Excuses, Excuses

One of the things I enjoyed about having my own in-home daycare was being home with our own children while earning a living. I will always be grateful for having that opportunity.

On the other side of the coin, one of the things that I resented about my in-home daycare was being tied to my house. All day long. Every single day. Without exception. I could not call in sick when I or my children were ill. I could not take them to the doctor. When they got older and were in school, I could not be involved in school activities. I could not attend awards ceremonies or classroom parties.

When we closed our daycare last year, the thing I looked forward to most of all was being able to be involved in our kiddos' school. I've been to their parties and assemblies. I've chaperoned field trips. I've volunteered in their classrooms and at school functions.

And I've become involved in PTA.

VERY involved.

Perhaps TOO involved.


This year, among many other things, I volunteered to put together the Student Directory for PTA. This is a booklet of all the students whose parents agreed to have their contact information listed. It is a valuable tool to contact students and their parents. Great for scheduling play dates or sending out birthday invitations.

It took a great deal of time organizing and typing up all the information (I started on it back on Labor Day weekend while we were camping). Making the (600) two-sided 4-page copies found me standing at the copier in the school library for 6 hours on Tuesday. (oh, my aching back!) Then another 2 1/2 hours folding, stapling and sorting the booklets on Wednesday. Thank goodness for the four helpers I had that day. I can only imagine how long it would have taken me if I didn't have their help.

Now, I knew the Student Directory was a big job when I took it on. I knew that going in. I guess I just underestimated it. And I was not expecting to have to copy them all. In the past the school district's Printing Department has done that for us. That option was not available to us this year, so the job ended up being much more time consuming than ever before. Not to mention that our school's population doubled this year due to re-districting.

Still, I got them out a full month ahead of previous years' timing (my 1 day at the copier v.s. 3 weeks at the Printers), so I do feel good about it. I don't mean to complain. I'm just a bit overwhelmed, I suppose.

Getting those directories out, coupled with other PTA and Citywide PTA meetings that happen to fall on this week, and teaching my cake decorating classes at night....well, it all put me much too far behind on my own work. That is why I've been missing in action around the blogosphere this week.

I had hoped to participate in my first Pink Saturday this week. I took all the pictures for it. But, you know how it is. Editing them all to get them ready to post is time-consuming as well. Next weekend. I'm really looking forward to jumping in with both feet next Saturday.

In any case, I hope you all have a wonderful, relaxing weekend.

And now I'm off to catch up on my favorite pink blogs.