As I sit here with my coffee, I'm thinking ahead to the upcoming Christmas season. It brings about a certain feeling of both frustration and makes me feel just a little bit crazy. It seems that for the past several years I've struggled a lot with finding my Christmas Spirit.
I remember clearly last year when we finally arrived home Christmas evening after all of the family gatherings and gift exchanging thinking..."Wow it's finally over." Then I was suddenly filled with a slight feeling of joy inside that I had come through yet another Christmas alive. I actually joked with Bart all Christmas Season last year that all I wanted for Christmas was January 1st. For that year to just be over, fast forward through the holidays straight to the new year.
I wonder when it happened....
I wonder when I stopped getting excited about Christmas and instead started feeling a sense of dread and drudgery about the whole season.
Don't get me wrong, I love the whole food aspect of the holiday season,(Just take one look at my ass and you can TELL that.), but what I despise is the whole sense of consumerism in it. Black Friday, Cyber Monday, whatever you call it....people trampling each other for cheap plastic crap from china...I just don't get it!
You know when I do my Chritsmas Shopping? Generally between December 18th and Christmas Day. Payday is the 1st and the 20th for me so that's when I have money.
I always tell myself every year, "I'm going to get it all done before Thanksgiving.." and it never happens that way..EVER.
I don't use credit cards, I hate them, I think they are evil and get you into trouble. We're pretty much a cash only family, if you can't pay cash for it then you don't need it. The exception to the rule on this is cars and really big items like our house.
I know some people who spend literally THOUSANDS of dollars on Christmas on credit cards, and struggle all year to pay it back. Sorry but that kind of takes all the joy out of it. We buy what we can afford to buy and move on. It's Christmas, it's not worth going into debt or going hungry for.
I love giving gifts, but hate feeling like I didn't spend quite enough on people, and maybe they didn't like what I got them. It's almost as if some people feel like the dollar amount you spent is equal to how much you care about them.
I generally make up HUGE batches of homemade fudge and other treats and package them up for gift giving. I'll give those to friends and family either alone as a gift or with something else as an add-on gift.
Getting gifts is great, but still makes me feel a little uncomfortable, especially if what I get from someone obviously cost more than what I spent on them. It's a vicious cycle.
A couple of years ago I said to hell with it all and just started buying Master Card Gift Cards from my bank for all of the people on my list 12 and over. It took a lot of stress out of my holiday shopping and I felt it was a great gift because then the recipient could go and pick out whatever they needed or wanted. (Our local bank offers Master Card Gift Cards with no hidden fees and no expiration dates. They make great gifts and you get them directly from the teller and they take the money directly out of your bank account when you purchase them. I think they make GREAT gifts, and it's a really great service.)
If you needed a tank of gas, or a haircut, or a lunch out, or a new sweater you could make the choice yourself what to spend the money on. I personally LOVE gift cards for anything.
As a matter of fact I have let it be known to all that might be shopping for me this year that I want gift cards for Lowes for Christmas. Why? Because for the past year I have been without a working dishwasher, and it would thrill my heart to no end to be able to put all of my Christmas Gift Cards together and purchase one.
Hand washing dishes for 5 people has become a nightmare chore for me, and my hands, and my nails. I can't even imagine how joyful it would be to be able to just load all the dirty dishes into a machine and close the door and walk away. I think it would be downright heavenly.
Of course if I don't wind up getting a dishwasher for Christmas it won't be the end of the world. We'll just save our pennies and other change for awhile and get one ourselves.
And on that note I'm going to hit publish on this post and go and try to find something productive to do....there's plenty of dishes in the sink that need washin'!
]]>What a week this past week has been!! Here's a short recap..
