Success and Exhaustion :-)

PIRATE NIGHT WAS A SUCCESS!!!

Over 600 people attended. We were expecting between 400 and 500 so we were blown away. We had 50 cakes for the Cakewalk and had to shut that down an hour before the end because we ran out of cakes, we had 450 pirate hats to decorate for the kids - THEY were out by 7. The games went well, the book fair made a ton of money, fundraisers were mostly picked up, and all of the comments we received from kids/parents/teaching staff were positive. The basket raffle brought in over $700, so instead of spending the $1000 that we were supposed to, we actually ended up only spending $200. The traffic cop never showed up and that was supposed to be a $400 expense, so that certainly helped the budget!

I forgot my camera - I wish I had it. The decorating committee for the social was headed by 2 professional artist/designers and it really showed. They made a ship out of cardboard boxes that looked JUST like a pirate ship - complete with raggedy sails. There were 'portholes' in the ship that were strong enough to let a child go through them - the games looked so professional that the Principal asked to keep them in the supply room for future games at the school. Yay parents - they really came through.

The cakewalk was fun - I had never been to one before. My friend Cheryl had told me that it wasn't the tasty cakes that were picked first, it was the fancy cakes that were 'eye candy' to the kids. So. I used fondant on cakes for the first time. Wow - it was fun - like working with polymer clay! The next time I will flavor the fondant a bit more, I think it was 'too' neutral, but the cakes were #1 and #2 gone so I consider that a success :-) Here are Barbie and the soccer field - and they were really so simple that they were both decorated in about 45 minutes...

The work continued on Friday as I made phone calls to the 19 winners of baskets in the basket raffle that hadn't picked up their winnings - so my first 'breathing' day was Monday - but that's okay. The best part of the process was working with the women on the committee - their energy, their ideas, their enthusiasm was contagious and really helped. So, until the spring (when I'm responsible for another social) I can relax a bit.

The fall view above is from my front door. It's supposed to be windy and we're to have rain later, so I'm not sure how much longer the spectacular fall leaf show will be around - but I'm enjoying every minute of it. I'm taking the long way to places and driving through the beautiful New England countryside that I'm part of and loving it.....It's all good.

20 Years

It boggles the mind.

Oh. My. Gosh.

If I can make it through Thursday I will NEVER again complain about being bored. (not that I did before....but.....). This past June I somehow found myself the Co-Vice-President of the elementary school PTO. I tried valiantly to decline (and I have witnesses that will attest to that fact) but the teacher that snagged me as her co-Veep was just not taking no for an answer. After teaching for 38 years she kind of knows how to get what she wants I suppose. So over the summer I get used to the fact of the new position, even though I'm still finding my way around the area/town/schools. Then comes September, when I find out that the main responsibility of the Veep is to run the fall and spring socials - the fall one bringing a crowd of between 400-500 people. Yikes. I get the planning book from last year on September 13th and find out that last year they began the planning for this in July. JULY!!!!!!! Every bit of organizing/business meeting/planning/PTO knowledge exploded in me and I've been working like a madwoman towards the end - the Pirate Social, happening this Thursday night. The positives: I've met a group of wonderful women - all who have first borns in Kindergarten. Their motivation is high, their energy seems boundless, and they have reminded me of what I used to be before I became such a jaded mother of a high schooler and a middle schooler. I've been reinvigorated as a parent from spending time with these women, and that's not a bad thing. Other positives - I am reminded that I know how to do this stuff. The past three years I have spent packing/unpacking/packing/unpacking and going through countless new experiences. The year before that was consumed by my father's illness and subsequent death and figuring out my youngest daughter's gastro issues. This, THIS is what I knew in what I still view so often as my 'real life' in PA. That woman that co-chaired the huge fall fundraiser for the junior league. That woman that arranged field trips and assemblies for a five grade school for two years. The woman that could DO, not the woman that was always tired. So that's good.

