Pink is the New Black

Well, maybe not in this instance. I woke up today with pink eye. Pink eye, really? I'd forgotten how yucky it is. I got a quick refresher around 4am. Since I like posting my ailments, I have to add a pic.

Yucky-ity, yuck, yuck! I just want to scratch it.

Hey Lovely Ladies...

The girls are lined up, patiently awaiting their Prince Charming. Maggie dressed them in their best. Um, wait. Only one of them is actually dressed, and she's about to have a slip.

Angels in The Snow

It finally happened, a little bit of snow. We get an automated phone call at 5:45am when school is out. I was expecting the call the night before, so I went to bed with the phone so it wouldn't wake anyone else up. Little did I know that it would actually keep me up. It was like waiting for the alarm to go off to catch an early flight - you wake up every 45 minutes checking the clock and counting down the minutes until you have to get up. Sure enough, I get the 5:45 call. Back to bed for some rest.

Georgia and Maggie were SO very excited to get out and play. Granted, there wasn't much, but it was enough for them.

They grabbed their friend, Andrea, and set off to make the perfect snow angels. Maggie didn't really get the wings part, but she loved laying in the snow. Check out the angel in the top left corner. Pretty good.



Brad tried to be all work and no play. He later planned a little sneak snowball attack but fell a bit short. You can't be too sneaky with a bright yellow shirt on.

Back to 55 degrees today. It was nice while it lasted.

Happy Birthday Mom!

To the best Mama and Granna out there! It takes a special Granna to squeeze into the little house with the girls. Happy Birthday!!

49,044

What is the number of boxes of Girl Scout cookies sold in Brentwood. Not all of Williamson County; just Brentwood. I am the Cookie Manager in charge of all these cookies. From training the cookie moms/dads from each troop, distributing the printed materials, monitoring order entry and organizing distribution. Not to mention the bazillion questions in need of answering scattered in between.

When the Service Unit managers were begging for someone to take the job this year I knew it would be me. I can't not volunteer for something. Especially something this big. Brad threatened divorce if I took it, and the Service Unit promised to provide emotional support as we split. Luckily, it didn't come to that. Actually Brad has been a huge help so far, and we're only about 2/3 the way done with this thing.

The BIG day was this Saturday. Delivery Day. I literally had nightmares about this day. I'd wake at 5am and get online to check orders, delivery information, answer questions and then get back in bed. How do you coordinate the delivery of 4,100 cases of cookies, 50 volunteers, and 90 cars picking up in 2 lines? Hmmmm.......it went down like this:

A full semi was arriving at a church at 8am. A company had donated a forklift to unload the truck and someone's husband volunteered to drive it. Great! But, not so great. The forklift was a no show, even after I confirmed my confirmation. It was to arrive Friday night, the night before the semi, and be picked up Sunday morning. So, I bolt up out of bed Friday while reading to Maggie thinking "I MUST make sure the forklift is there!" and head off at 9:20pm to see for myself that things were off to a smooth start. But.... not such a smooth start - no forklift.

I thought to myself - in the light of day I will surely see this forklift. At 7:15am I'm back, searching the parking lot like a maniac. Day or night - it was not there. My driver was though. He wasn't amused, and neither was I. Then, we see our truck pass the church and keep on truckin. The day just got a little bit longer. Short story here - we hand unloaded 4,100 cases of cookies. If I was a crier, I would've cried. Every time I looked in the truck I became more frustrated. The humongous pallets of cookies never seemed to get smaller. Luckily, my lovely friend and cohort in this operation, Pam, provided comedic relief. The truck had to move up and down the parking lot so we could unload the cases in their correct spots. Pam kept saying, "Truck driver, move that truck!" You know, from Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (Bus driver, move that bus!). This was funny to me every time.

It took 2.5 hours to unload this truck! Meanwhile, cars are lining up in rather hostile lines, wanting to know what the delay was. A few people actually said to themselves "hey, why don't I get out of my car and help?!?!" while others just pouted and watched. I had some great teenagers helping pass out information and awards to the cars while they waited.

Let's not forget that these cookies had to be counted once unloaded too. Stacks 5 piles high, 10 piles deep, and 4 piles across. Confusion set in. It's hard to count like this sometimes. The poor truck driver just took our word for it; he had already gotten more than he bargained for. He was ready to split.

It was time to roll those cars through. What a process. It all worked out. I was seriously sore around noon. One lady told me that in her 16 years of doing cookies things had never run so smoothly. Yikes - I'd hate to see those previous years.

A cookies-n-cream shake replenished my sore muscles. And a few Advil. Of course I say I'll never do this again, but odds are I will. Deep down, you know I love it.