Too Much

I’m exhausted. I was thinking to myself two weeks ago that I hadn’t done much volunteering at school. And the blogging fun had died down. I was happy for the respite, but felt guilty that I wasn’t doing enough.

And then last week happened. Unfortunately, I hadn’t written down two important events that I had volunteered for when kindergarten started in September. Traffic police and school staff feeder. Traffic police is where you help keep the parents from killing each other while dropping their kids off at school, and as staff feeder you must supply snacks for the 40 plus members of the teaching staff so they don’t kill the children.

These two things were not a big deal on their own, but I also volunteered to iron smiley faces on to tshirts for my son’s theatre production. I thought it would be so easy because my friend has a professional t-shirt press, but we couldn’t coordinate our schedule so I spent several hours ironing while watching American Idol Gives Back and Food Inc. (I can’t believe I’m still eating bacon. I have to watch it again.)

But wait, there’s more. I also volunteered to host my entrepreneur group at my house. Now, out of the 6 of us in the group only myself and one other have kids. Cleaning house for people with no kids is much more time consuming than cleaning for people who are used to finding peanut butter and jelly in the couch. I mopped, vacuumed, de-stinked the furniture (I don’t know what my kids did to the couch, but it smelled like a combination of feet, cheese crackers, and oranges). Because it was my entrepreneur group I wanted the house to reflect the person I want to be, not the person I actually am. That means I had to find a place for the piles of paper, books, and mail that were scattered around the house.

Not only did I clean, but I felt compelled to cook dinner since people were coming to my house. I made the thing I make when new friends come over. Chilaquiles and beans. It’s a hit and everyone loves it (or at least they say they do…). But it requires soaking beans overnight, cooking them in the morning and then adding spices in the evening. The chilaquiles are easy except for the chopping and sautéing of the vegetables and the cutting, spraying with oil and baking of the corn tortilla strips.

Needless to say, I’m ridiculous. I have an overcooking problem. Instead of buying everything for the teachers, I bought half of it and made banana bread and cookies. I also made brownies for the theatre group. Plus I worked on Thursday and Saturday night for my baking business. And I had people over Friday night, but we just ordered takeout, thank god. Did I mention that I’m an assistant coach for the boys’ t-ball team. Saturday was picture and game day and so was my older boy’s theater production (which was fantastic!!). That night, I went to work and baked.

Sunday I had the farmers’ market, which is always a good time, and we ended the weekend at the LA Times Festival of Books, one of my favorite LA events. Good Times, exhausting, but good.

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