Snowmen!

That Bakerella has got nothin' on me....nothin', I tell ya! I made these cutie cake snowmen for my GS troop. They have no mouths - it would be baaaaaad for little girls to hear these pricks repeating the string of cussing that was coming out of my mouth while working on this project. Bakerella makes it look so easy. They weren't really too difficult, but mine are lumpy, bumpy and my lack of patience made them....meh. Alas, they are for little girls, and they will think they are perfect!!

That treehouse thing - yeah, it's toooooo cold to proceed. It is a full tree deck with rails and a slide, just no "house" yet. We did decorate it for Christmas - lights and giant candy canes. I should take a picture!! It's playable, so that's what matters right now.

Being Thankful

Yesterday I took my girls & our troop downtown to deliver warm items to the homeless. We made 100 lunches and tied over 200 fleece blankets to give away - we hit the areas where folks are set up fairly permanently and visited those under bridges. It was quite an experience for the kids....ended up taking 12 girls along. The attitudes washed away and the girls spent some quality time talking to the people who we served. I've got tons of great photos, but can't share them because of the girls in them. They all gained a new respect for the comfort they live in. A great way to enter into the Thanksgiving season!

It's looking up....

So things are looking up around here....my daughter finally got her shit together, even if it only lasts a few days, and we are getting the party planned. I am beyond stressed at all that has to be done before Saturday, but I'll take party stress over work stress any day of the week!!

I have a ton of great ideas for the party, but I don't have the time to implement any of them so we are having a sleepover and possibly will go to the movies. I'm still working automobile logistics on that idea....

I told Hunk he was being an ass and he pretty much agreed - he's got the work stress thing going on, so I can't blame him too much. Something really cool happened because of work for him, he goes to Canada a few times a year, but not anything too regular. He found out yesterday that he is scheduled to be in Canada for the TequilaCon date. Well, Canada is a big place, and he's going to multiple cities, but it just so happens that he will be in VANCOUVER the exact date. Could the stars align any better? The bigger hurdle now is trying to get myself there to be with him, but hell, somebody in this house gets to go so...HUAH!! My schedule is open that week/weekend, but getting my kids' calendar covered for a few days is like herding kittens... I only have two kids - I can't imagine all those people with 4-5 kids all doing their own thing. I would lose my mind!!!

And because I love myself for being a volunteer, this past weekend we helped pack up cookies to send to soldiers serving overseas. All four of us went to help and it was so fun - tons of girls, and a few dads & moms, decorating boxes, writing notes and packing up cookies with love. Over 5,000 boxes - that's a lot of cookies!! And they will travel via military crates, on military planes and be delivered far and wide to the soldiers. It's really hard for the kids to understand how much this can mean to a soldier. Hell, it's hard for ME to understand. I've never had to leave my family behind to go work, I've never had to dig myself a hole to take a crap in, I've never had desert sand in my eyes and I have never had to eat MRE's three times a day, seven days a week. While we were selling cookies in front of a store we had a mom come up to our booth and purchase cookies to add to our "Ship to Soldiers" bin. It so happened that she had recently come home from being stationed in Iraq and she told us how getting a box of cookies, decorated with puppy stickers, silly notes and smiley faces absolutely made her day. She could not stress enough how "you just have no idea what it meant to me..." And she is so very right....I have no idea, and I am thankful that I will never have to know that struggle.

..a trailer full of cookies...notes for each case...notes from donors........every box decorated..

Camp Out

I was lucky enough to go camping this past weekend. The weather turned out to be pretty good, not near as much rain as we expected and the temperature was just right the entire time.

This camping trip was for Girl Scouts and we ended up taking 21 girls. About half of them had never camped before and I must say that they all did SO good. We slept in Platform Tents, which if you don't know what that is - ummm, ICK! I am a big fan of the ZIP UP tent. I can control what is coming in and out of my tent. Platforms are basically wood decks with a canvas tent around it. The front, back and corners are all just tied together with ropes. It's like a flap tent that never fully closes. Upon our arrival, which was in the dark (we had to wait until school was over to leave, then a long drive, bad GPS, etc) I went to my platform and scoped it out with my flashlight - spiders in every corner, leaves and a ROACH! I can handle a lot of things, but roaches are not one of them. I 'almost' put up my hammock and just slept outside. But I plowed through and acted big for the girls. We have two Army issue mosquito nets which I always use for platform camping. The thing is that this was the first trip that I had BOTH of my girls and each one of them wanted a bug net. This left me out in the cold. I tried to share one of the nets with my littlest girl, but it was just shy of being big enough. I spent most of the two nights wondering if something was crawling on me.

