Wow! It's been awhile!

INTRODUCING: The newest member of the family! Abigail Jane. Rachel and Larry had their third child on December 15th. She weighed almost 9 lbs! Isn't she a cutie? We were able to travel to their home and church for her baptism on the very next weekend.

If you've been to visit my Square Grammy Etsy shop lately, you may have noticed that it's empty. My life has interfered with my Etsy world for awhile, and I have decided to close it down indefinitely. My family and my job are my first priority, and Etsy is just more than I need right now. So the shop is in hibernation for the time being. Hopefully it'll be OK to just leave it empty for awhile, and maybe I can "wake" it up when I have more time again.

One of my big projects right now is making the crochet baptismal gown for our next grandbaby! John and Erika are expecting their first baby in March, and I am crocheting an exquisite gown for her baptism with teeny tiny stitches. Many hours of love are going into this project.

Along with that project, my best friend at school, Becky, is having a baby in April, and I have a blanket started for her. I want this to be a special blanket, not just "any" blanket. As you can see, I am busy with crochet projects - but not any for sale in Etsy right now.

All that, along with my church duties and school, are keeping me really occupied these days. I have a knitting group from the church that meets at my home every Thursday evening. I also have started a knitting/crocheting club after school on Wednesdays at school, and we have a nice group coming to that. It's been fun getting to know the girls in that club and teaching them how to make things. I also just got a new student from Mexico who speaks absolutely no English, so that has given me a new challenge. Those are the students who make me really feel needed! When they start to read and speak English, I see such great progress! That's when being a teacher is the most rewarding. Then when one of those students contacts you several years later and tells you how much you helped them, you realize how all that work that you did for them will affect them for all of their lives.

It's All About Sales!!!!

When you're in a business of any kind, it's a cut-throat world out there, right? You'll do anything for a buck! Well, if you've spent any time at all in the "Etsy World", you would know that the same holds true there. They have a lingo all their own, a completely foreign language to the uninitiated. There are "convos" and "teams" and "circles" and "favorites" and "treasuries" and "bogo" sales, and "tradeaholics" and much, much more. It really gets in your blood after a while, and you can spend hours online in this little realm. You make friends with people who have the same hobbies as you do from all over the world, and then again you might find out that someone in the very same city you live in has an Etsy shop, too! The Etsy community can become pretty self sufficient in and of itself, and protective of its members.

All this being said, I'd like to mention a little about something we women shoppers are all very familiar with in the world of buying and selling - SALES! I don't know about you, but when I go shopping, one of the first things I look for is the big SALE. As I started out with in this blog, we'll do anything for a buck - whether we're the buyer or the seller. As a shopper, I'll do almost anything to SAVE money. I go after the big SALE every time. And, as a shop owner, on ETSY that is, I will do anything for a buck by occasionally putting on a SALE. Right now, I've got a SUMMER SALE going on. I've reduced the price of some of my summer items in an effort to sell them. Take a look at my shop, see if there's something you like. Go to www.etsy.com/shop/thesquaregrammy.

I want to let you know about another BIG SALE that's going on right now, that is even bigger. My daughter's shop, www.etsy.com/shop/huggermugger is having a bogo sale on all of her hats. If you are like I was before, you might wonder what bogo is, so I'll tell you. BUY ONE, GET ONE FREE!!!! This one is really worth looking at. Rachel has crocheted some beautiful hats in all sizes, of some beautiful yarn. And she's selling them off, because she's adding to their family soon and for some strange reason she thinks she's going to be too busy for awhile to keep up her crocheted hats part of her shop. She will just keep her patterns. So she wants to sell down some of her wonderful inventory. This is a really great sale, folks. Do you see the picture of the lovely woman at the top of this blog entry? That's my beautiful daughter in one of her hats that is on sale RIGHT NOW! Don't miss your chance to get ready for the cold weather that will be here before you know it. You can buy one of these hats, and get any other hat in her shop of equal or lesser value FREE! She has baby hats, children's hats, adult hats, winter hats, summer beach hats, all sizes and shapes.

How can you miss a sale like this? You'll do anything for a buck, right?

Time to Dust Off the Old Blog

Okay, folks. The time has come to do some real writing. I have become inspired by a fellow Etsian, who is also a fellow teacher at my school; and also by my daughter who is also a fellow Etsian, to begin blogging again. Did you follow all those convoluted relationships? That's some real inspiration right there!

If my daughter, who has two little children and another on the way, has time to make things and blog and read and keep up an apartment, and get ready to move into a new house - well, then surely an old almost-60-year old Grammy of said daughter's children, who is on summer break from teaching, has time to dust off the computer keyboard and do some blogging.

Heretofore I have been blogging about anything and everything that comes to my mind. And with a mind like mine, that could be a very wide variety of anything, everything, and sometimes nothing. But I have decided to make this blog now mostly about my creative thoughts, especially what I have been doing for my Etsy Shop: TheSquareGrammy. Also, I will do as other Etsians do in their blogs - feature some of my favorite shops and people, etc., etc. For today, though, I think I'll just introduce a few of my newest items in my shop.

This week I've added 4 little whimsical embellishments or appliques to TheSquareGrammy. They measure an average of 3-4 inches wide, and can be used to spark up your clothing, beach bags, shoes, hats, or even just to set around in plants or on a bookshelf. The cute, summery smiley sunshine, purple octopus, golfish and ladybug are only $4 each or $7 if you buy 2 of them.

They're crocheted from regular yarn, and can be washed by hand.

Well, that's all for today, friends. I'm hoping to gain a few readers as time goes along. If you enjoy wandering along through my brain as I put my thoughts into words, please join me. I hope to be able to write informational, yet enjoyable blogs, that readers of different ages and interests will like to come back again and again to read. If you enjoy reading something or have a question, please leave me a comment!

I'm Back!

Kinda like a bad penny, I turn up every month or so to compose some more in my Blog. It's been such a busy month, I didn't even realize the month had gone by.

My work has been so busy at school. I've been doing the annual ESL testing, and it's a new test mandated by the state. Since we can only test 22 students at a time this year, and (also new this year) they have to be tested by their ability levels, I had to do 15 different testing sessions of 75 minutes each, singlehandedly. So it has taken me 3 whole weeks to do it. This to the detriment of my regular classes, which were on-again, off-again. I also have had to test each of my 85 ESL students individually on their speech, which takes 15-20 minutes apiece. I still have 2 full days of that. Whew! The students have been tested in reading, listening, writing and speech. I think they'll be happy to get back to their "regularly scheduled programming". I know I sure will.

As you may or may not know, I have started my own ETSY shop. Go to www.thesquaregrammy.etsy.com to see it. I call it TheSquareGrammy in honor of the Grammy Square, oops, I mean the Granny Square. But also, mostly in honor of my own sweet grandson who now, I can proudly say DOES call me "Grammy"!!! Here he is playing at the beach in the Bahamas, on a cruise that he and his family and my dearest husband and mother-in-law were able to take. Of course I had to miss it because of my lovely job :-(

The weather has made a complete turnaround in NC this week. We had a snow day on Monday, with temperatures in the single digits. And today, Saturday, it's close to 80 degrees!!! People are out in shorts and tank tops mowing their lawns! Daffodills and crocuses are blooming. And the middle school kids at Northview Middle School are getting antsy to be outside instead of cooped up in school all day. I can't say that I blame them, how about you?

By the time I think about writing here again, it'll probably be full-blown springtime! Talk to y'all next time!