Sunday, April 22, 2007

Odds and Loose Ends

  • In case you hadn't figured it out, I didn't end up applying for the job. I got bitter just thinking about how it would suck away the few free hours a week I have without a child attached to me, and once I did the math I realized that it didn't pay enough for me to afford a sitter for the kids during the hours I was working.
  • Although somehow I managed to volunteer close to 30 hours a week over the past three weeks between C's school stuff and the church fund raiser without the help of a sitter.
  • I think the difference is that the volunteer work was on my terms. I felt no guilt about walking away from it for an hour to take the kids to the park or out to eat. And if the kids started screaming in the middle of a meeting and I had to leave, no one could get worked up about it because I was a volunteer.
  • OK, I felt some guilt about walking away in the middle of meetings, but I was able to work through it because hello, I wasn't getting paid.
  • I think there is a fine line between a strong work ethic and a work-a-holic, and I have always fallen just over that line on the wrong side.
  • The fund raiser went, OK. I got dragged into it pretty late in the decision making process, so a lot of the things I would have changed had already been set in stone once I came on board. At least I don't feel responsible for them.
  • I have no idea how much money we made, I had to leave before the money got counted to relieve the babysitter. But I have a strong suspicion that it was not nearly as much as they had originally hoped for. Which should surprise no one since 150 less people attended than the initial guess as to how many parishioners would come to a Friday night event at a less than stellar function hall.
  • I think the meal I didn't eat was perhaps the worst meal I have ever been served in my life. Even the cake was horrific. At least I felt no responsibility over it as the place had been booked long before I even knew there was going to be a fund raiser.
  • Since no one knew who I was, I heard a lot of complaining about the details of the fund raiser. Which got me pretty worked up for a while. And then M pointed out that if they had felt so strongly, they should have gotten involved. Yeah! That's right!
  • I think we did a pretty good job for a group of four people, two of whom worked full-time, one of whom was going through chemotherapy and one of whom had two small children at home. In fact, I think it is somewhat of a miracle that we pulled it off.
  • Next time I want to be in on the ground floor of the planning process though. I already have a list going of the things that should have been done differently.
  • Did I mention that I tend towards work-a-holicism?
  • The kids were serious troopers though the whole thing. So I felt badly when I didn't win the raffle baskets they really wanted. But apparently C still loves me, even if I am not a very lucky mommy.
  • And I am glad to be back in my favorite chair contemplating my next knitting project.