Back to School . . .

It is time for the new school year to begin. I always liked this time of year when I was a child. I liked school for social reasons; and, truth be told, probably a lot more than I liked it for academic reasons! Summer time at home on the farm was quiet and seemed to last a very long time. I filled the days of summer with helping my mother a little in the kitchen by setting the table for dinner (what we called our noon-time meal) and by washing the sink, putting out clean towels and making sure there was a bar of lava soap for them to scrub up with before they came to the dinner table. We ate dinner at exactly noon Monday through Saturday and there was usually 5-6 of us gathered around the table. My mother prepared a huge meal every day. I spent the rest of my days riding my bike around on bumpy dirt roads, and I would often go swimming at the local swimming hole, Call's Pond in Morganville. After supper, I sometimes would ride with my father in his pick-up truck to a field to cover up a wagon or implement with canvas because it was going to rain, or to pick up bales of hay or straw that fell off the wagon during the day when it was being loaded and we would cart them to the barn. Cousins and friends would occasionally come out to visit and stay over night and that was always a blast. We found all kinds of ways to have fun and get into trouble! But, even though summer was fun; when September rolled around, I was more than ready to get back on the bus and go to school.

As a teenager I poured over the pages of the big Fall issue of Seventeen magazine and marked all the pages in the Sears & Roebuck catalog where I found things I hoped my parents would order for me. Of course, I marked practically every page! One of the reasons I started sewing garments was due to the influence of looking at all those clothes on those pages. I knew if I wanted lots of clothes, I would have to find a way to buy them or make them. My babysitting money went toward additional pieces at the Bette Shoppe, or the Town Shop in LeRoy or Scott & Bean, Alexander's, C L Carr's, or Marlee's in Batavia; or toward fabric ordered from Sears from little black and white photographs of the cloth! Not quite the same as it is now with Internet shopping! In fact, the nice people at the stores would often allow me to take clothes home, with a small deposit, for my parent's approval. I don't think that would happen today!

Even now, as an adult, I think I still consider September 1st to be more of a "new year" than January 1st! There was a whole lot more preparation and excitement in my childhood days for school than there was for the new year. Although, my parents used to have a family gathering on New Years Day, with a big meal, which meant, at least for my mother, there was a lot of preparation! But for me, getting ready for school and narrowing down my choices to couple new dresses from the catalog and buying new notebooks, pens and pencils and getting a new pair of canvas sneakers was a fantastic feeling. :-)

But . . . getting back to September 2013, . . . I have just finished making a couple mini albums and matching covered boxes that are school themed.  I have put videos up on my YouTube channel. They can be found at the following links:

http://youtu.be/E7xP_rPM3HY

 

and

 

http://youtu.be/LiM3mpdmqrI

 

The mini albums and boxes were fun to make and I am now making a Halloween theme mini album and covered box. I hope to finish that by tomorrow so I can move on to Autumn and Harvest and then to Christmas mini albums! There was a big scrap booking trade show in Buffalo this past weekend, and I planned to go, but re-thought that idea because I know I would probably come home with even more paper crafting things . . . and I need to use all the beautiful things that I already have in my studio stash!

 

It is a rainy day today. Not what I expected. I can cross yard work off my list and do some things inside instead. There is always more than enough to do inside and outside!

 

What I have learned:

I can practice self control and not go to every scrap booking event to check out the newest items.

 

What I want to learn:

How to organize my paper crafting stash in a way that makes sense so I know what  I have on hand and where it is!

 

What I appreciate:

A rainy day that seems to settle me down a bit.

 

What I want:

World Peace. Amen.