The age range of the girls was 7 - 13, the little ones were SO EXCITED. I decided to split up the ages and do separate things with them and, by far, the most fun was the Canoeing for the little ones. Many of them had never canoe'd before and they did fantastic and they learned so much. And got SO WET! It was the best!

I had to push past the fact that half of me did not want to be there, at all. Hunk had been away for the week and I had to leave for this trip as soon as he got home. We weren't on bad terms while he was away, but it was just off and things were just empty for me. I didn't want to leave, but I had to so it was another 3 days of separation. It was hard to put on the happy face all weekend, but I did.

We finally got our "time" on Sunday - late - but it was good to finally just be together and figure out why I was feeling so apart. Things are fine now, but it would just be so much easier if I could just SAY what I'm always feeling. I don't want to do that, I want him to read my mind and figure it all out, it just feels like it's not as genuine if I have to TELL YOU. Yanno?

Anyhoo, all is well now. And I'm ready for another camping adventure, this one just wet my whistle. Unfortunately, our weekends are chock full until the cold weather will appear, so I think I'm going to have to wait until spring. Boo!

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!

Busy

I do this to myself every fall. I know this about myself, so why do I do it?

Hi, I'm Beth and I am an OVERCOMMITER.

I was going to make a list of all that I have committed to lead, head up or help with, but then Hunk will comment with "I told you so...", plus he has no real idea what all I've sold my soul to. So, let's just say that I am on the cusp of a whirlwind.

A small part of something I do is Girl Scouts. I lead both of my girls' troops, which they meet alternate weeks, so one week I lead older girls, the next I lead younger girls. Hopefull, this will spread everything out. This week we had older girls - a regular meeting and then a community service project.

Our community service project was to volunteer at the offices of the Walk for Breast Cancer. We met right after school and headed downtown (fought traffic on the way), but we finally arrived at the office and they graciously had ordered pizza for the girls. How cool was that? Our task of the evening was to begin the process of stuffing the "goodie bags" that would be gifts for each person walking for the cause. While we ate pizza, we got to sit around and talk with the founder of the Walk (who happened to have been a Scout leader many years before) and she was just awesome. She is a Breast Cancer survivor and she has endured so much, yet she is such a strong and positive person despite all she has been through. Thankfully, she is doing well right now, due to some experimental treatments. She had a goal of raising one million dollars over the course of 10 years and as of now, the walk has been going on for four years and they have exceeded FOUR MILLION dollars raised for Breast Cancer Research. Amazing what the dream of one person can turn into. When you think that you can't possibly make a difference - think AGAIN! She has made a huge difference and it all started with one person.

Publix donated some wicked new reusable grocery bags, much larger than the standard grocery store reusables. We filled these bags with socks, trinkets, information and some really good coupons. It was good for the girls to work and see behind the scenes that it takes teamwork to make things happen. It was good for the girls to meet the founder and to hear her story, it was wonderful for them to realize that they can make a difference, if they just have the desire.

Since we each got to take a goodie bag for ourselves I am sending mine to my Chemo Buddy (I'm a Chemo Angel). It has some really cute stuff in it, and even though she does not have Breast Cancer I know she will enjoy them. It was just a good experience all around and it makes you feel good to be a part of something that is changing the world, a little bit at a time. Hopefully, through this walk and through others they will continue to find ways to save women's lives everyday.

This is why I overcommit - because sometimes, it's just worth it, dammit!

Step Up

I'm a Girl Scout Leader. Not because it has been my life long dream, but it is because my girl wants to be a Girl Scout and the fact that there are not enough volunteers the only sure way of getting a kid in a troop is to be a volunteer. However, I've been a leader for 2 years now and I have come to really like doing it - short from things that aren't related to the girls. I really do love all the girls I work with, it is harder for some, but I love them all.

I started out my first year with girls from 2nd & 3rd grade. I wanted to have only 3rd (my kids age), but was talked into taking some other girls that were siblings or otherwise had meeting time issues that only our troop could meet. It was a good year.

