Bronze Award

For about the past 5 months, K has been working on earning her Girl Scout Bronze Award. It is the highest award she can earn as a Junior Girl Scout. We considered several ideas before choosing to do a toy, backpack, and gift card drive for the Make A Wish Foundation of Orange County and the Inland Empire (Riverside and San Bernardino counties). All the proceeds from K's drive will go to fulfill wishes of local children facing life threatening illnesses.

K's project was a companion project to her troop mate M's project. M coordinated a "Letters to Santa for Make A Wish Foundation" project, where she went to several Girl Scout troops' meetings and had the girls write letters to Santa, then delivered the letters to Macy's on "Believe" day. For each letter to Santa written and delivered to Macy's, $1.00 was donated to Make A Wish Foundation. But on "Believe" day, each letter was worth $2.00. Marilyn delivered over 250 letters to Macy's. Way to go, M.

The Bronze Award is essentially a 15 hour service project which requires each girl to take a leadership role. K, with assistance from Amanda (her Troop leader), Matt and myself, took this project on. We started with a timeline for what needed to be done and when, K set goals, composed a letter to friends and family asking for assistance, helped design a flyer for her "Afternoon in the Park" event, emailed family and friends, distributed flyers to friends and family, updated her Girl Scout troop routinely, wrote thank you cards, planned her "Afternoon in the Park" event, baked and frosted cakes, hosted her "Afternoon in the Park" event, and finally delivered the toys, backpacks and gift cards to the Make A Wish Foundation house in Tustin, California.

Her goal was to collect 5 backpacks, enough items (toys) to fill 5 backpacks, and $100 in gift cards. She collected 18 backpacks (!!!), enough items to fill at least 8 backpacks, and $100 in gift cards. Her project was a huge success. A rough estimate of the dollar amount of what we donated today is around $600-650 retail. We are so proud of K!

Oops

Forgot to blog yesterday. Actually it was a very busy Sunday. Spent most of the day at church. We had a Direct Service Fair after both morning sevices, some of the non-profits we are partnered with were there to sign people up for opportunities to give back.

After that, Matt and I cleaned up after communion, took down the All Saints Day banners, put up the regular banners, and took apart the candle set up we had done for All Saints Day. It was really cool to give people the opportunity to light candles for their deceased loved ones. And during that ritual, I was able to hold it together, but once it was over, I was in tears. Being intensely emotional and empathetic is really difficult sometimes.

We then had a very late lunch with friends and headed back to church for evening service.

Was completely exhausted by the time we got home.

Herb Garden

Today, the Girl Scout troop had an outing to the Orange County Great Park for a gardening workshop. Our girls got to make a 3 herb potted garden (sage, thyme, and chives). We stayed afterward for a cooking with herbs demonstration. I was pretty impressed with the quality of the presentations, especially since the whole program was free. The girls enjoyed themselves and I think we all learned some new things.

I noticed, on the way to the workshop, that the San Bernardino Mountains have a gorgeous blanket of fresh snow on them. Will need to make a snow pilgrimmage soon.

I Got Nothin'

I am feeling very down and depressed today. And K is fighting off a repiratory bug. Thus endeth today's blog post.

Contemplating Sisyphus

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus, as punishment for his trickery, is sentenced to roll a giant stone up a hill and just as he got it to the top, it would roll back down again and he would have to start over again.

Matt's new job was a nightmare, and they actually laid him off yesterday. So now he is back at the bottom of the hill with the big rock. He is relieved. I am freaking.  He has already arranged an interview for today, so maybe he will be re-employed quickly.

Arrrgh

Just arrrgh. I am not loving life today.

NaBloWriMo 2011

And thus I will undertake the Blog version of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). I am not all that creative when it comes to writing fiction, so I have not even entertained the idea of writing a novel.

I find it so much easier to write about real life. Gritty, rough, emotional, terrifying, wonderful, and full of beauty. Life has had more of the gritty/rough texture lately. Matt lost his job at a very large mult-national bank back in early September. He quickly was re-employed at the beginning of October, however, the job is terribly stressful and much lower paying than his previous job. He is very unhappy, and it affects us all. I worry about him, about his health, about his emotional state, and about his ability to handle the stress. Yes, things could be worse. There are always worse things in the world. But it would be complete denial to say that all is perfectly wonderful right now.

K started 5th Grade this year, and so far it has been kind of rough. She works so hard on her homework and then fails to turn it all in. I feel like we are both banging our heads against the wall, repeatedly. I do not know what else I can do. I know she wants to do well, but her brain chemistry (ADHD) puts up so many roadblocks. I am thinking it may be time to entertain the notion of medication, and I really need to think long and hard about it, what options there are, and how it will impact K and the rest of the family. But with our medical insurance up in the air, I am thinking now may not be the most optimal time to begin this process. UGH.

Right after K started school, I was waking up in the mornings with my left ankle hurting and stiff. The pain and stiffness would go away, so I thought it was arthritis. Until it swelled up one day, and I could not bear any weight on it. So I grabbed the crutches and got my rear end to the Urgent Care, and as it turns out, I stress fractured my ankle. I wish I could remember how I did it, because everyone loves an epic injury story. The fact is, I probably mildly sprained it just doing day-to-day life, and then continued to walk on it, until it broke. I was on crutches for a couple of weeks, and now am on a "walking boot". Let me tell you, that walking boot cost more than any three pairs of my shoes. OY! And it is sooooooo fashion forward.

There are consequences to this walking boot thing, I have to wear my hiking boot on my right foot to come close to how high the walking boot is on my left, and I am still off by about 1/2 inch, so my back is constantly tweaked, and the boot is heavy so my legs (especially my hips) are achy and sore all the time. Yes I am whining. I hate that I am whining, but I have to get it out.

I know life gets better, because life has been better. There is an ebb and flow to everything. I just hate being in the ebb part.