Are you an artist with a "have to have" wish list of certain supplies for your projects?
photo via Hoarder Rehab, available here
I am and some items I still like to use are hard to find and vintage now! And even worse is I have enough art and craft supplies to last a lifetime, but keep returning to items I have in very limited vintage amounts! I'd like to know what's up with that?
On with this story....This Etsy buyer likes Dixon products and is going to finish an art project with them!
Of course, as a curious recovering hoarder, I am wondering which art project this person is continuing with my - our - their pencils and wish I was a fly on the wall to see it! Just one little peek!
photo via Hoarder Rehab, available here
Maybe someone "out there" is wondering why I have many boxed pencils from the 90s, besides my hoarder habits!
I think being a teacher in the inner city added fuel to my hoard tendencies. Three years after I started teaching, teachers in my district took an 8% pay cut. This pay cut went on for 8 years! During that time, not only did our livelihoods suffer, but there was a six month period were even basic supplies were not available to our school.
As in no paper, not any kind of paper, not even writing paper, no pencils, no pens, no consumable art supplies, like crayons, but you could still order paper clips, scissors, brads, pipe cleaners, felt and a few other things I can't remember from the school supply office, which we called, "the cage" because it was actually in a cage!
Okay, maybe it just looked like a cage. It had a chain link fence from floor to the ceiling, wall to wall with a chin link door that was locked with a chain and lock.
Imagine a teacher not being able to use a xerox machine due to no more paper or students having no access to such basics as "writing lined paper" and pencils. And if anyone knows the details about school paper and pencils it gets can get detailed.
For instance, I think there are different kinds of writing papers per grade. I used to have samples of them all to show my students how they graduate to each type of paper and why. And how and why it's important with each penmanship skill mastered per grade, but I don't think "cursive" is part of the curriculum anymore, which I used to sneak teach anyway.
Perhaps penmanship will become extinct and the classroom will become one big huge texting instant message arena! Interesting unbearable thought! However it would be more quiet...
Learning cursive used to be such a huge milestone for third graders! Everything learned from kindergarten to second grade culminates into so many third grade turning points, like learning multiplication is a faster way to add and memorizing facts to the 9 family, reading 110 words per minute, clustering sentences into a three paragraph essay report, jokes become less concrete and hormones kick in! Ah, the wonders of third grade!
photo via Hoarder Rehab, available here
The other problem with the supply shortage was that they kept telling us it was only going to be a week and weeks turned to months, until I didn't believe them anymore.
It gets quite time consuming and expensive to buy reams and reams of third to fourth grade writing paper and third grade pencils in sets of 30 weekly. Third grader pencils are the classic fat blue ones without eraser tops, so they can hold one better and are sold by the piece. At least they were back then and if I remember correctly cost about 30 cents each. It starts to add up to about $10 a week and that's only pencils, buying brown third grade writing paper by the ream was crazy expensive!
I bought notebooks for my students in the beginning, even at a dollar a pop that is expensive for a class of 30!
Needless to say that was the year I bought a xerox machine, cases of white paper for art and xerox, these pencils by the case, crayons by the case and white lined paper in bulk all from Costco.
All of my students were delighted, it was like graduating to fourth and fifth grade supplies without learning the skills that go with them!
In hindsight, I loved teaching! It was my vocation because there were so many times when teaching felt like being a vacation, as in timelessness of no sense of time, effortless productivity and progress moving along in a natural state.
My students kept me fascinated and engaged without thought of time or money. Now when I think about it, can one put a price on education?
photo via Hoarder Rehab, available here
Saying goodbye: It took about 12 to 15 years before teaching became too expensive, joyless and getting up in the morning felt like getting up to perform the same old chores by rote.
By then I was at the top of the pay scale earning wages for a vested teacher having jumped through every hoop and hurdle of more degrees and/or 130 college units of professional development, credential renewal requirements every five years, etc.
Anyways, I was finally earning what I think every first year teacher across the nation should be earning, which I think should be equivalent to starting pay of accountants and engineers who only need for years of college back in my time, even though teachers go an extra two years of college over their 4 year college degree to get their credentials before they can begin teaching or so it was back in my day.
However, the only things holding me back from leaving teaching was that I was finally earning what I thought teachers should be earning and my health insurance! That's how bad teaching had gotten for me!
My vocation had turned into a dollar sign!
What I Learned:
1. This is very sad for me to write about and I am keeping a box of kleenex close. I haven't found anything since then that gives me a sense of being happily lost in timelessness without care or worry, productivity and progress in effortless beauty, lightbulbs, smiles, compassion, empathy and all those astonishing moments that come from children working together in unison for themselves and each other.
2. I suppose everything comes to an end and nothing is lasting so even six months to two years is a good run for any new adventure! I am thankful for the several careers and countless jobs and each silver lining each one held for me in one form or another.
3. It doesn't matter if I'm moving backwards or forwards as long as I keep moving! However, standing still has it's merits, like quiet time, alone time and meditation.
As the saying goes, "Life is a journey and not a destination."
How does one achieve such balance between moving and staying still?
Thank you Etsy buyer for sending some words that brought so much to me! Maybe one day you'll read this and give me a peek of your art project from these pencils!
Thank you Etsy for the best Hoarder Rehab I could ever experience. It's not easy peeling back the layers and sometimes moving into the unknown is more scary than exciting, but I keep telling myself, if I don't like it, what's the worst that can happen? and what's the best that can happen?
I revert back to being a hoarder or break my chains into an unknown world into a different kind of freedom!
Thank you visitors from US, Saudi Arabia, UK, Canada, China, Algeria, India, Iran, Japan and Kenya. It's comforting to know people are taking part in my HoarderRehab and The Destiny of Things!
Click on the shop names to visit my hoard listed daily: HoarderRehab, The Destiny of Things, VintageToGoEtsy and now JunkDrawerLoveEtsy! There are about 110 items listed on JunkDrawerLoveEtsy and will resume new listings in a few days and will continue to relist 1-2 items at the other shops! Thanks for looking! Maybe you'll find something to take home and share your story too!
And thank you Ivy for using the invite to open your new Etsy shop, Love Lotus Vintage! Visit her newly opened shop, Love Lotus Vintage for some 80s to 90s romantic wear! She'd like to clear out her closet and have less stuff for her big move!
Click on the shop names to visit my hoard listed daily: HoarderRehab, The Destiny of Things, VintageToGoEtsy and now JunkDrawerLoveEtsy! There are about 110 items listed on JunkDrawerLoveEtsy and will resume new listings in a few days and will continue to relist 1-2 items at the other shops! Thanks for looking! Maybe you'll find something to take home and share your story too!
And thank you Ivy for using the invite to open your new Etsy shop, Love Lotus Vintage! Visit her newly opened shop, Love Lotus Vintage for some 80s to 90s romantic wear! She'd like to clear out her closet and have less stuff for her big move!
If anyone else would like an invite to open their own Etsy shop and get 40 free listings, let me know how I can help you!
Related Stories from my inner city teaching days:
1. Freddie the Frog: Forgiving my inner city teacher past! Read here
2. Puffer Fish Boy Friend Christmas Gift: Best student realia ever, read about it here
3. Receipt Spike and Service Bell: Some of the best teacher tools ever!
4. How to Use 100 Corks: Free teacher resource from my family and friends, here!
5. Polaroid Camera Story: teacher memories of trials and tribulations!
6. US Puzzle Maps here, more funny dark truthful funny teacher drama trauma!
"Life is a journey and not a destination." ----Ralph Waldo Emerson
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