Since I last wrote, I have started and finished graduate school, got my Masters in Elementary Education, had a fantastically busy summer (oops, where was my vacation?!) with summer camps, circus, and nonprofit work, traveled to Hong Kong and Mexico, and started my first job as a 1st grade teacher.
This happened! Whoohoo!
Every part of me wishes that I had documented this past year in some sort of organized fashion. And by that I mean a photo album, a journal with consistent entries, or even better, a scrapbook journal filled with my doodles from graduate school notebooks and all the random odds and ends that I collect, always planning to one day put them in a journal. I have even started carrying gluesticks in my purse just in case I need to glue in some ticket stub or other.
But I digress.
I have written before about how I am not very interested in sharing a whole lot of my life with "the internet" (scary!). Especially since becoming a teacher, one's personal life is in all ways essential to maintaining sanity. A lot of teachers I know (and I am certainly no exception) love nothing more then to come home and embrace a hermit lifestyle after a long day of interacting with people. Teaching is all about interaction and personal relationships (Know Yourself, Know Your Students), which makes personal time such a treasure.
And yet, despite my desire to maintain anonymity on the interwebs and not put too much out there, here I am typing away, wanting to share something, something with the world because when I sit back and look at my life, I am flabbergasted with how much magic surrounds me.
There are two aspects of my life that I want to share on this blog.
First, there is making.
Whether it is sewing, knitting, crochet, hot gluing, paper-making, mod podging (Mod Podge! I have just discovered Mod Podge and my life has changed forever!!), or whatever else strikes me, I love to create. If the materials I use are upcycled, that is even better. Knitting season is upon us and I have already dived in with glee.
Second, there is Circus. As someone who was up to recently fairly "normal", (meaning, no running away with a circus), I have fallen in love with every aspect of circus life. Wouldn't it be cool to get to read all about what goes into a circus education nonprofit?! Um, yes it would.
It turns out the crafty part of my life is overlapping more and more with Circus. Whether I am mending children's costumes, practicing face painting skillz, making costumes for myself or others, making props, taping hula hoops, there is ALWAYS something to be done. Winter is traditionally the time of year where we repair all the equipment that was so well loved over the summer, and refresh our materials for the upcoming school year. I have many fond memories of re-taping hula hoops while the snow fell silently outside. This year my Circus crafty-ness went to a whole new level. I can now call myself a tent-maker...
It started off as a small idea…. making some tent covers for our three blue pop-ups that we use. It quickly turned into an elaborate design (complete with stars because of course a circus tent needs star decals!) and a few trips to the fabric store. I spent a week of summer in full-on sewing mode, devoting my entire days to sewing, cutting. It was so exciting, and the materials divine to work with (Sunbrella fabric: resistant to all weather and mildew, aka perfect for Portland). When they are done, these covers will last us at least 10 years.
Since the school year has started, my attention has been turned elsewhere, so for now, the pieces sit in our living room, but once I get into the groove of school, I will be able to work on them in the afternoon and my goal is to have all three finished by the new year! (Eek…).
As far as the blog goes, I am not making any promises. But at least just for me (let's call it a personal goal), I want consistent documentation. That starts here, and my goal is to share some circus magic with the world every Sunday. That seems reasonable, don't you think?
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