Friday, July 8, 2011

In the beginning......

Welcome to my blog! 
Welcome to my first blog post!
Welcome to being a spectator at what could turn out to be one fine, blog-posting disaster!

This blog is being created so that a fifty-something empty-nester, jobless (sort of) jewelry artist can communicate with the world-at-large, but mainly communicate with other jewelry artists.  The idea is to be able to converse and share ideas, inspirations, information, and creations in the blogosphere with other like-minded people beyond the boundaries of  a small town in northeastern Ohio where I don't seem to have any of the aforementioned in common with the approximately 900 other residents.

In my past lives I was a  mother, grocery cashier, waitress and short order cook, non-traditional college student, substitute teacher, fabric store manager, and 14 year teacher (middle school and elementary special ed, 4th grade, 5th grade, 1st grade, and kindergarten).  My best gig, besides motherhood,  was the seven years I spent as a (mostly parttime) kindergarten teacher.

My on-going life has centered around being the wife of the most wonderful man in the world.  I met him at my older sister's wedding.  He was the best man--literally.  I can say that with authority since my sister's marriage ended  in less than ten years and we have been married for over 38, during which time I have never met any man who seemed in any way "better."  It is this fellow who has impacted everything in my life since the grocery store gig and the reason I am jobless (sort of).

 In my current life, I'm still the mom--but with the empty nest,  the Grandma of two, and the office manager (sort of) in the family business that became so successful I could no longer work parttime there and parttime at kindergarten.  I also could no longer work part time at kindergarten because it became all full time, and the administration's idea of honoring my continuing contract was to reassign me to another parttime job--in high school special ed!  I honestly could not imagine that a former kindergarten teacher could be ANY high school student's idea of an acceptable teacher, didn't want to teach high school special ed, and decided my best option was to go 100% with the family business.

So here I am, not really retired, not being paid, not having a set work schedule, and not seeing any other people (read that women) on a regular basis.  Here I am, living on a farm with beef cattle and crops in the middle of a small town, working in the family agricultural excavating business with ALL MEN who are usually somewhere else.

Did I mention that my children are men, too???

I think I've gone on long enough for today, especially since there are no nice pictures to break up the text and amuse my readers (if I have any).  I promise that I will try to figure out how to add pictures by the next time.

Thanks for reading, and I just want to say that I want you to feel free to leave a comment.  It's very quiet here.

Terri