Tuesday I took another PTO mom with me to Sam's Club to do shopping for our Fall Festival. PTO was providing and serving all of the concessions. We were planning on serving Nachos, Hot dogs, Popcorn, Cotton Candy and various drinks as well as having some candy on hand. Since I'm the only one on PTO that has a Sam's Club membership I had to do the bulk of the work. Of course it didn't help that the one PTO mom that offered to go with me is our Raging Alcoholic PTO mom..so I'm not sure she was entirely useful that day. We got what we thought we needed purchased and I took it all home to store it until Saturday.
Thursday I got a call from PTO president that apparently we hadn't purchased enough food. So off she and I went on Friday to Sam's Club again. You ever known someone that you just can't take shopping with you because they want to buy everything in the store? That would be PTO President. We went in there for more Hot Dogs and Buns and came out with Hot dogs, buns, chili, more candy, a coffee machine, and a cash register..LOL.
In all honesty the Cash register wound up being a great purchase..it's small and light and very easy to use. It also makes my job as treasurer easier since the journal feature automatically tallies all of our sales and tells us exactly how much should be in there after it's all over. It was good to have for the Fall Festival and we'll get a LOT of use out of it in the years to come.
Saturday was our Fall Festival. I arrived at the school with all of our food, every crock pot I own, and other various items at 8:30 am sharp. The festival was scheduled to begin promptly at 10 and I knew that if we were using crock pots to heat up the nacho cheese and chili that would take at least an hour. Unfortunately NOBODY was at the school at 9am. I had to call the principal to let me in so that I could start setting up concessions. The other ladies arrived about 30 minutes later.
We had some serious electrical issues with all of our crockpots and one of the PTO ladies had brought two large electric roasters for cooking the hot dogs in. We didn't realize that you couldn't plug all of that into one surge protector. Even after splitting them into two different surge protectors we still blew breakers and melted one of the cords.. Eventually we got it all worked out and going.
Fall Festival was a success. We sold out completely on Nachos an hour before the festival was over. Bart brought the boys and they had a blast.
After I got home from Fall Festival I collapsed into bed to take a power nap. Bart woke me up at 5:30ish and told me that he had just gotten tickets to see Widespread Panic and The Allman Brothers Band at the Woodlands Pavilion.
Initially I was cranky and tired and not prepared to get straight into the car, then I remembered most of the people there would be unwashed hippies so I just ran a comb through my hair, threw on some sweatpants and a tie dye and grabbed my hippie sweater. I fit right in and the show was great.
The funniest part was that when Widespread Panic went off stage and The Allman Brothers came on the cloud of Marijuana Smoke could have been seen from space. I seriously think we all got stoned just from sitting there.
This morning I made a trip to the grocery store, and immediately went back to bed, which is where I still am now. I am literally just wiped out today. I have slept most of the day or dozed or just laid here....Tomorrow begins yet another crazy week... At least I have all of my meals planned for the week....two days this week the Crockpot will be doing all the work. LOVE the fall!!
I'm off to make some dinner and make sure the kids clothes are ready for school tomorrow.
Hope everyone had an awesome weekend!!
I heard about NaNoWriMo(National Novel Writing Month) about three years ago. My initial thought was, "Who in the hell would want to write 50,000 words in a month?" I would see all the stuff on Twitter from writer friends who were trying to make the deadline and secretly wish I was doing it too. I have always wanted to write a book, it would be a fictional story but would include a lot of autobiographical stuff from my own life story. So I picked this year to do it.
That's right.. I actually signed up for NaNoWriMo. If you don't know what that is I'll explain a little.(or you can click the link)
You have 30 days during the month of November to write 50,000 words. It's really not about putting out a perfectly edited body of work, it's about getting 50,000 words down and editing later.
I haven't decided yet how I'm going to go about doing this. I have no plot outline down on paper, nor do I have any of my characters dreamed up. I think when the day comes I'll just open Word and start typing. I think that over-planning ahead of time squashes the creative process. Of course I may be kicking myself later on for not planning ahead a little more.
