Saying No

I've been running myself ragged this week.

I don't know how it happened. My sweetie says it's because I don't know how to use the word "no." So let me explain it to you and maybe you can decide.

Last month when everything seemed doable in my life, I offered to help stuff bags for our Girl Scout Community Cookie Chaser. It's a race (and you know I'm not a runner), so putting goodies in bags for the participants seemed perfect. I even thought my girl scouts might be able to help me.

Then last week rolled around and I found out that we only had until Wednesday, not Friday to get these things together and not to worry because they didn't really have anything to put in them anyway...

What could I do?

In the beginning...

I got on the phone and contacted some of my friends, ran around to local businesses, and drummed up a bunch of coupons and little goodies and gadgets to go in our treat bags. That was actually quite a bit of work that just gave me more work to do yesterday and today while I was trying to put things together.

I had the kids set up 3 tables for me in the living room. After I laid out 76 bags, I realized that just wasn't going to work, so I gathered them back up and racked my brain to see how else to do this project. All these years of volunteering and this is one I had never done.

Then I remembered the trays we use to eat in the van when we go on vacations. I made 5 rows of 25 and suddenly I had it, a way to make 125 treat bags! After several backbreaking hours over the course of 2 days and more chasing to pick up donations, the trays were done and ready to be dumped into bags.

Ready to dump.

I held open the bag, Curly put in a handful of fliers, Scout dumped in the tray and we added a flyswatter and a ruler. Then my friend from the Community came by tonight to pick them up. I'm so glad to be finished! It was a good service project, just not exactly what I was signing up for and it didn't have anything to do with the word "no."

Right, Sweetie? Now don't say no...