Today is going to be random reading for you all....

I had the wierdest dream last night. I woke up and wondered what the heck got into my head to make me dream this way. Me and three of my friends from around here {I won't name you guys...trust me, you won't want people to know the crazy Ashlee was dreaming about you} were all on 'America's Next Top Model'. Oh yeah. First of all...one of my friends is VERY pregnant. In fact, she's going to have her baby in about 4 weeks. :0) So, yes...in my dream America's Next Top Model could be pregnant. {That would be different! Imagine the kinds of photo shoots they'd have with that!} And second....the tallest of my friends is MAYBE 5'10"...definitely short models. But we were definitely working our stuff! Oh yeah......

Maybe I was reverting back to my childhood where I dreamed of becoming the next Christie Brinkley. Sadly, my shortness and lack of ankles prevented me from ever being able to fulfill my true destiny.....

My brain is not working anymore. Ok...so it is...but just not the way I want it to. :0) Life has been so hectic lately that all I can focus on is getting the next task done, while in the back of my mind is the long list of everything else that needs to still get done. It's been a long few months and I think my brain needs a rest. :0) Which means you might be seeing fewer posts from me. Don't be mad. I just feel like I'm running out of things to say. My brain isn't able to come up with something to ramble on about. Though, there might be weeks where it kicks back on and I have lots to say....but for the most part, I might be quiet off and on. Please don't stop coming by though! I would miss all of you! :0) And just because I'm not writing doesn't mean I'm not reading. I visit all of your blogs daily. I love getting to know all of you a little better with each post. :0) You can also stop by my family blog if you are needing your Ashlee fix. :0) With the kids home, I may be posting more on that blog instead of over here.

I get to pass my PTA torch today. YAY! The checkbook will no longer be mine! The traveling filing cabinet of receipts, two cash boxes, and 20 cash bags have been cleaned out of my cabinet to make way for....something. I don't know yet...but something better will go in there! :0)

I think that's the end of my randomness for today....tune in next time for more deep thoughts from Ashlee! :0)

And how about you? Are you still alive?

So, how was your weekend? Mine.....

was psycho.

Friday was our school carnival. And, though we raised enough money to finish paying for our library bookshelves and still have some left over for next years Open House, the carnival itself was crazy. Not enough helpers. I was supposed to be a "wanderer" to ensure things flowed smoothly. What did I end up doing? Selling tickets for THREE hours. Why? Because the event coordinator didn't get enough people to cover it. I'm going to leave it at that, because otherwise I'll go off on a little tangent about how people shouldn't try to do EVERYTHING by themselves. Especially when help is being offered.

Friday was also the day that I found out.....

Even though my basement is completely done {just finish work left}, my contractor needs to move on to his next job. Yes. It's true.

Because I love my contractor {he's my cousin people! Don't be thinking bad things!} and because I know whose house he is working on next and I am excited for their basement to be done too....I can't be angry. He has promised that he will come work nights here to finish up. It shouldn't take much longer as we only have a few baseboards left to install, windowsills, handrail, and touch up painting left to do.

Since our basement is so near completion, we are able to start moving SOME things downstairs to declutter the upstairs. {Hallelujah!} So, Saturday we moved in "Old Blue", the tv was hung on the wall, and the moving process began. For clarification...Old Blue is the name of my hubby's old blue sectional. Yes, he named his couch. Let me explain....

The couch belonged to his parents. I think he said they had it in their basement. When he went off to college, he took it with him for his bachelor pad. That's where the sectional got it's name. Boys are wierd. What can I say? When I met hubby, Old Blue was in his tv room of his home. After we got married and moved into our first home together it was in our tv room. One day I decided that our house was arranged retarded and so the family room became the dining room, and the dining room/ living room became JUST the family/living room. More spacious. Better flow....you get the idea. This meant that Old Blue no longer had a place in our home. So, we plopped it in storage. Over two years later, it now has a place. Unfortunately. We were hoping to buy a new sectional. Do you know how much money those things cost? Holy cow! Yeah...we spent our couch money on carpeting for our upstairs {which wasn't in the initial plan, but was a MUST for my sanity}. So, the new sectional will have to wait until Uncle Sam sends us our nice rebate check in the mail. :0) Old Blue required some serious steam cleaning after two years in storage, and he doesn't look quite the same. BUT! It's still such a comfy couch. Seriously...comfy.

Anyway...back to the psycho weekend. Saturday was killer. My calves are burning from how many times I walked up and down the stairs. BTW...I forgot how much I hate stairs. Ok, not really. But on Saturday I was hating them. :0) I took my vacuum to them to pick up the left over carpet fibers from the installation process and yuck! Vacuuming stairs is NOT on my top ten things that are most fun!