Initially when I signed up for NaNoWriMo I was filled with a lot of emotions. I was terrified of failing to make the 50,000 word mark by the deadline, scared that I would get 10,000 words in and get writer's block, excited that I was finally going to work on this book that's been in my head for the past several years, and nervous that maybe I would get the book down on the computer and then hate it. I think that these are all very normal reactions.
My goal is to write 2,000 words per day. By the end of 30 days that should put me at 60,000 words. This also puts me in a position where I can take 5 of those days off out of the 30 and still meet the 50,000 word goal. If you are also doing NaNoWriMo you should add me on the site! You can view my profile here.
Good luck and Happy Writing!!
This week has been the week from HELL where PTO is concerned. We just finished a VERY BIG fundraiser and I had to tally, total, and collect money and orders for 600+ students. Imagine with me for a moment how many checks that is that I have to keep track of which checks came from which kid and who's class they are in and what grade. It's been MADDENING. (More on that below)
I don't know if I've told you this or not but we have the SMALLEST PTO EVER in history. There are 4 of us. There's me, Denise, Tammy and Lisa.(names have been changed to protect the innocent)
Lisa is SUPPOSED to be our Secretary. We elected her at the end of the year last year because the teacher that was on PTO as our Secretary was moving out of state and we had to find someone to fill the job. Little did we know that Lisa is a MAJOR alcoholic. She does not own a computer or typewriter, nor can she spell. She has been pretty useless to us ALL YEAR because she's either too hungover or doesn't know how to DO the stuff she is supposed to be doing. So her job as Secretary has been absorbed into my job as Treasurer. (Can you sense that I have a little bit of anger over this?? WHY ON EARTH would you nominate yourself for a position on the PTO that you KNOW you can't do?)
Tammy is the Vice President. She hasn't been useful to us all year due to extenuating circumstances with her health so her job as Vice President has been absorbed into Denise's job as President.
Denise and I don't WANT to be the only two moms on PTO but we have no choice. We tried to hold new elections and nobody even showed up let alone nominated themselves for a position. It's sad really, but not surprising. The area we live in is pretty rural and parents just don't get involved. Last year we actually had parents drop their kids off at music programs and leave them and not even stay to watch the program. It really makes me sad.
So the two of us are doing the work that normally 20 or more moms would do.
I spend more time at the school than I do at home. The upshot to that is that I am always able to see the boys at school.
I don't mind helping out, really I don't. I bitch all the time to Bart about all the stuff I have to do but deep down inside I kinda love it. I love being involved with the kids school. I think MORE parents should be more involved. I know people that NEVER set foot inside their kids schools except to register them. That's just sad.
Here's all the stuff that TWO PTO moms are doing this year:
*Organizing and running any fundraisers we have during the school year. (we are doing 4 this year) The fundraiser I just finished lasted 3 weeks. Two weeks for sales and one to collect the orders. Today I submitted all of the orders to the fundraiser company and now I have the daunting task of counting and tallying and entering checks, cash, and change into spreadsheets to prepare a deposit. I have over 600 checks and I have no idea how much cash and change to count and tally. You should see my bed right now. It looks like a bank threw up on it. I asked Bart today.. "Do you think it would be wrong of me to dump all the cash in a pile and roll around on it before I count it?" He just laughed... I'm still undecided on whether I'll do it or not, I'm thinking it would be "frowned" on by the principal, not that she would have to know..
*Putting together and submitting the Yearbook.. Let's just say here I have NEVER put together a Yearbook before. Our treasurer last year handled that and I have NO idea what I'm doing...I just hope I don't screw it up.
*Organizing and planning the annual Fall Festival that is coming up on October 17th. Booths, Concessions, and advertising. I got this one! I LOVE festivals and I LOVE food! We're doing hot dogs, nachos, and snow cones. There will be a cake walk, a booth where people can pay to throw whipped cream pies at the teachers and a dunking booth for the principal. Moonwalks, face painting and all sorts of stuff. We've been planning this since the beginning of the year so it's really not as stressful as it sounds.
