Taming The Paper Tiger

I have made great headway going through the papers in the basement. There were a number of boxes and trays of old papers randomly stacked up here and there. I found that it was mostly a combination of receipts from our early days of Brie's Gift Gallery and applications and records of art and craft shows and their sales results. Because I have to look at each piece of paper to decide whether or not to keep it and also remove the staples so they can be recycled, once again it was a bit of a roller coaster of emotions as I relived all of these past activities. It was very clear that I was working hard to secure opportunities for Windy City Jewelry (our handmade beaded jewelry) and Flower Girls Gifts (an artist's group with Mother and I plus a beaded flower artist and a polymer clay pen artist.) This was the nucleus of our store, and we expanded the concept by adding vintage home decor and small furniture pieces. Technology sure has improved since then, I came across quite a few "knuckle buster" credit card receipts and I made a manual invoice for every event, keeping track of who received what. Once the store was rolling, Kuochun created an online system where I could enter sales through an interface and run reports, and make queries if consignors were wondering about their items. Now we have the Clover system and I could not imagine being without it. If we had a consignment store now, I would have been able to take advantage of the bar coding capabilities and scan items when they were purchased. It sure would have made life easier.

I also found a folder with a lot of my old report cards, spanning from preschool to high school, and then graduate school. I must already have undergrad stored with my other memories. I did not spend time looking at each and every grade but I was drawn to the teachers' comments. I was very surprised to see the following comments for first grade - "Brigid has stubborn streaks and will refuse to conform or cooperate when asked." - this is totally not my character. Mother told me I was a very active and rambunctious toddler so maybe this is carryover from those days. I will never know how this was handled by my parents but I do wonder if these kind of comments which were also made on my preschool report had the opposite effect and was the cause of my extreme shyness growing up. I have come a long way but I still struggle with it. Moving in and out of Catholic and public schools did not help. I was in Catholic school in Skokie through second grade, then we moved to Park Ridge and the Catholic school was filled so I went to public school through sixth grade. Instead of going on to public junior high school with my friends, my parents sent me to the Catholic school which was a very awkward time to try and make new friends. The advantage of going on to Maine South was that I knew the kids from both schools. The teasing was merciless in junior high though which unfortunately was normal for that age group. The comments most directed at me were "Big Butt" and "Bozo Hair." I never had a weight problem as a child so who knows why? We did have to wear blue and black plaid uniform skirts which were not exactly flattering. But my parents instilled the value of high self-esteem, they always encouraged me to do anything and be anything I wanted to be and not be concerned about what others think. It helped me let the teasing roll off my back and to never give in to peer pressure.

I always felt it was interesting that in Catholic school I was considered an average student but in public school a high-achieving student. Junior high at Mary, Seat of Wisdom was split into "deltas" - 1 was the smartest, 2 was average and 3 was below average. I think labeling kids like that was damaging. I had friends who were twins and one was placed in Delta 2 and the other in Delta 3 so they would not be together, even though they both qualified for Delta 2. I was placed in Delta 2. I also remember having to write an anonymous note describing each of my classmates and they all had to do the same. The vast majority of comments I received were "she is so quiet." I wrote in my diary that night "I AM NOT QUIET!" Now I know being quiet and having listening skills is an asset, as opposed to being loud and obnoxious. When learning cursive writing in second grade, I was told that my writing was way too large. So I tried to please by making my writing very tiny, and then I was told it was too tiny. Now I write in the larger size which feels most comfortable. A few grades are missing but I was glad to see that at least by fifth grade I was showing the characteristics that make me who I am today.

Moving on to new postings this week - I did not post any new jewelry items but decided to start a project I have been wanting to work on for years which is to post my pottery collection online. Most of the pottery is here in Mount Prospect and some of the pieces are in Scottsdale but to get it all posted this summer would be a great goal. Years ago when I had the store, I had an assistant named Monica who was experienced in Etsy selling and she posted some costume jewelry for me. I really liked the solid color cheerful backgrounds she used, I felt it really added to the vintage look. She actually shot the pieces on colored paper but things have progressed so much since then. I was able to shoot the pieces in my light box, remove the background and then apply a new background. After shooting my first pottery piece, this adorable 1970s owl bank which was made in Japan, when going to choose the background I noticed about a dozen solid color choices. It brought me back to Monica's work and I have adapted the different color backgrounds for all of the pieces I have prepared since. Once I have more pieces posted the page on my website will look so cute.