief.  I still didn’t want to believe it was true.

I decided to file a police report in case the person who stole it tried to pawn it.  That way the serial numbers would be on file.  My Mom had her suspicions of who in the class took it.  I just wasn’t sure and still didn’t want to believe it.  But when we gave that person’s name to the officer, they pulled her criminal record, and there was the proof in black & white.  She had felony charges dating back to 1975 until 2003 of burglary, theft, and credit card fraud.  I was shocked. 

This woman looked me in the eye, stole my camera, and then proceeded to sit in the front row and take a 4.5 hour furniture painting class from me!

I have a picture of the person, their address, phone number, and even text messages from this woman.  I am not going to post them because this is not intended to publicly embarrass her.  (But she is in this Facebook photo I posted on my page.  Can you guess who it is?  Nope.  Didn’t think so.)

Yes, I hope she gets caught.  Yes, I pray I get my camera back.  I hope she reads this post, feels terrible, and returns it to me.  But I am not trying to publicly humiliate her. 

I am writing this so that you know that I will not let this person steal anything more than my camera.  It won’t steal the joy I get from teaching classes.  I didn’t let it steal my Mother’s Day.  I won’t let her steal my belief that most people are good. 

But I will keep my eyes more open in the future.  So, when you see my blog, and the photos are from my iPhone and not beautiful, professional looking, magazine worthy photos, you know why. 

I have to save up another $1000.00 to buy another camera.  It will take me some time but I won’t let her, and her bad decision, ruin this blog or my business. 

Have you been jacked by someone too?  Was it hard to not allow them to steal your joy too? Tell me I’m not alone and join my pity party by leaving a comment.   No more negative posts, I promise, I just had to get it out and I knew ya’ll would understand.