Did I mention that my daughter did NOT take a nap all weekend? That we think there is REALLY something wrong with the sump pump downstairs? That I hate toddler beds because now my toddler WON'T stay in bed?

Sigh.

Here's to a new week! PTA is OVER! Hallelujah! The organizing of my basement can continue! hallelujah!

Did I mention that I got to alphabetize my DVD collection....only to find out that there is still another box of DVDs in the black hole garage. So, I'll have to re-order all of them once I find them. Oh well...at least I have a place to put them now!

PTA and debt

Yes...I think we are the first PTA that has gone into debt. Not just a little bit either. Try $4500. Just a couple of pennies right? Let me explain. My son's school library has looked like this for 10 years.

Some shelves have broken already, and others are close to being there. They were built by a previous principal and though we are all grateful to him for doing so, they are pretty poor quality. They have held the books for 10 years though! We're so glad he went above and beyond.

Last year, the PTA talked to the current pricipal about the sad state of the shelves. Sadly, the district will not pay for new shelving. There's just not enough money in the budget.

Side note here: this is truly pathetic to me. The library is one of the most important parts of the school! If there's not enough money for everything...figure it out!

Anyway...the PTA Presidency from last year decided to take on the huge job of getting the library new shelving. They got in touch with the community college here and the instructor for the cabinetry classes said he would have his students build new laminate shelves for the school and all we would have to pay for was the materials. He said it would be roughly $10,000. They agreed and raised $5,000 for the project. The money was set aside and saved for this year.

In comes the new PTA Presidency. I am the treasurer. We start the year out realizing that the instructor was not going to be able to come through for us. Nice, huh? We've got $5,000 sitting in the bank for this. The question was, do we follow through with the plan or use the money for something else? You saw the shelves...what would you have done? Both me and the secretary have 2nd graders as our oldest and 2 year olds as our youngest. We're going to have kids at this school until the year 2018. We figured now was just as good a time as any. We were going to have to do it eventually anyway and it was better to do it before ALL of the shelves had broken.

We hurried and got a bid to see what kind of costs we were looking at. It was for $30,000. We gasped. Knowing we could never come up with that kind of money as a PTA, but knowing we still needed to get new shelving for the library we presented our thoughts and feelings at the very FIRST PTA meeting. The first one. It wasn't pretty. The moms thought we were insane. Some wanted us to just rebuild cheap shelves like the principal had built before. Others wanted to know what was wrong with the current shelves {are you kidding me?} We were glad when the meeting was over....lets just say that. To answer the question over why we didn't just rebuild the same kind of shelving already in there....Did we really want to do this all over again in another ten years? My kid would still be in school there. I sure as heck didn't want to do it again.

We decided as a PTA Presidency {along with the principal, vice principal and librarian} that we would go ahead with the project whether the rest of the moms agreed or not. It was what was best for the school and for our children that attended the school. {that means their kids too!} We knew $30,000 was not an option for us. So, I got paperwork and applied for three different grants from three different companies. Meanwhile, we got a few more bids and changed the specs a little bit and had the initial company rebuild it. We found we could tweak the plans in certain areas to lower costs, but still ensure the stability of the shelves.

Four months later we found out we wouldn't be getting money from ANY of the grants I applied for. So, we got together with Principal Hoy, VP Deboard, and Mrs. Rehn the Librarian {I know, it rhymes!} and had each company that put in a bid give us a presentation. We had them bring samples and asked oodles of questions. In the end, we picked the initial company that gave us the outrageous bid. Except, they were so nice to us and brought the costs down to around $20,000. They knew we were just a fundraising organization and it was for a good cause, so they made practically nothing off of it. We love them. :0)

We made $13,000 selling Butter Braids this last year in fundraising. So, I wrote a fat check for $15,000 to Premier Woodworking and they said they would let us pay the remainder at the end of the school year after we've held a school carnival to raise the funds to pay for the rest of it. We are in debt to them. Literally.

They came and installed the shelving this last weekend. All that's left to install is the pieces that will lay on the tops of the shelves.

We had a ribbon cutting ceremony last night.

This is the principal and the librarian cutting the ribbon. We had such a good turn out. The moms that made the fuss didn't come. Part of me is glad, but part of me really wanted to say "neener neener" {to myself of course!}. Anyway...It was so great. The kids LOVE their new library. We created a little reading center and put a new rug there. It's the kids' favorite spot in the whole library. Mrs. Rehn {who was almost in tears} said that the kindergarteners were laying down on the rug, some were playing hopscotch....we are thrilled! It was what we wanted for the library. We want for our kids to WANT to enjoy going to the library. To snuggle up on the rug with a good book and read. And now they can!

