Today I helped set up for Joey's class Halloween party. The other classroom coordinator mom is kind of over the top, I tell you. First, she wants to decorate the room. Fine--decorations are fun. I have lots Halloween lights from a party last year so I felt ready to go. But she wanted big stuff--she bought a bale of straw, a scarecrow and a bunch of 8-foot-tall corn stalks. She also brought a tub of leaf and sparkly orange garland. She brought the same stuff for her son's class, too. None of the other classes are decorating for their parties, I should mention. At the last minute, she added another game to the list of things we were doing and then decided that the kids needed goodie bags so she bought pencils, stickers and who know what all. "Do you happen to have any bags?" she asks me today. No, I do not have 25 bags handy. "Could you go get some?" Sure--why not? I have nothing else to do this afternoon. So I spend $7 on bags. I could have gotten plain brown bags but they would be boring and never pass muster with this mom and I don't have time to make them interesting so I had to buy printed bags. They were only $.28 each but I needed 25 of them.

Having her as a co-chair is going to make me go broke! I've already put out about $20 for this party. I can guarantee that she'll want to try top it for the Christmas party. The other classrooms are not going out like this. Oh well--this kids will have fun and I'll just have to make sure to rein her in when we're planning the other parties, lest we end up with this spiral of ever-increasing effort for each successive party. And lest we burn out the other parents who are willing to help out.

So that's pretty much my entire day--going to a meeting for classroom coordinators, decorating the room, running out to get bags and calling parents to make sure they don't forget the things they signed up to bring to the party. What a lame day! Tomorrow looks better (but busier).

I'm afraid I'm getting sick--my soft palate feels irritated. Kind of swollen. I'm deciding right now not to be sick. Not to get sick. I will not get sick, dagnabbit.

Tonight, I made a very delicious meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes, per Joey's request. For some reason she has developed a love for meatloaf and has been practically begging for it since early last week. She can hardly stand to eat hamburger in any other form. I guess I must make such tasty meatloaf that it transcends just plain hamburger, eh? (Nothing like tooting my own horn. ::g::) She loves ketchup on her meatloaf (warmed up slightly from the heat of the meat) but we were out of red ketchup so I had to use the purple ketchup I bought as a joke for our last barbecue of the season. We all closed our eyes and pretended it was the regular stuff. Fortunately it tastes exactly like the red ketchup so it wasn't too bad. And I covered mine with yummy chili sauce made by DeLyn so I was pretty happy.

I'm feeling sleepy so I may go to bed early. Believe it or not. (What is up with that?)

Later...

--L