A Fresh Start

When a new year begins, I do feel like it's a chance to make a fresh start. To try harder, to improve, to cherish each day...

I am amazed that I'm starting my tenth year of blogging. My life is ordinary, so I wonder how I've written as much as I have. Followers are few, and comments are rare if at all. But since I write for myself, it really shouldn't matter. However, if I'm honest, I do miss the kind feedback I once received.

The house is back to normal with a few changes here and there. I know we shouldn't covet things, but I do enjoy being surrounded by dear, familiar objects. 












Here's the first journal page of 2017. I clipped a couple of remarks from the Sunday newspaper. The quote about passion was posted on Instagram.

The brown journal was started on August 1, 2016.   I am still recording inside it. My first entry had this opening paragraph -

I may not be able to pour passion into everything I do, but I can appreciate each day that unfolds.

Therefore, I guess it is up to me to make this new year a special one.

A New Treasure

There are friends who just get you. My friend Mary is one of those. She knows me well.  After all we met in eighth grade, and our friendship has endured through the years.

Today we reconnected. What a pleasure it was! We both have a love for old things and have collected special finds over the years. Our home furnishings have stories that go with them.

Old books appeal to me and have for a long time.

When I was a little girl I was fascinated by the books stored in an old shed on my grandmother's farm.

When teaching became my career choice, an interest in textbook copies grew.
I have a small collection of children's schoolbooks, mostly English, spelling, and reading.

So getting back to my visit with Mary...
She presented me with a special gift. Like I said she knows me well.

Not only does this book have old textbook pages, it is designed to hold journal pages in the back. Plus there's Mary's inscription on the inside cover...how special that message is to me. What a treasure to cherish the rest of my years! 

 I love that the school pages deal with grammar. My favorite subject to teach was Language Arts, and explaining and drilling parts of speech was a welcome challenge.  

To write or not to write inside this unique book???

Thank you, Mary, for this book and all the wonderful times we have shared.

Friends forever,

Love, Sandy

There's Something About Saturdays

 

I love getting a package in the mail. All week I looked forward to the arrival of the stamp kit. It came today, and I'm excited to own it. I have wanted this blue tin with its contents for quite some time. Happily this unused one became available on eBay at a good deal price.    



 

Recently I picked up this journal. Not sure what will decorate its pages in the weeks and months ahead. Just getting started has been a bit intimidating.

 



 

 

 

 

Looking forward...

 

On this rainy Saturday I was able to check out something I have thought about and desired for months. Amazingly it was still there. More to follow...  

Journal pages and a poem

In high school and college I loved poetry...even writing a few poems of my own. I typed them and kept them tucked away...for fear others might laugh at my attempts to write what I felt so deeply. Now many years later they transport me back to my youth ...to the beginning of what was to come. I'm sharing the one below.

one me says come out

be free, young, foolish

the other me says no

silly girl

be sweet, safe, sensible

I say merge you two

that's the real me.

Sandy Crum

'68