Being the worst photographer in the world means that I can't do this painting justice but it certainly doesn't diminish my love for it! Painted especially for moi by the the smartest and most gifted Pirate ever Ms. Barbatia!!! I can't stop screaming, it's so amazing in person!
The hardest year for me was the 3rd grade, my teacher hated me for some reason. She saw me as a troublemaker and had every intention on making my life hell! My Mom wouldn't accept me getting anything lower than a B, so I'd pull out all the C's, D's and F's from the stack of work we did in school which had to be taken home to be signed and then I'd staple the entire stack back together again. Staying after school and crying were a daily occurrence during 3rd grade! Anyhow, I barely made it through the third grade because of that teacher. In the fourth grade I made honor roll the entire year - from a failure to a comeback kid?
During that school year, the author Marc Brown of the
Arthur series came to my school for an assembly and afterward we were given to the opportunity to purchase his books in which he would autograph. I adored the Arthur series and begged my Mom to send me with some money so that I could get an autographed book and she did. Well, that afternoon as everyone got ready to go to the assembly my teacher declared that Jason (a fellow "troublemaker") and I had not colored The Lady Of Spain (We had been learning about different countries that week and had to color pages of different people wearing the clothes of their countries.) She lied to keep us from going to that assembly as nobody in the class had to color that specific sheet and I went home without an autographed book.
Later that school year we had a fundraiser and a booklet of items to order things from and in that booklet was a plush unicorn for $15. $15 may not seem like a lot now, but for a kid it's so much money! I loved this plush unicorn and really wanted it. I somehow saved up enough to buy it. Several weeks later when the order came in I didn't get a unicorn but a poster with a monkey on it. Turns out I had ordered the wrong product! It was a minor screw up but at the time, it was the biggest thing I had ever screwed up! I remember coming home devastated, my Grandmother was visiting at the time and I remember her trying to console me as I sobbed. She told me that she'd pay for that monkey poster and everything would be okay. My Grandma always made everything seem okay.
I never got my plush unicorn and hadn't thought about that memory in years but I was overcome with emotion yesterday. I really miss my Grandmother who died three years ago but know that in the end, somehow everything will be okay!
A huge thank you to Barbara, it's so beautiful and something I will always treasure!