These
are the continuing adventures of a Swedish immigrant during her first
year as an American. She boldly went where she'd never gone
before...please come along on Adventures
in America.
Hi,
my name is Tina and I'm an addict. I'm addicted to school supplies: pencils, markers, pens, colored pencils, markers of different widths and tips and textures and erase-ability and special effects, different textures of paper, how a
pen feels in my hand, what the combination of pen and textured paper
produces, experimenting with various combinations...oh sorry. Got
distracted.
In
Sweden, the school supplies (verb) all the school supplies (noun). (Sounds logical to me when I read that...) However, a brand new world would open to me
when Grandma Vivian took me for my first school supply shopping trip.
I
didn't know what a school supply list was, but she knew everything
and took me to the local drugstore to the back-to-school display. I
was awestruck. The variety! The colors! The choices! Oh my...
We
were there much longer than Grandma Vivian wanted to be, but when we walked
out, I was the proud owner of my own 3-ring binder, loose leaf paper,
bound notebooks, composition books, ball-point pens, something called
a #2 pencils (why didn't we use #1 if it was better?), COLORED
pencils, MAGIC markers, and my very own water color set. No more
sharing with my messy desk partner! I was in heaven.
Subsequent
years, The Nutritionist, whose name could easily be The Saver, would make us produce what was left
over from the previous year and ONLY let us buy what was missing. I
vowed that if I
had children, they'd get fresh supplies every year.
I
stuck to that, too. The boys loved it. With Walmart's prices, I
always picked up a few items for myself...just a few...It wasn't THAT
expensive, and there's nothing better than facing a brand new year
with shiny new stuff.
I
know. You're thinking about all those supplies that could have been
re-used. Yes, there are a lot of them. But hey! The year and a
half I homeschooled we didn't have to buy ANYTHING! However, I
probably could still
outfit
an entire pre-school. The left-overs are actually pretty organized
in our 13 year-old's desk. If you're low on something, come on over.
I have 15 glue-sticks (yes, I just counted).