My second year was when we became Junior level scouts. There was already a Junior level troop meeting at the same time and place we were and I was asked into inheriting that entire troop along with my girls who were moving up. My first inquiry was to the number of girls I would inherit. There were 6 which was manageable with the 6 I was bringing along. A group of 12. As the weeks went on the 6 to inherit somehow became more because of those who said they were not returning and then changed their minds, etc. I did not feel completely comfortable with the numbers, but these girls were previously in the troop and I felt like they would be shafted if not allowed to continue on. The group of 12 quickly turned into 15, and then before I knew it there were 17 girls in the troop. The age range was also insane, the girls were from 3rd grade up to 6th grade ages.

The icing on the cake was that I was pursuaded to take a lot of this on with the condition that there would be a Kindergarten troop for my little one at the same time I was working with the older girls. This never materialized and so the Kindergarteners of me and my co-leader were left out completely with no troop, but had some very high hopes of being in GS. So we then had 17 older girls and our 2 littles hanging out for a total of 19 girls. TOO MUCH!!

We managed to have a good year and we even took the entire group to Gatlinburg, TN for an overnight inside the aquarium. We had fun and I gave it my all. In the meantime my daughter in the Junior level did not particularly like the large troop and the varied ages. It was definately divided and though I tried to dissolve the clicks it was just natural for the olders to gravitate away from the youngers, etc. I told her that we would make the best of the year and see if we could make some changes. In short, we worked with what we had and made the best of it.

This year I've left that troop and hooked up with another leader who's co-lead was leaving and they have a troop of girls all the same age. The troop is limited to 10 girls. Waa HOO! The perfect situation for us. There were spots available so I asked the girls in my older, bigger troop who fit the age requirement if they wanted to come along. Some did. I also tried to make sure that the troop I was leaving had some ideas for a new leader. I did not want any girls left hanging out there and feeling deserted.

I feel like I did the best I could and now I'm getting raked through the mud by the GS leadership and made to feel as if I've done something wrong by 'deserting' the big troop. We also have parents that want to get their girls into our troop and don't understand why we set our limit at 10. Why have the experience if you can't enjoy it? Why don't you start your own troop for your girls? Hey, did you notice that my co-leads mom is terminally ill in Canada and she may have to leave for an extended period of time at the drop of a hat? You bitches just don't care about us or what our lives are like, you just want us to take your kids. You think you are too busy to lead, well if you gave a rat's ass about other people you would see that we are all busy, but it is an effort - an effort I am willing to make for my kid.

The last time I checked I was a volunteer, don't tell me I should shelve my kids needs for yours. The last time I checked the GS will let ANYONE (with a clean background) be a leader and they will train you and show you exactly what to do. The last time I checked each and every girl from the troop I left had a mom or a dad or both who could be a leader, but just didn't want to. WHY am I a bad person here? I took your kids once a week for a year and never asked anything in return. I took your kids away for a weekend and we all had fun. Guess what? My kid wants a different GS experience and I can give it to her so KISS MY ASS!! These people expect me to stay where I am because of the other girls in the troop. So I guess I should just tell my kid that in her NEXT childhood we will do it the way it is intended. I guess I should tell my kid that I'm sorry I can't be her mom because I have to be the mom for these other people's kids.

These parents kill me. They have kids and then spend the rest of their lives looking for a place to dump the kid so they can go to Starbucks. I have run into this in almost every area of activity for my kids. I always volunteer to lead or assist and there are always the assholes that drop their kids and run. They always have sorry ass excuses that they can't lead because they don't know how, or they don't know the sport. I am living proof that anyone can do it. I don't play sports, don't watch (except TOM BRADY, I mean, except football) and I know nothing. But I have been a soccer coach. I've never watched a soccer game in my life and I know nothing about the game, but my kid wanted to play and there was no coach, so I did it. And I learned and we actually won some games. It's an effort and I'm so sick of dumbasses that give no effort to their kids. I applaud the parents who are there, doing what they can so our kids can play and they get no thanks, only critical advice of what they could have done. I've actually heard asswipes talking about how they would have done it better, BUT THEY DIDN'T, they DID NOTHING. And I hope their kid gives them hell for the rest of their lives.

I'm all about helping out kids that need it, but for the bunch of 2 parent, 2 income families in this area who are too busy to get involved they can all just SUCK IT!