Performance Showcase 2019

I really had planned to write this past weekend, but on Friday, my sweetie and I drove to Logan and back to pick up Crafty so she could dance in the Performance Showcase.

It is so fun to watch her dance and although she was enjoying the Leadership Conference, she didn't want to let her team down. We ate at Angie's and then we picked up Crafty, stopping for Aggie Ice Cream on the way home. We arrived with just enough time for her to change and drive to the school.

On Saturday, we had our 6-hour cookie booth where we totally sold out of all of our cookies. After nearly 6 hours in the chilly air, I was freezing and it took me hours to actually warm up. Sometime during that time frame, Teach asked me if we could watch Twizlet for the evening and a possible over-nighter.

We had lots of fun, but as it turned out, Twizlet doesn't like to sleep and with Daylight Savings Time, we were up way too late.

Chicken Soup for the Soul Books

I was visiting my friend, Jamie, the other day, delivering her cookies when I noticed that she had a "Chicken Soup" book on her table and it reminded me of a long-forgotten day when that book series was so important to me.

"I have a story in one of those books," I commented to Jamie and another friend she had over. "Yeah, right," Jamie is always the skeptic. I think people have taken advantage of her one too many times. "No, really," I insisted.

"Which one?" she demanded. I have to admit that I couldn't even tell her, but tonight when I was refreshing that conversation in my brain, I scanned my bookshelves until I found our rather dog-eared (free) copy and I sent her a pic of the cover and the first page of my story.

I'm still waiting for her response.

You all know this story already. It is the condensed version of Kiylee's Christmas. But for me it was a triumph; one of the few writings that have actually paid me cash.

Even more importantly, it gave me a chance to tease Jamie a bit, and just for that, it would have been worth the effort.

I'll let you know when I hear back from her.

CTE Influencer's Award

It seems that I like this every other day posting thing. I honestly have plenty of things going on that I could tell you about, but by the end of the day and after I have finished what has to be done, sometimes I'm just too tired to make it happen.

On Tuesday morning, I went to school with Crafty so that I could see her receive another amazing award. For the 2nd year in a row, she was given the CTE Influencer's Award! I wish we would have had that piece of information for her Sterling Scholar portfolio!

They had us come to the school at 7:00 AM for breakfast and after honoring the kids (which was the important part after all), we were given a cinnamon roll and a tiny bottle of chocolate milk. Not exactly the healthiest things on the planet and I'm sure most of those kids were hungry by 10:00 AM. I know I was...

Bossy and Gamer were in court again today while they try to decide who should have custody of Cat Woman's new little guy. It's been an ordeal. He is still in the hospital though with some weird thing that makes him stop breathing when he eats. He turns blue and everything! Or so I've been told. We haven't been able to visit him since that 2nd week until they determine his future.

Crafty is leaving for a leadership conference tomorrow and I'm hoping to wrap up cookies by the end of the weekend. It will be so nice to get things back to sort of normal. Just in time for Curly to start baseball season...

Backpacks Against Hunger

Another new and crazy week, I'm guessing. Not much variance in my life from that anymore. We spent most of the day on Saturday delivering cookies, but we did get an hour to visit the care center. The kids all partnered up with the residents and then they raced pinewood derby cars. My kids liked winning even more when they were not the ones in charge of the cars. OK, maybe not more...

On Friday, we had our Girl Scout troop meeting (so much Scouts this week!) and we took the girls shopping. Drama Queen and I had purchased 13 backpacks at JC Penney a while ago for $2.50 each and we had been saving them for a service project. So we gave each girl $10 and paired them up and let them buy a weekend full of groceries for a hungry kid.

Not everyone quite understood that it was more important to give them more than quick energy and sugar, but by the time we were finished, the backpacks were full and now they are ready to deliver to Teach's school. I hear she has quite a few kids who would be really happy to have food in their tummies on Saturdays and Sundays. I guess they can eat breakfast and lunch at school during the week and that's good, but they still need a little help with the weekends.

I'm so glad the girls are learning the value of service. That's one of my favorite parts of scouting... oh and the cookies...
... but not the deliveries.