The bad? I feel every one of my 42 years around these women. I have to pick up other kids, I have to get them home to do large amounts of homework, I have to feed them large amounts of real food. I have to run here and there. And, although these women would never in a million years believe me (as I never believed the women that told me when my oldest was a little guy) - "Life" - capitalized "Life" is exceedingly more complicated as the kids get older. Exponentially. I'm tired. That's the bad thing. I'm just bone-tired.

So. Tomorrow I meet the other room mom (I was asked to be co-room-mom as well by a mom that doesn't want to do it herself - do I have a sign on my forehead that says "ask her - she'll say yes"???) at Panera and plan the class Halloween party. I go buy pretzels and light bulbs for the Social. I pack up and arrange and shrink wrap 19 big baskets of donated 'themed' items from the various classrooms for the basket raffle. I make the ticket boxes for the 19 baskets and write advertising for the raffle. Tomorrow night I go to the final committee meeting and hope (really really hope. really really really really hope) that everyone has done what they should have and that it will be smooth as we walk through the map and the night. Wednesday I take the night off as it's my 20th anniversary, and then (drumroll please) it's Thursday. Arrrrgh. Ahoy Matey day.

Friday I may be found collapsed in a heap on my sofa - watching Grey's Anatomy's that I'm behind on and drinking coffee all morning in pajamas and glasses.

Aside - Water for Elephants - LOVE this book. I find myself reading it at stop lights, and I've been staying up waaaay too late again reading. Makes me think in a different way about the people in my life that are older now and how they are thinking and how I'm treating them. Love her writing.

Peace out, ya scurvy dogs - arrrrrrrrrg.

~C

Feelin' Good on Friday

Gratitudes for the day

• having a great day taking my mom grocery shopping and on errands yesterday
• running into my elementary school gym teacher/high school football coach at the restaurant we were having lunch at and he (a) remembered me and (b) told me I still looked great (in my head I was yelling "HA - you should have seen me seven months ago)
• walking the dog 3 miles this morning and smelling for the first time that "crispy leaf" smell - fall is coming - yay!
• putting over 400 miles on my car in four days and gas is not over $3 a gallon anymore :-)
• my neighbor is home from India safely
• coffee, both hot and iced
• friends - at the bus stop, at the school, in life and online - proving that there are good people all over the world
• crockpot oatmeal, which made my kids go "yay" this morning and simplified the entire process a great deal.
• DVR, which will make ironing the clothes that have piled up a ton easier today!
• I have only the sleeves left to knit and my first sweater can be stitched tog
• The fact that my real friends won't care that I have all these blessed dots on this blog that I don't know how or why appeared!!!!

God whispers

Have you ever heard the phrase "God whispers"? I sometimes think He is whispering to me if I'm struggling with some thought, event, or life change and then something subtle occurs to make me look at it in a new, different, and much clearer way. Kind of like the kick in the pants to turn you back in the right direction. I had one of these occurrences on Monday and it really touched my soul.

My mother has been giving my sisters and I a very difficult time lately regarding her health. She has many issues, yet is uncomfortable dealing with them. Oftentimes, I'm reminded of the ant and the grasshopper story - she is much more at ease waiting until we are in a crisis and dealing with whatever it is at that time than doing the normal, everyday things that can keep those crisis times to a minimum.

Monday, my mother needed to have a colonoscopy. Supposedly routine for people after they are 50, my mother has a certain sense of pride that she 'dodged that bullet' and was having her first one at 78. So I get my three children on their respective three buses at three different times over the course of 90 minutes, get prepared and drive to NY to take my mom to the hospital for this procedure. On the way I get stuck in commuter traffic, then get stuck in some other kind of traffic on one of the Hudson river bridges, and I arrive flustered, angry that I spent so much time in traffic, and certainly under-caffeinated as I had no time to get the coffee that I was planning to get in town. I whip through the house, cleaning bathrooms, taking things my mother has cleaned out, and the last thing I do on this 'take no prisoners' circuit through my mother's home is to grab another photo album. Many of the family pictures are in those 'magnetic' albums and many of the photos are showing wear. So I've slowly been replacing them into safer albums. I open up the cabinet, look at all the albums left to do, groan to myself and pick one from somewhere in the middle. As I open it up I realize the album is full of Polaroid photos. My father received a Polaroid camera for his 60th birthday, and WAS good at putting photos in albums as this one was neat, organized and full.