Organizing, arranging for donations, and putting together themed baskets for annual Silent Auction. Did this one last year so it's not a big deal either. Basically I go to local businesses and ask them to donate a service or item to the school. I give them a list of the themed baskets we're doing and they always have something to offer us. Last year we did 24 baskets. They cost us basically NOTHING and we made almost 7 grand for the school. It was pretty awesome.
Organizing and planning the annual Kids Christmas Shoppe. Yep did this one too last year. Denise and I go to the dollar store and snatch up all the "gift" items we can find that we think will sell well. Bring them back to the school and the kids can come and "shop" for their parents. We buy items for a dollar tax exempt. Then turn around and sell them for 2.00 each and make a profit for the school. Last year we spent 800.00 and only had about 20 items left. Which means we sold 780 items for 1560.00. It was pretty easy and made a good bit of cash for the school.
Putting together a weekly, monthly and quarterly as well as annual Treasurer's report and Financial Statement. I can balance a checkbook and I have last years reports to go off of as to how to format them so I think I'm good on this one too.
I'm also the school Photographer for the yearbook. I'll be taking all of the photos that aren't actual "school" pictures. I took a LOT of the pics for the yearbook last year so this isn't a big deal either..I also take Grandparent's Day Pictures and sell them for 5.00 each on Grandparent's day when the kids are having lunch with the Grandparents. We set up a cutesy bench with a fall type setting around it and I take photos. Then have them printed and return them to the students by the end of the week. It's been a HUGE hit. I donate my time to the school, and the photo editing. Print them off at walmart and we make at least a 4.00 profit on each photo. Last year I think we took about 300 pictures.
Putting together the Grade Level slideshows from said photos that will be shown at awards ceremonies at the end of the year, THEN submitting them to the company that makes the DVD's that we will sell after awards ceremonies. Easy. These are just done in Powerpoint and set to music. They're a big hit.
Video taping the music programs and editing and preparing them for the company that makes the DVD's that we will sell after the music programs. Also easy. I use Adobe Premiere to edit the videos and add effects then send it off to the company for burning to DVDs.
Also PTO is in charge of all of the Field Day stuff. We set up our Snow Cone and Popcorn Machine outside the Gym during field days and sell Snow Cones and Popcorn. I am officially the Queen of running the Popcorn Machine. That Snow Cone machine kinda scares me. I'd rather burn the hell out of myself than have my hand chewed off in that thing any day..
This will be my LAST year on PTO for this particular school.(I turned in my resignation to the Principal already this year just to be sure she understood that she would need to fill my position with someone new for next year) Next year two of my boys will be in Middle School and I'll just have one in Elementary, so it only seems fair that I spend more time at the school where the majority of my kids are. Besides I'll get to go and be Band mom next year. Being as how I was the biggest Band Geek you will ever know this excites me more than you will ever understand. When I was in Junior High and High School I played the Flute, Clarinet and Bass Clarinet in the Marching Band. I LOVED football games, and after school practices. I'll get to live vicariously all over again through Austin. It's going to SO ROCK.
Anyways, just wanted to write a short update so you wouldn't all think I had abandoned my blog again, I've just been buried in fundraiser crap. I'm going to get all this money and checks tallied over the weekend so I can get it all in the bank where it belongs. Then I'll have a few days to relax before we start running like crazy women again prepping for Fall Festival.
Hope everyone has a great weekend!!
Now that Austin and I are both over the Oink Flu I have a myriad of tasks to catch up on that didn't get done over the past month while I was healing up from breaking my arm and being sick. This weekend is getting dubbed as Operation Sanitize The Clickarosa. It's been far too long since ALL of the laundry was done and put away, the kitchen floor got mopped, and the shower in the master bath didn't look like you would get ill just from showering in it...
