Summertime…and the living is anything but easy

Summertime has “officially” started for teachers in my area. A time when teachers supposedly catch up on things set aside due to classwork or to catch their breath after a whirlwind year. This may be true for some, but not all. For myself, I will be taking online classes to hopefully finish my Masters degree by the end of this year along with revamping my Etsy shop through finding new projects to add to it as well as setting up an official workspace at home finally that is not in my bedroom.

In all seriousness it has been a bit weird due to the shutdown of our schools the only real sign that summer has arrived, besides the rising temperatures, has been the lack of dings for notifications connected to school. I even managed my first sunburn of the year that I’m now recovering from. 😏 The last official day of school our building staff got together, spread out in our big parking lot, to return personal items to our students. A bittersweet time with members of our staff moving on to other positions and deciding to retire mixed with seeing our students without really being able to give or receive hugs for our safety as much as their own. I liken it to a sort of weird family reunion.

For now I will settle with tucking my school gear away a bit, after making sure I modify lessons a bit just in case, and writing a few postcards especially to my 5th graders. Then I can really focus on just “relaxing” by playing with my kids, hanging out with family, and surfing the web for new crochet projects to add to my store.

In my last entry, I posted a photo with a crochet mask. I actually made some for each family member with pockets for filters and decided to add it to my store. It has been fairly popular as I have already sold about a dozen custom masks with a few of them at a slightly higher price. As far as these masks are concerned, the only reason I’m charging for them is to cover shipping costs. I had to raise the price due to a shift in how I ship them. I have underlying health conditions that make me a little nervous to go out unless I have to. So instead of taking them to the post office to ship, I now use the USPS app, print labels, and schedule shipping right from home. I typically don’t make any unless they are ordered so now I’m working on demos of basic accessories like hair scrunchies and summer items like swimsuit coverups. Keep watching here on my site as I hope to start a portfolio page specific to my crochet projects that I keep available or will be adding to my list of inventory.

Until then, please stay safe and healthy! If you have any questions, ideas, or comments, I welcome them. Be excellent to each other!

quarantine life

What an odd time in our lives… I never thought I would be living through the next major plague in human history. Yet here we are! Honestly, it has not been so terrible for my family compared to what I’m hearing from others that I’m connected to in the community. I still have my main job and I get to stay home with my family. I have definitely had my ups and downs adjusting to this new “normal” but, as long as I keep my priorities straight, I do really well.

My real issue has been spreading myself to thin while trying to be there for everyone else and not taking care of myself. My body finally had a nasty flare up of whatever this disease is and said “NO” last week. My joints all still feel swollen, but nothing like last week. On the bright side, I have a lot to smile about. You may not be able to tell from the picture since my newest creation is covering it up. I recently found an awesome YouTuber named Creggy’s Crochet. She is awesome and has loads of fabulous video walk-throughs of cool projects like the face mask I’m wearing in the featured picture! I started making some and put them for sale on LaClaire Creations Etsy store and am almost sold out already of the first batch. I also had an unexpected enquiry into my artwork featured in my gallery! I’ll be starting work on 7 of those pieces later today to help decorate a new home.

As if all of this was not enough, I am still working on obtaining my National Board Certification while earning my Master’s degree from Emporia State University. This has been interesting work as I am having to adjust my original plan and adapting to the new schedule created by the Board to complete my work. It’s all good though. My mentor assures me my rough drafts are on the right track and he loves the idea of taking my normal classroom lessons and trying to adapt them for possible online access since we’re both pretty sure we will have to be doing distance learning again sometime next school year. A definite challenge for sure.

Before I go, please keep a look out. I will be posting soon (I promise!) about a GoFundMe campaign I setup for LaClaire Creations. It is time to truly get organized! I’ll tell you all about in my next post with a link to the campaign. Until then…

Namaste!