The first photo was a picture of a pretty woman, somewhere in her 50s. Hair done, put together outfit, sweet smile. It was my mother. In my father's spidery handwriting underneath, written so hard as to leave an indentation of his intent, were the words "My Favorite Person". I felt slapped. Tears immediately sprung into my eyes, and as I was getting ready for a good cry (and I'm not a cry-er) I hear my mom chatting behind me...blissfully unaware of the love that I was holding in my hands. I composed myself, put the album back for her to find someday and took another one and then looked at my mother. Really looked at her.

She is an old lady that was someones "favorite person" for 55 years. And now that someone isn't here. My father has been gone 3.5 years now, and my mother has been miserable. Over those years, my sisters and I have fallen into the role of taxi, confidantes, housekeepers, home managers and health care providers and we start to act it - less compassion, more facts and schedules and upkeep. But I was about to take a scared old lady that was someones favorite person to this procedure that you would be hard pressed to find ANY one thrilled to undertake. I softened. I became gentle. I became loving. I became... kind. I became the daughter I wanted to be instead of the daughter that I had turned out to be. And it was okay. It was really okay. I listened to her stories on the ride....when I went through the admission process with her we laughed so hard, it was not the dramatic scene it could have been. My sister (a nurse in the hospital) met us in the waiting room and was all brusque and busy and annoyed acting and as soon as I could, I told her the story. She visibly relaxed, the difference was palpable. When calling sister #3 to tell her the results (which were clear and clean, thank you) she also began to cry and you could hear her manner gentle as well.

So thank you, God, for whispering when I needed to hear it. Thank you, Dad, who I'm sure worked hand in hand with Him to show me the way I needed to be. My hope is that when I'm tempted to rush my mom, when I'm tempted to snap, or get frustrated with her age and the related frailties that come with it, I can remember "My Favorite Person" and be that person I was on Monday. That person that I want to be. That person that I AM with everyone except the woman that desperately needs me to be.

God whispers. We need only be quiet to hear Him do so.

Never, Ever, EVER Forget

Organization

No, this isn't my house, but may I wish that it was? Today was spent organizing. I'm trying to make Sundays the main organization day for me - to organize the upcoming week and try to make it more manageable, to organize the mess of an office that we have as a reminder of two unexpected moves around the northeast (finding a receipt for toilet paper, toothbrushes, a quart of oil and a candle from September, 2004 is a direct result of this), to organize the supplies that we own that make a creative yet cluttered life. It is going to take more than one day, but hopefully every little bit will count. I have been loosely following the Flylady protocol and have a schedule that mostly fits our lives and every September I begin the Holiday Grand Plan. On the years that I have followed it, the holidays seem to be more relaxed and enjoyable - and as it's September now, I still feel in control and pumped up to complete the program. So, today my accomplishments in this arena were:

• filed 2 months of bills in their notebooks (I use binders instead of drop files for most of my 'filing' needs - easier on my cuticles and I find them easier for retrieval)
• Paid bills that were due this week
• Made a notebook for the Holiday Grand Plan with sections for the various cleaning/list/baking sections and creating a Christmas Card List with updated addresses (organized my address book at the same time).
• Went through 2 months of emails that I had saved on two email accounts and got myself down from almost 1000 emails to about 250 - it's a start
• completed washing/drying/folding five loads of laundry - my dh returned home from his annual 'backpacking with the guys' trip and from past experience, I've learned that laundry is best done immediately upon his return. Ironing can wait until the weather cools or the a/c is fixed :-)

The week ahead appears to be another hectic one, as are most of the fall weeks for our family. Hopefully this stab at organization will turn it from the nightmare it could be into just 'another' busy week.