I spent the day yesterday making Gumbo. It took 5 hours if you count the trip to the store for supplies and my 24 quart stock pot was 3/4 full when I was finished. Poor Bart, I thought he would starve to death before it was done...he was so funny...circling the pot all day while it cooked looking like a sad puppy waiting for his kibble. As usual it turned out WONDERFUL. It was just what I needed to finally get over my sickness....Cat's Gumbo is truly medicinal.
In a few moments I will make waffles for the kids and start the crazy woman cleaning fest.
On the list for this weekend:
Household Tasks:
Strip all of the beds and wash the linens.
Sweep and scrub kitchen floor.
Dust and vacuum living room.
Windex all the glass tables in the living room.
Wash, dry, fold and put away ALL of the laundry. (there is currently a Mountain at the end of the hall I lovingly refer to as Mount Washmore.)
Clean the master bathroom.
Clean the kids bathroom.
Straighten, dust, and vacuum kids gameroom.
Work some in my office getting rid of papers that don't need to be there and generally straightening it up, also dusting and vacuuming in the office.
Tech/Geek Tasks:
Figure out why Sony Vaio desktop system crashes in mid boot and restarts. More than likely will have to wipe system and reinstall windows.
Do monthly backup on laptop to external and DVDs.
PTO Duties that need to be done before Monday:
Reconcile PTO Bank Statement and prepare Treasurer's Report for September.
Finish logging all new PTO members into membership roster.
Prepare membership dues deposit and tally sheet for Treasurers Book.
Go to Bank and deposit all membership dues.
Make database on computer to tally all Fundraiser Orders as they start coming in on Monday.
Type minutes from last general meeting and print out to give to President on Monday.
Pay our signmaker for the awesome signs he made for the front of the school.
Outdoor Tasks:
Trim all dead leaves off plants on porch.
Fertilize all patio plants and water.
Refill bird feeders with fresh seeds.
Clean and refill hummingbird feeders.
Gosh it makes me tired just reading all of that....but it's been far too long since all of this was done and it NEEDS to be done..so off to work I go! I hope everyone has a FABULOUS weekend!!
I've been down with the Flu for a day and a half now. My oldest son went to the doctor yesterday and they said it was Swine Flu that he had....Within about 5 hours I had started to show symptoms as well. Let's just hope Bart and the other two boys don't get it...
Anyways, that's not the purpose of this post. I wanted to share two AWESOME songs I have gotten my hands on in the past few days that I just can't stop listening to...
The first song is by a great band called Muse.
My arm and wrist have improved INFINITELY since I posted last. I am able to move it much easier now and the pain is much less than it was. This makes me extremely happy. I had been quite depressed at the thought of this causing permanent damage but I am no longer worried about that.
A few days ago I got frustrated and started forcing myself to use it for things even if it hurt. I would push through the pain and keep at it. I think that is why it's gotten better. That and all of the exercises and play dough and stuff I've been using.
I think that within a month it will be all back to normal and only ache when the weather changes due to having all the metal in there.
I'm hoping to be back driving by Monday so that Bart can go back to working his normal hours and I can take the boys and pick them up from school.
Life is getting back to normal.
I feel very lucky for that..especially since It's not even been a full month since I broke it. I still have 3 weeks until I'm cleared to get back to my exercise regimen and I'm hoping that I can do push ups on that wrist. If not I'll have to improvise. I'm starting back to my Cardio routine on Monday. There's no reason why I can't walk on the treadmill just because I have a broken arm. I plan on holding off on the running until I'm fully cleared. I wouldn't want to slip and fall on the treadmill on this arm..
Just wanted to post an update!! I hope you guys all have a great weekend!! It will be the first really good weekend I've had in quite some time..I plan on enjoying it!!
Peace!
Whatever that means..
Yes folks that means I'm BACK...after a LONG hiatus from blogging and several failed attempts at blogging on other sites I am BACK on VOX.
I have updated my profile bio, added a new profile pic, and changed my design. Let me know what you think of those if you don't mind.. and stay tuned..I'm making it a personal goal to blog here at least 5 times a week.
Also if you have a facebook or a Twitter account add me!