Released!

Wheeee - today is the last day of schooooooool! School's out for Summer! School's out Forever! (I wish!, well, somedays....)

Anyhoo, I sent my kids packing for the last day, no more alarm clocks, yipee!!

I am the editor of the memory book at my kids school. I create quite a book for the kids - compared to the books of the schools surrounding us, I can confidently say that our book is the frickin' bomb! I have a few others who submit pages here and there, but 90% of the book is layed out by yours truly. I have to say that I was very pleased with our book and got many compliments on how great it was.

Besides one person. This person purchased a personalized page for their child, which I did not design. One of the volunteers did this page as this was a child she knew and wanted to do her recognition page. The page was very cute, just as described by the parent EXCEPT there were two errors that I did not catch. The wording was altered - meaning that one word was replaced with another word - both words mean the same thing, for some reason the mom designing it got it wrong. "Pleased" became "delighted". Then there was an extra letter in the spelling of the signature line......ex. " Love, Mom, Dad & Jenna". Only Jenna should've had one "n", not two.

In this case, my first reaction is to immediately refund them their money, as a gesture of good faith. It's an honest mistake, we are just moms trying to make a cute book, and we are not professionals. Hell, I got the other 200 recognitions correct.... It is unfortunate that is was a mistake, but we are in elementary school and in all honesty, don't sweat the small stuff. The photos were fabulous and the overall message was intact, still take the money since we didn't get it just right.

But some people can surprise you. This person was one of them. This has become an outright TRAGEDY for this family. I have been called names, accused of doing this purposefully and the mom who did the page was verbally attacked by the mom of the kid. The parent wants the entire project re-done with corrections and wants compensation for their grief. WTF??

These kids are 11 years old. This is meant to be a memory book, and a fundraiser for the school. Are you really THAT consumed with yourself? I agree that it is an unfortunate mistake, but no one was hurt, the recognition made sense and just......WTF!! The amount of anger that these people have spent on this is INSANE!

I am proud of myself, though. In the past I would have let this really bother me. I really do like to please people and I will run myself to the ground if I screw up. But not this time. These people had a choice - they took the low road and I will not let it ruin my day, my week or the accomplishment of a volunteer job well done. I guess I am accepting the fact that there are people who just SUCK ASS out there. I can't understand how you raise a child to become a person of society who is so completely unaware of those around them. The real tragedy in this situation is these people, and how everyone around them is looking at them with total disgust because of their behavior. These people, who are teaching their child to be just as pathetic as they are. I guess it takes all kinds to make the world go round......eh?

Just out of the woods....

My Mother's Day was spent in the woods. My oldest daughter's Girl Scout troop wanted to camp and wouldn't you know that the ONLY weekend we could include ALL girls would be Mother's Day!! Not really my idea of a pampering experience, but I did want to take them camping and if this was the only way, then so be it.

The girls decided that since it was Mother's Day myself and my co-leads would "sleep in" while they all cooked us up a big breakfast. It was a good theory.

I woke up at 6 am, had to pee - I passed one of the girl tents and heard talking so I'm thinking this is good, I may get to eat before lunchtime!! I did my business and climbed back in the sleeping bag.

After an hour, I couldn't lay there any longer so I got out of the tent expecting to find a flurry of girls preparing food. NADA. Not a one of them were out of their tents! I grabbed a Diet Coke and set myself up to 'nap' in my hammock.

The girls finally got moving about 7:30, they spent about 45 minutes trying to get a fire going (perhaps we should re-visit the firebuilding technique?). I was getting LOTS of questions about what to do, so it ended up that the leaders did a lot of the cooking - the girls really were not ready for this big of a meal on their own (maybe in a kitchen, but not over a fire). They were also all really bickering A LOT about who got to do which station. Aye yi yi! So, I'd say that the whole Mother's Day breakfast was a bit of a bust. They also did a really crappy job at cleaning up after the meal! I wasn't in the mood to be a bitch about it (I'm usually the one to enforce the chores in the group) so I let it go - something I have NEVER done!! Hope I haven't ruined my reputation there! I did not do the cleaning though, I got back in my hammock. One of the other leaders who REALLY does not let the girls take lead cleaned up the whole shooting match. I think this is the WORST possible thing she could do for these kids, but like I said, I was not in the mood to be The Enforcer.

Though the breakfast didn't happen, the rest of the day was really good. The girls wrote a play and acted it all out for us. They worked on it all weekend and did a lot of practicing. It was actually a very clever play - one of the girls wrote the entire script (three scenes) and then she did all of the directing. It was very funny and the entire group worked together on it, and HAPPILY!! I was very proud of them for coming together - something we have had a lot of issue with. I can say that the one girl who causes a lot of strife had left early - I realized how much the group dynamic changed without her there.

I then introduced them all to Geocaching. They loved it! We went on a hunt for two cache boxes and were successful at finding both of them. Both of the boxes were filled with swag and they happily swapped some stuff and we found a Geocoin to boot. It turned out to be much more exciting for them than I ever imagined!

When I got home, Hunk made lasagna for my dinner and I dropped I was so exhausted from the trip. The girls wore me out!

Caught in the Act

Suppose you went to a party hosted by a business acquaintance. Suppose your 'date' had a lot to drink and was feeling frisky. Suppose he suggests that you have a rendezvous in the restroom on the yacht of your business acquaintance. Suppose you give in and say, yes.......

Now, imagine that while you are in the middle of being frisky, that you hear a KNOCK. Ok, he calmly says, "just a second" and the abbreviated ending ensues. KNOCKING, more persistent, "just oonnnne second", in a breathy tone. Then you hear a voice, it's the owner of the boat, "I need to get in there!", more KNOCKING. Trying to wrap things up rather quickly, now.

OF COURSE, there is only one way out. OF COURSE, the owner is waiting on the other side of the closed door and there are TWO people in one restroom. OF COURSE, this is not a person that you know that well. OF COURSE, there are 3 other restrooms on the boat and this is the one that he comes to, AT THIS EXACT MOMENT.

Sigh.

Exiting the restroom, rather quickly, eyes averted.

Suppose you probably won't be invited to the next cruise.......