Delegate

Did you know that Frito Lay doesn't donate to organizations anymore? They don't give away their day old chips. For the past nine years we have had an annual Open House at the high school. For the past nine years we have gotten donations of chips. The one thing that we didn't have to think about. This morning the teacher who was assigned nothing more than writing a letter asking for donations informed me that he had not heard from Frito Lay. He said he had called and left a message, but they hadn't contacted him. I asked him to try them one more time. Ten minutes later he returned with a message that they don't donate any more.

Tomorrow is our open house. We are planning on around 200 people, we have chili-dogs and soda, and cookies, but the one thing, the easiest of all, the one that I had assigned to someone else wasn't going to happen. I called the district office and called in a favor from the individual that processes purchase orders and then went to the store to buy nine boxes of 24 count chips. Have I made it too easy for the teachers because they know that I will take care of things and that they can skim by doing the bare minimum? They each get paid between $500 and $750 for helping put on this one event. I am seriously debating following through on the threat that they get only half of their money if they don't fulfill all their duties. They each signed a contract that stated that "if" they didn't follow through, they "might" not get the full amount. Last year we had two teachers that didn't do anything and I did have the district office not pay them their second installment.

I just know that I really hate being so anal about every little detail. The flyer that one teacher developed was so bad that we reused the one that I made last year. I sent out over 300 invitations to all the 8th graders and the board members. I left it up to the teachers to announce it and to post flyers around the school. If no one comes I will feel like I didn't do enough and yet I made assignments so that others could earn their money.

Maybe I am just stressing about this event. Maybe there are just too many things going on right now in my life. Maybe I need to take some St. Johns Wart and Vitamin B complex and then a nice warm bath. Either way it will be over tomorrow and I can go on to the next stress inducing event.

Red Neck Birthday Bonanza Party Week

What better gift for a city boy than his very own 22, complete with camo hat and shirt and a brick of shells? Dacheese wanted to make sure that her boy had a real family celebration this year. So we called all the inlaws, outlaws and others peoples from cooltown to come over to surprise him.

We started with a pre-surprise party on Tuesday with a small cake, icecream, candles and just the five that were home that night. Then tonight we had the real surprise party. Dacheese made a Texas Sheetcake that was delicious . We also had chili-dogs with real elk chili meat. SLO took some beans, cheese, chili and layered it on a chip. The weather was great so we ate on the patio. Then we discussed alternate names for the birthday boy; Billy Bob, Dwayne, Howie, and other names appropriate for a cooltown red neck. The best part was we surprised him two times in two days for his twenty second b-day. That's a whole lot of twos, maybe we should play the lottery?