A Turtle Day and then Light

We have safety participants! As many people know, I've been stressing about the safety participants who committed to the event many months ago, but have been very unresponsive lately. Stressing is a mild term for what I've been going through- it has been pretty high level of anxiety trying to figure out why my numerous messages weren't being returned and how the heck I was going to deal with hundreds of kids coming to the event expecting to meet troopers, see police dogs and view their special police equipment. But as of an hour ago, almost all is well. One of the most important safety participants confirmed! I am so relieved- I actually feel lighter- honestly. I was so worried and I didn't have a way to fix the problem- there was no Plan B when it comes to having police/fire departments there- I rely on the people who committed to follow through and be there. We're still missing a few other groups, but that is not anywhere as big deal as this group was.

What a roller coaster this job is sometimes- it can go up and down within the course of just a few hours. Today was a pretty lousy day- I moved at turtle pace this morning- I wasn't feeling so good and everything took forever to get done and I couldn't think clearly. The Halloween event was bothering me so much for many reasons and that is very draining. My list has very few check marks next to it. Things got worse this afternoon with an unexpected development and I ended up missing an event that I was supposed to attend which is dreadful. Tonight, I was still stressing about things, but now I can relax somewhat and head to Worcester tomorrow to start hanging cobwebs in a much better mood- and that also means that I don't have to leave yet another "follow up" message on certain people's voicemail.

There was a funny thing that happened today- it has nothing to do with work, but I wanted to share it anyway. I was driving in Milford on a busy road and on the other side of the road, I saw a squirrel run out almost right in front of me. The squirrel ran to the middle of the road, then suddenly stopped on the yellow line and waited- I slowed down, and the squirrel then finished crossing the street. That was the smartest squirrel I've ever seen! If he hadn't stopped, I would have come very close to hitting him. I don't know if that story retells very well, but I found it very cool and had to immediately pick up my cell phone and call my mom to share my squirrel story with her- (there are very few people that I can call at 1pm who would be interested (or at least pretend to be) in my genius squirrel story).

OK, well I am now going into my office to search for the box of Halloween event prizes and table covers that I can't find. I got a lot of stuff at IParty's charity day in July and I put it all in a box in the office and now I can't find the box. I should also work on my October newsletter, but I don't want to stay up too late- it is already 12:15 and I need to be in bed at 1am. The newsletter takes a little while to write.

I am so happy about the safety participants. It looks so bad to have people on the flyer and they don't show up- it reflects poorly on Project Smile even though it may not be something I can control. We had a beauty queen at our event a couple of years ago and she was an 1 1/2 late for the event- I had kids and parents coming up to me upset and annoyed that she wasn't there. There was one little girl who was dressed up in a princess outfit and she kept coming over to find out when the beauty queen was arriving- she was so excited to meet her. All I could say was she was on her way- but after an hour and a half, that line wears pretty thin. She and her mom left before the beauty queen arrived. The kids love to meet the police officers and fire fighters and see their equipment up close, so the idea of disappointing by not having them there is awful. It is particularly awful since it is Worcester and there are a lot of low income families and kids who may have had a lot of disappointment in their lives because of their economic circumstances, so the last thing I want to do is add to that.

OK- I am now off to hunt for that box and then write my list which is basically everything that was on today's list and then some. A friend of mine suggested cookie decorating for an event activity, so I need to get the supplies for that. She actually suggested it a couple of weeks ago, but I didn't think it would work, but we talked about it more tonight and it could work out really well. My concern is the cost of supplies since we have so many children attending. We're under sponsored for the event and already spent more money than last year. It will still raise money, but the profit shrinks every time I turn around- and there comes a point where I can't spend another dollar. Anyways, enough on that- lets keep the good mood going. Until tomorrow friends...