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!

From Beginning to End

Can you believe that my last post was at the beginning of this school year, and now I'm facing the last week of school? The year has literally flown, galloped, sped, and whatever other form of quickly moving triteness I can't think of at the minute, by! It has gone by so quickly that I totally forgot to blog! I guess that shows that blogging has not yet become a habit for me - obviously. Maybe I'll do better this summer. Maybe / maybe not! That remains to be seen.

In this year I have seen so many wonderful events - a new, beautiful granddaughter was born, and last week I got to know her so much better when sweet Mercedes and her mommy and brother came to visit us. She completely lit up my life with her winsome smiles, while little Daniel entertained us constantly with his shenanigans and fun-loving personality. We played Thomas trains until the last chug-chug-chug echoed down the hall into bed. And we read Pooh Bear every night so he could have "Sweet Dreams" about honey and other lovely Grammy thoughts.

Of course another recent highlight for this proud Mom is John's graduation from Harvard Law with his JD and in the top 10% of his class, yet. Not so long ago he was a tiny baby like Mercedes, and I also remember reading the Pooh books to him ad infinitum. Those Pooh books have turned now into Law books, of which he has shelves and shelves, that are now being packed into boxes to be moved to St. Louis for his first job as a clerk for a Federal Court Judge.

Homeschooling both John and Rachel has been so rewarding! They were both such quick learners, and usually did their very best. The students I now teach are often a different type of learners. I face bigger challenges now, and sometimes bigger disappointments. The rewards are also different, but as the end of the year approaches, and I choose the recipients of my awards, I realize that there are many rewards to this job, as well. When I see understanding dawn on the face of a Hispanic student as I explain the concept of apostrophe's, I feel rewarded. When a student returns from the High School and thanks me for helping them learn to read, because it made it possible for them to make it through the difficult subjects in High School, I get tears in my eyes. I could enumerate many more rewards, but space limits me. Parents shaking my hand with broad smiles but unable to speak my language except to say "Gracias"; 9th graders emailing me just to say "Hi" and that they miss me; students dropping by my room at all times of the day just to say, "Hola!" Little things like that speak volumes to me of the love my students and I share with each other, and that is the best reward any teacher can hope for.

Back in School ...

Summer has come and gone. I was home by myself only 2 1/2 weeks. No wonder it flew by so fast! I had a nice week in Iowa with my brothers and much of the rest of my family at a reunion. Then much of July spent with Dano and his mom at our house, some of that in the mountains. The last of my vacation I enjoyed with our kids in Connecticut and Boston. What a wonderful time we had together!

Now it's already been 3 weeks back in school! 33 left ! Just like a teacher, already counting the weeks till we get out!! Actually I have a great bunch of kids this year (so far), and I'm enjoying it a lot. BUT, this time of the year, ESL teachers get inundated with paperwork, and I mean COVERED UP! I didn't leave school before 6:00 all last week, except for Friday, when a friend finally forced me to go out for a snack at 4:00. There's light at the end of the tunnel, though, and once I get all the parent letters out, and the files in order for my 85 kids, maybe I'll get to go home earlier. My little Mexicans and Hmong are really sweethearts for the most part :-)

I've now had 3 sales in my Etsy shop - WAAAAY behind Huggermugger and almost everybody else I know in Etsyland. But, it's a nice hobby, anyway. I just don't seem to have time to promote it. I'm having a great time on Facebook - Hey to all of you "Facebookers" who are reading this! I just discovered a new typing game on Facebook, which I may soon become hooked on, along with Farmville (heehaw!)

Hooray! I've made my first sale!

Of course I'm referring to my Etsy shop. I've had it open since Feb. 1st, and this is my first sale. Wouldn't you know, I haven't actually sold anything that I have already made, it's a special order. But it's a real sale, and that's a beginning!

In addition, something that came as a surprise to both of my children, and to some of my fellow teachers and some of my students, I joined Facebook last weekend! I'm not really sure what came over me, but I just decided to "take the plunge"!!! I think it was because there are several people I would like to keep in contact with this summer and they asked me if I was on Facebook. One of them is a college student who has been working with me as a student teacher all year. She went home to the NC coast for the summer, and we've gotten pretty close. I knew she probably wouldn't email me much, but that she is very active on Facebook. An added benefit has been rediscovering some cousins that I haven't heard from for years, and keeping in contact with some nephews and nieces that I don't hear from regularly.

So, those are the giant steps that I have taken in the past few weeks. This week I will be busy giving End-of-Grade tests to my ESL students, then 1 and 1/2 weeks left of school, and this school year will be history! North Carolina is making huge budget cuts, and no teachers have contracts yet. However, my principal has promised me that my job is secure so I am clinging tightly to that. Many teachers and teachers aides will not be that lucky. We shall see what happens with this declining economy. At the very least, our classrooms will be much more crowded and our supplies will be decidedly limited. For now, that's all we know for sure.

Ahhh! Spring Break...

One day gone already of my Spring Break. The time will be over before I know it, and I will have squandered it all away. Actually, I have no BIG plans for this glorious week, except to just relax and enjoy it. And that being said, I guess today was well spent. I did a bit of housework, a bit of reading, a bit of crocheting, a bit of learning on the computer, walked 2 miles on the treadmill, Skyped with my adorable grandson and his mom, and let my hubby take me out to eat to celebrate an accomplishment. So, all in all, I'd say today was just GRAND!!!

An accomplishment, you say. What accomplishment? Not to "toot my own horn" as my mother would call it, but last week it was announced at school that my fellow teachers elected me to be our school's Wachovia Outstanding Educator. (Otherwise known as Teacher of the Year) Of course, it's a real honor to be awarded this by my own peers. But it also means some writing and interviews, because now I will go up against other schools' picks to be chosen in our school district. The teacher chosen in our school district will in turn have to then go through a selection process against the three school districts in our county. Hmmmm. I think I should just be satisfied that I was chosen by my school. Anyway, I have some writing to do this week for that - a Project Proposal, because with all of that comes a $1000 check to the winner if their project is chosen.

This spring has been rainy and cool, but the grass is green and the trees are mostly leafed out, so I'm not complaining. The tulips are blooming in a profusion of bright colors; and the dogwood trees are beginning to blossom, as only they can do at Easter time in the South, reminding us of Christ's death and resurrection with their symbolic crosses on their flowers. The aroma of the lilies from church that we brought home yesterday permeates our living room with the perfume of the hope and joy of Easter. To all who read this I want to wish a Blessed and Happy Easter Season!