Last year was a very stressful year. I was teaching a SDC (Special Day Class) first through third grade class. The last 2 years I had two teachers aides and this year I only had one. I started out the year with 5 students, yes, five students. When I saw my roster, I thought this is too good to be true, and it was! Students started adding to my class every other week. SDC classes are a different type of class. We are with each other for 3 years and we become like family and adding new students to the class requires a big adjustment. That said, we started getting new students every other week. Within 3 months my class had tripled in size.
Every time a new student added, we had to adjust to them and they had to adjust to us. When new students join a class they either are quiet and require time to open up or they act out to see what they could get away with. Well of course I wasn't lucky enough to get the quiet ones, I was getting all of those who wanted to act out. There was crying, hitting, yelling, cussing, and fits hourly. We needed help and it was no where in sight.
With all of that my body decided it was going to join in on the fun. Migraines were becoming my new best friends and then they invited their evil cousin the hemiplegic migraine. I have run into this cousin before but this time he came with a vengeance. A hemiplegic migraine is a migraine that mimics a stroke. So, in the middle of teaching I start to have intense pain, then I went numb in half my body, by the time I made it to the office I was saying weird things and losing the ability to walk. Well, of course, the office freaked and called 911. I was taken out on a stretcher! How embarrassing! By the end of the day the whole district heard that a special ed. teacher had a heart attack in class. Try explaining that it was just a major and rare type of migraine.
Side note: My one regret that day is that I did not take advantage of the fact that my body was going crazy and I could have used my time wisely with the fire fighters and paramedics. I did get to hear one scold my principal for stressing me out, which was funny.
After a week of recovery and many many emails later. Someone came out to see if I did, indeed, need more help. After the visit the response was that they could not afford another aide even though I needed one, but instead I should find a way to get my frustrations out. I was told to get a hobby. I thought about roller derby but I was never good at skating. It was still too hot for outside sports and scrapbooking wasn't doing it for me anymore.
While on the search for a new hobby. I went with my mom to an antique shop. She wanted to start collecting Pyrex. I asked her, why would anyone want to collect clear glass baking dishes. Then she showed me the bowls she was looking for. They were the bowls she used to have when we were little. When I saw them I felt a sharp pain in my chest. Little did I know I had caught the vintage Pyrex bug and that sharp pain was it digging into my heart.
The bug started out small. I said, I only wanted the green daisy mixing bowl set. I found 2 bowls for cheap. That was it, the bug sunk its roots in.
My collection grew and grew.
Then this happened. It was too late, I was hooked.
And for my birthday I got this.
It has been a year since my addiction began and my collection is eating away at my shelf space and my wallet. My collection now looks more like this, but even this is not all of it!
I have since moved on to other collections and now some of my favorite sets are Fire King, Federal Glass, and Hazel Atlas. Pyrex has since become my gateway drug to bigger and better things.
