Sisterhood of the Blogging Stampers

I recently joined another group and it seems like it will be fun. It will motivate me to update my blog regularly and help give me encouragement and hopefully some constructive criticism as well. I love the pats on the back I get from my visitors and I'm sure you've all had the "yeah, babe, that's nice" comment directed your way as dh barely glances at what you're trying to show him. So, I stumbled across this group and it seems like a nice way to get encouragement and offer encouragement to others as well. In addition to this, I'm trying to work on using what I have and not buying anything else that is stamping related at this time so I'm going to try to stop visiting the bloggers who are on a variety of different teams and who make me feel like I gotta have it all now for awhile. I'm also still not sure where I'm going with my SU demoship. I haven't made my minimum this quarter--I've got about $85 to spend before the end of the month or I go into pending and have to spend about $185 in January to remain an active demo. Yeah, the new catalog is coming out but I can guarantee you that I don't have that much in my stamping budget after Christmas. If I can scrape together a few orders before the end of the month, I have another quarter to hang in before I go into pending :-)

Anyway, some of you know bits and pieces about me but here's my introduction for my group. I'm Kathy and I live in the Northern California Bay Area. It's atrociously expensive here but it's such a great place to be because of the diversity and vibe to this area. I'm a military brat--my dad was in the Air Force and we travelled alot. The longest time I lived anywhere was LA and that was because I went to UCLA and then started teaching there so I was there for 10 years. I'm at 9 years here in the Bay Area now so I've almost caught up to my Southern California time.

Dh and I have been together for 7 years now. He and I met a couple months after my divorce was final and Mason was 15 month old--I left Mason's dad when I was about 20 weeks pregnant but the whole getting divorced took longer. He is the most amazing guy ever and I can truly say I've found my better half. It's so true that when you're just not looking, it will come to you. Ironically enough, we both went to UCLA and know many of the same people. He's 3 years younger than me and I never would have looked at him when I was 21 and he was 18--what a difference 10 years makes though. So, we've got Mason who is 8 and spends the weekends at his dad's house, and Miles who's 5, and Maya who's 3 so it's definitely busy around here. We've also got 2 dogs. My hands are full!

I started out teaching in LA. I taught middle school history and then went into Special Education because I started getting all the Special Ed kids mainstreamed into my classes and developed a soft spot for them. After 3 years in middle school, I graduated and moved to working at a high school. My ex and I left LA to move to Las Vegas because we weren't going to be able to afford a home in LA on our salaries. Las Vegas was the beginning of the end. I was miserable there--I didn't like my job, missed LA, and my ex and I just didn't get along. I decided to leave while pregnant after having a conversation with his mom and she was completely apologetic to me when I told her what was going on. I remember her saying "I'm sorry, I thought he'd be different but he's just like his dad" and just knowing that I was not going to have the same conversation with my daughter-in-law in 30 years. I wanted to raise my son differently so I left. It was hard but it was the best decision that I could have ever made.

I moved back to California to a suburb of the Bay Area where my parents were living. I found myself and grew up so much in a short time period. While pregnant with Mason, I got a great teaching job and still chuckle at the fact that I got hired 4 1/2 months pregnant by people who knew that I was gonna go out on maternity leave before the school year ended. After he was born, I taught for another year and a half when I got the opportunity to move into administration. I became a middle school Assistant Principal and then eventually left that district and moved closer to where dh and I settled down and currently work as a Special Education Administrator in Berkeley. I LOVE Berkeley!!!!!!! It's a challenging place to work but it's never a dull moment.

I had never stamped prior to November 2003. My friend and upline got me hooked one day while looking at Christmas cards. I thought, how hard can this be and decided to make my own Christmas cards that year. I learned alot from magazines :-) and the SU catalog. I decided to become a demo in May 2004 before Maya was born to save money. Snort, I'm sure you all can relate, right?

So, that's me in a nutshell! Thanks for visiting and I look forward to getting to know my other blogging sisters.