RAE’S READS

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This year (2025) finds me with 53 years of teaching “under my belt.” I have taught all levels from pre-K “(library lady” or “book lady”–volunteer) to juniors, seniors, and graduate students enrolled in my Advanced Writing class at the university where I have just completed 34 years. My first paying teaching job was junior high, and I spent 13 years with ages 12-13, the “difficult years.” I had some of the “funnest” experiences with this age group. When I was no longer the “young, fun teacher,” I taught in an elementary school setting before sixth graders went on to junior high, teaching language arts blocs, an assignment that was a “dream-fit” for me. After completing graduate school in my 40s, I went on to community college, then university teaching. This past fall I accepted a part-time teaching job at Apogee Gulf Coast Schools in its first year at the Alvin campus. After my Better Half died n 2022, I achieved a lifelong dream: opening a bookstore of my own, Rae’s Reads. A year later, I sold the house we had lived in for 47 years and moved into the bookstore. My goal is to circulate and repurpose books. Just as teaching is “in my blood,” so is a passion for reading, writing, libraries, and everything bookish. This blog will be open to anyone who loves books, promotes literacy and wants to “come out and play.”

THURSDAY THOUGHTS 12/21/23

I am thinking this Thursday morning about my word for 2023–HOSPITALITY.

This word has meant so much to me this year, it is bound to be a “God thing” that I chose it. I have striven to show hospitality both at my home and at my bookstore. While I was living at my home of 46 years, I had many friends in twos and threes over for coffee, sometimes even making new friends by inviting visitors to my Little Free Library at the house inside for coffee and homemade cookies while I searched for “just the book you will love.”

Even more seriously, when my bookstore, RAE’S READS really got underway January, 2023, I was able to offer hospitality to strangers and customers, some of whom became friends I will enjoy for the rest of my life. Since January, we have had seven Author Events (signings), a Ladies’ Tea, a Mini-Craft Sale, two Family Music Nights, Girls’ Nights during bookstore hours on Thursday evenings, two Pot Luck Suppers, a huge Thank-You Barbecue, and many “I saw your car in the driveway and thought I’d pop in” visits. I have definitely learned and discovered the meaning of

It has been one of the best experiences of my life and a literal life-saver getting me through the year of “firsts” after the death of My Better Half. I now have an informal support team of friends who mean so much to me, and all because I extended to them a little hospitality. Hospitality is SHARING whether it be your home, your listening ear, or your time. What I have learned in 2023 is that when you intend to bless others, you end up being blessed tenfold.

RAE 2023

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