Now we just have to finish paying for it. Keep your fingers crossed for us. We need to raise some serious dough to finish paying for these shelves. So, if you live around here...please come! I think it's on May 16th. We are going to have those fun inflatable toys like the slide and bungee run, and we're going to try to get a big inflatable obstacle course too. Even if you don't go to the same school...come give us your money! Buy a hot dog and cotton candy for your kid and let them get a balloon. It's going to a great cause. :0)

And now you know...

I'm taking a nap today. Let me tell you why {because I know you want to know!}

Last night was the much anticipated February Girls Night. I look forward to this EVERY SINGLE MONTH. It's MY night out. No kids, no hubby...and I come home whenever I want. Some nights it's early, other nights...not so much. Last night was one of those "not so much" nights. Montay was kind enough to host this month and so we all went to her house for virgin margaritas, nachos, and chocolate. Can't go wrong there! We had almost everyone show up, so it was great to chat with friends I only see at these things. I wish I had pictures to show, we had such a blast. Montay was great and snapped some shots of us attempting to play her Wii. She said she was going to post them on her blog, so you can check them out there when she gets her post up. :0)

Anyway...it was great to see my blogging buddy Bonnie there. Hopefully she wasn't too scared of us and will come back next month! {my fingers are crossed} Everyone left at a fairly decent hour....everyone but me. Yes, I didn't get home until after 1:00 in the morning. That was not my intention. But, it just happened. After everyone else left I ended up giving Montay a little basic blogging tutorial and I lost track of time. Oh well. The only problem is that this morning was

PASTRIES FOR PARENTS

at Landon's school. We basically provide donuts and milk to the students and their parents to eat/drink while they read books. The kids also get to show their parents how to take an A/R test. The PTA was in charge of the event and I had to be at the school at 7:00 am SHARP with a fat check for the donut delivery people. Ahhh! See, I don't fall asleep well at night either. It takes me about an hour or so to get my brain to shut off. So, I didn't fall asleep until about 2:00 in the morning. Sigh. Let's just say I didn't get my fanny out of bed until 6:30, which meant scrambling to get myself "presentable" for a school full of children and their adoring parents. It wasn't pretty. I can assure you of that. But I made it!

And now that I am sitting down....I just want to close my eyes and go back to sleep. I realize it's my fault that I'm tired. I could have been a good little girl and gone home at a "decent" hour. But, {picture me stomping my foot on the ground} I didn't want to! It's MY night! So, I'm suffering the consequences now. And this is why I will be taking a little nap of my own while daughter takes hers. Only three more hours to go! Let's hope I make it that long! I think I need to go get some caffeine....

Box Tops For Education

OK, so pre-PTA I was completely clueless about this whole thing. Clip box tops? What? My son is in 2nd grade and this is the first year we have ever clipped these babies and turned them into the school. And only because we are doing a school wide push to earn stuff with our box tops money.

You can find these little babies on practically EVERYTHING nowadays. I had no idea. Not just on cereal boxes like they used to be. On my kids fruit snacks packages, on Goldfish cracker packages, cake mixes, Kleenex boxes, Ziploc bags, and even girlie products. {for a whole list go here} It's crazy! Anyway...I've gone through every product in my house tearing off these labels {if I could} and sending them off to school with Landon. They are worth a mere $.10 each, so it will take a lot of them to even get to $100. And, unfortunately, $100 doesn't buy what it used to. Sigh.

So, start clipping ladies! Your school could use the money. If your school doesn't participate in this program...send me your box tops! Our goal is to have the students bring in 5,000 box tops by Spring Break. If they can do it, we're giving them a prize. Some sort of assembly {it's still in the works}. I know, I know...5,000 is a lot of little box tops, but it only amounts to $500. And, with us using every last cent we earned this year from fundraising going towards the new shelves for the library, that $500 will be used to get all the stuff that we couldn't.

BTW...I'm so pumped about these new shelves. They are going to be beautiful. We're short about $3000 for it, so Spring Carnival here we come! BUT...it will be well worth it. I'll post pictures after we've started installing them the end of February/beginning of March. YAY!

Honestly, after this year of PTA-ing...I now realize all the things the district DOESN'T pay for. It's rather frustrating. So, though I HATE fundraisers {the kind where my kid has to sell stuff to unwilling buyers} they are more needed than I realized. The playground balls for kids, electronic equipment, music program stuff {you'd be surprised how much they have to come up with on their own}, SHELVING! I will now be a sucker for life whenever a family member asks me to buy something from their school. Sigh.

I think I'm done ranting about this now. Have a happy weekend. Go clip some box tops.