Monday, November 07, 2005

Parent Volunteering

This morning was a little crazy. I had already scheduled a "quick" training meeting at the elementary school, as the parent reading partners organizer decided that since I could only give one day, she would schedule me for two students! I had to get trained to help a kindergartener. 4 years of college wasn't enough! Oh well... That was at 9:30 - last week the preschool secretary called me to see if I could sort out all the Scholastic books this morning! Why does everything always have to happen on the same day!! Somehow, in my manic mode, I managed to sort all the books from 9-9:30, show up only 5 minutes late for my "training" and still make it to Curves before picking up Emily at 11:30. Now, we are home trying to decide what to have for lunch before going grocery shopping..... my to-do list never ends!

These parent volunteer things are a lot like working for a retail store. You give them the times you are available and your limits, and they still manage to eeck out every last ounce of lifeblood that they can!! Then, after you are finished, they ask that question, "Does this seem like too much??" I wanted to say, "Yeah, sorry, can't do this anymore!" LOL Not really. I said, "No, it's fine, we'll just do what we can!" That's the nice thing about volunteering. There are few expectations even though there are many demands. I hated retail because even when they scheduled only on the days you specifically said you COULD NOT work, it meant they could fire you if you didn't show up, and that was not good when I needed the paycheck! No paycheck here!

I am almost finally at my 100th visit to Curves, when I'll get some cheesy T-shirt. That may sound impressive, but I've been going there a little over a year, so I'm averaging less than twice a week - not good!! I need to be more consistent about going, of course throwing in all these training sessions - it's not helping!

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