Tuesday, June 28, 2016

New Beginnings

Hey everyone out there on the internet.... blogger universe.... however you get to read my wondrous blog! It's been a very long time! The last time I wrote a post, it was 2012!!! Can you believe that? My family had just moved five months before from the coast of South Carolina to the distant suburbs of Atlanta, Georgia! I was just getting my feet wet in the Craft Market world of the area.

Well, now here it is the end of June 2016.... A lot more than just the name of the blog has changed! I met another crafter and we tried to combine efforts at shows. It worked great for a short while until her family duties pulled her away from crafting and I was again alone. By this time, my youngest was completing pre-k and the school he attended offered me a job as a teacher! I felt it was fate, so I accepted and also decided to jump back into graduate school: this time working towards an Early Childhood degree. I finished my second Masters degree in less than 18 months (YIPEE!) but about a year after graduating, I found the pressures of the job about to be the end of me.

Side Note: It wasn't the actual TEACHING that was the problem, it was the atmosphere that I was surrounded by and the fact that I did not have anyone at work that had my back. Working in an environment such as that without at least one other person who you feel would go to bat for you is not for everyone. I could handle the atmosphere until I found out that the one person in the building who I thought was a real friend, turned out to not be.

So I found myself without my career, for a second time, and a need to regain my sanity as well as try and bring some money into the house fund.... I also should add that my husband was forced to retire due to budget cuts in the military (his superiors as well as fellow guardsmen were NOT happy that he had to go)... Go ahead, say it... CH-CH-CH-CHANGES.....

When I was trying to figure out what to do until I was able to secure another teaching job, this time in the public school system and not in the private sector, I of course thought about breaking out the sewing machines! When I went back into teaching, the plan (you all know how that word does not do well in my family) was to finish graduate school and start back up the crafting... Well, at the end of my first year teaching, my beloved Grandma Ellen passed away. If anyone remembers, she is the whole reason that Stitch'n Love Boutique was created! Needless to say, anytime I walked into the studio, it was painful... Thankfully, over time, it went away.

I signed up to be a substitute teacher in my kids school (they are in fourth and second grades at this point!) so that I could take them with me or put them on the bus AND be able to be at the house when they got off the bus if I worked. And I decided to start creating again! I went back to Stitch'n Love Boutique (remember the collaboration? Well I had changed to Bloomin' Love Designs to combine our names) but it just didn't seem to fit anymore. When we moved, I always said that I was a Carolina Girl living in a Georgia Peach world. Then it hit me... Carolina Peach!


Mind Blown!

So now I am getting back into the crafting and blogging world. More to come...

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