First Day of School

Welp, if you liked the first day of school with the smell of new pencils, paper and books, then you should become a teacher. You get to participate in first days of school even when you've finished school yourself.

I start college teaching again today with a class of English at Luzerne County Community College. Should be interesting. This is an introductory class so the students will be mostly brand new to the college experience. Sort of like teaching freshmen in high school. Goggle-eyed and overwhelmed. I'm trying to use as many sentence fragments as possible in this post. Fighting a never-ending battle against them from this day forward. (Or so I'm told.) What are the chances of me getting a class full of people who already know what a complete sentence is? Not too good. First spelling words of the day? "A lot." I don't know why "alot" bugs me more than any other misspelling. Just does. We'll tackle "their, there, there's, theirs, its and it's" once they find their feet. Oh, and definitely do "definately." Enough fragments for ya?

Paradigm Shift

Okay, I think I'm going through a paradigm shift. When you have small children at home (or when you teach high school), you don't have the luxury of time to think about the deeper philosophical underpinnings of your life. So many hours of your day are spoken for. But fortunately, or unfortunately, when you are self employed and alone most of the time, you do have time to think about the essence of your life. I've been thinking a lot about this young lady in the photo, trying to remember what it was she had planned for her life and what she felt she could accomplish.

So I'm rethinking what I do in life and even who I am. This is downright scary but I think it's also a necessary part of a well-lived life. Part of my problem is that three of my most important roles in life are on long distance mode--mother, daughter, grandmother. This is hard. I wish it were otherwise. What I am left with is a lot of time and the choices on how to use this time.

I am hoping for a bright, sparkling new me to emerge any day now. And I'm just enough of an optimist to believe this is possible. We can change our direction in life. But for now, the growing pains are excruciating.

That Was the Week That Was

Several things have happened this week. One, and probably most importantly, I am gainfully employed. Just a part-time job, but it's a start. I'll be teaching an English class as an adjust professor at Luzerne County Community College. Should be fun. It will be good to get back to teaching again.

Secondly, I managed to get off a packet that will be critiqued at the next SCBWI conference in Philly. My middle grade novel is on its way.

Thirdly, I decided that if I sold vintage patterns and vintage fabric, I should try to make something myself. This is an early 1960s blouse pattern, old sizing. I think it came out well.

I'm sure many other things happened this week, but those are the biggies that come to mind.

No matter what the week may bring, some things never change. Every single day: I miss my children, I miss my grandchildren, I miss my parents, I miss my sons-in-law, I miss Texas, I wish my house were better organized. On the other hand, every single day: I love the beautiful place we live in, I listen to or play beautiful music, I read something amazing, I write something. A very good life, in fact.

The New Monitor Times Two

I had to share this picture story. Be sure and click on it to see all the details. It was a little large for my scanner but I think you'll get the idea.

I found a set of Dick and Jane pre-primers at an estate sale a while ago. And I've been seeing on Etsy an artist who makes cute collages out of photos like these. Her shop is named Cabin. So I offered them to her as a special order and she decided she wanted them. So off they go. But I did dearly love looking at them.

Now about the monitor. My computer has been lousy lately. Freezes all the time. Programs not responding. Long time booting up. Can't even turn it off sometimes. And the display. All flicker-y and annoying. Come to find out a big part of the problem was the monitor which has just given out. Blackness and void. That's all I could get on Friday. So Michael and I went to Best Buy to look around and by a fluke managed to get a 22" inch LG monitor for 150 bucks. Long but boring story. Anyways, we get the thing home and it's fabulous. The computer is running much better (it's still not fixed but we're saving that adventure for next week) and the picture is awesome. But the monitor has one dead pixel. A tiny green dot that annoyingly stayed lit all the time. So we packed up the enormous thing (which weighs almost nothing though) and back to Best Buy we went on Saturday. The good news is that the new monitor is working great. The bad news is that the computer is still sick.

I did a few estate sales on Saturday even though I'm overstocked. I found this: A sixties cotton number that stops traffic. I pulled it out of the car to show Michael and a lady walking by with her son backed up and turned around to come look at it. It really is cute.

And then today a friend who goes to auctions and looks for stuff for me sold me a box of stuff (nothing like doing business on a Sunday in the church parking lot) including old fabric, aprons and sunbonnets. Very old stuff. So I'm really overstocked now.

The best news is that my middle grade novel has a really rough first draft finished. Fun! Now once I get a solid rewrite I am truly sending this thing out. I think this may be the book that will finally get me published.

Overstocked

I did not go to any estate sales on Friday or Saturday. Here is why:  I am overstocked.  Check out this zipper collection. The house I bought them from could have been cleaner (that's an understatement) and so they needed a wash. And that's just the dark colored ones. The brighter ones I'll wash on Monday. Now I could do one of two things: a) sell the metal ones as a vintage lot on Ebay or b) keep all the zippers and never have to buy another one as long as I live.

B) is tempting. Zippers are expensive. But realistically, I need to get rid of all this stuff I've been buying. My shop is selling, but my inventory is overflowing. So out it goes!

I love this picture of Michael doing one of his favorite things.

He loves watering and in our climate, he really can't justify doing too much of it. But this summer has been really hot so he has had an excuse to get out and commune with the water hose. He's done some nice things with the yard this summer. He really loves landscaping. His main problem is that he has trouble pulling up anything that's in flower, weed or not. It is a little hard to get used to the lushness of the vegetation around here.

Last week I posted about my pitiful laundry. You'll be happy to know (or maybe you won't really care at all) that last week I wore khakis and crop pants and only put on a pair of jeans one day. This was good since my honey took me out for ice cream twice last week and I was more or less well dressed. I never look as turned out as him since he's got on his nice work clothes, but at least I was in the ballpark. And I decided to get really dressed up on Sunday. This is totally overkill for the Wilkes-Barre ward, but where else am I going to wear this suit? I really don't like how my face looks in the picture, but I am comforted by a story I remember about Berniece Rabe, a dear friend from Texas days. She remembers hating a picture they used on the back of her books.Then looking at it ten years later she realized how good she looked. So in ten years, this will probably look pretty good to me. I think we can safely say that my hair hates Pennsylvania. I believe I have mentioned this before.