Madame President

Yesterday was the last spouses' club luncheon of this year. As I have mentioned, I have been selected to be next year's club President. Why, you ask?  Because the Commanding General's wife asked me and I didn't have the guts to say no.  That's it in a nutshell. And.. I'm always up for a challenge.

We started our luncheon with the "passing of the torch" if you will.  Only we passed flowers. .. roses to be exact. The outgoing president gave a white rose to each of the current board members. The incoming president (me) gave a pink rose to the new board members. I received one white rose as outgoing membership chair, and one pink rose as incoming president. Not sure how I ended up with a vase full of roses, but they were stuck in my bag when I finished yesterday.

I am not complaining.. I do love fresh flowers in my house.

This collection is the contents of a gift bag the outgoing president gave me. Here are each of the items along with her explanation of them.

Claudia told me that when she took over the presidency, she was given a candy bar with nuts in it, because you had to be nuts to volunteer to be president. She gave me a whole jar of nuts...what do you think that even means??

Next was a packet of Motrin, for the headaches that are sure to come, and Tums for the stomach acid.

A bottle of stress relief bubble bath. This I will use, for sure.

Booze...this goes without saying, right?

She ended the little presentation by giving me this bag of chocolates and wishing me nothing but "Bliss" with my presidency.

After the luncheon and the fun Bingo, I met with Claudia to get to the more business side of things. Wow, can you say "overwhelming"?  This is my dining room table this morning. The binder of paperwork that just scratches the surface, my two calendars because one ends at the end of June, a pair of sunglasses someone left at the luncheon that ended up at my house, a new binder that I've started for next year, the AARs (After Action Reviews) from all previous board members on how their year was, and a set of keys that would choke a horse. Seriously. Check this out:

These are all for one building. How can one building have so many locks?  I love the key chain she passed on that says Army Wife. It's not clear here, but I do love it.

So, let the ride begin! I'm taking notes, reading reports and getting ready for my first meetings. I have a feeling the chocolate and alcohol in this gift bag doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of what I'll consume this year.

Thanks, Claudia, for a fabulous year. You have left big shoes to fill, but I will do my best :)

Priorities....

Can it seriously have been almost a month since I last posted?  I'm a bad blogger. I think of things to write about, then don't make time to sit down and write it. Is it possible to be that overwhelmed?

I have a lot going on. That's just the way it is. Most of it I do to myself. I volunteer. A LOT. So many things are important to me and I want to participate in everything!  However, that means you have to be uber organized and so far, I'm struggling with that.

So, I figured out that I need to treat my life and volunteer activities as I would a full time paying job. I need to prioritize my list of things to do and schedule them, on my calendar, to finish them.

Honestly, the prioritizing has been difficult. I realized that to do anything well, I need to let a few things go. I don't want to end up doing lots of stuff, but nothing gets done very well. So, I let a few things go. I have also admitted that I can't do it all, and asked for help. I have several people in every organization that wants to help, so I'm letting them. It's very liberating to be able to pass something off to a willing helper and it makes them feel good too.

I have allowed myself to be nominated for the president's position on our spouses club board next year. I am seriously pumped about this opportunity and excited to see what we can do next year. However, it is a big time consuming thing. So, I have made myself schedule specific times during the week to sit down and focus on club work. Other scheduled events, besides the obvious meetings, are answering email, organizing my calendar so everything fits in, and paperwork. Oh the paperwork. If I don't keep up with board reports, agendas, minutes etc, I get so far behind I can't see ahead anymore. Not to mention housework. I am seriously putting on my calendar things like laundry, clean the bathroom etc.

So, that's what I'm working on now. I'm planning my system to be more organized with my time. If you have calendar tips, lists etc that help you stay on track, please share! I'd love to hear them.

Creative Army Wives

One of the things on my full calendar is a "Mock Dining In" coming up this Friday. It's an event being held by the Spouses' Club here and is a fundraiser for the many wonderful things this club does in our community.

For those of you not familiar with a Dining In, an Army tradition, I will do my best to explain.  Since it's an all Soldier event, I've never attended a Dining In, but my husband has.

So these Soldiers get together for a formal night out... no spouses. They dress up, eat food, drink lots and smoke cigars. I think the motto is "What happens at the Dining In, stays at the Dining In"  So, we are having our own evening with this theme.

These ladies are serious about their Dining In. Tickets are sold according to units. Each unit is responsible for decorating their table and the theme is "Unit Pride"  So, we are engineers.. we'll decorate our table in that fashion. Get it?

There are two different kinds of Army Engineers.  One is a construction unit. They build things. Bridges, roads, buildings, do all kinds of infrastructure. It speaks for itself.
The others are combat engineers. They blow things up. They are the guys who do the road clearance and get rid of those pesky IEDs we hear so much about. We appreciate them.. LOTS.

We have two tables and each will represent one side of the Engineer house. Dirt movers, bridges, somehow blowing things up, etc. I'm not the creative one, I just facilitate the others.

We are also dressing the part. We painted t-shirts with the engineer castle on them, will wear jeans, tool belts, boots and hard hats with our cool shirts. 

Today we got together to paint the shirts. I'm always amazed at what a group of Army wives can do. These girls rock and we're going to have custom shirts at our event! 

Enjoy a few photos of our shirts.

It looks like somebody bled out.. doesn't it?

Launa, working her magic with a can of fabric spray paint. Who knew there was fabric spray paint?

Nice!

Hanging to dry. Tomorrow I will distribute the shirts!! 

Where is the Time Going?

I just read my last post and can't believe that I left all of you hanging, waiting on my menu post. I'm kidding.. I know that no one lost sleep over that.

I was just looking at my calendar, trying to squeeze one more evening event in there, and realized that time is not on my side lately.

As an Army wife, there have been times when I have desperately wanted time to fly, and times when I wished for it to drag. The older I get, the faster it seems to go.. except during a deployment, of course.

With Nick taking brigade command, I find myself entertaining more and wanting to reach out to more groups of spouses. I struggle with trying to fit it all in every month. It may come down to re-prioritizing some events.

Speaking of time demands, this week, I agreed to be nominated to be the president of our community's spouses' club. It was a difficult decision and I took several days to think and pray about it, but decided I could do this and maybe make a difference in a club that has been two years in transition. I'm excited to serve the military spouses in this community and hope I don't tarnish my name in the process.

So, here's to more hours in the day, more days in the month, and to delegating to others!  Let's hope I can follow my own advice.

Here is a look at my calendar. I thought I might pretty it up a bit for you, but decided you can see it in all it's glory. Scribbles, scratched out events and all...piled up on other papers that need to be filed, shredded and gone through. Sounds like a project for this weekend.

There are a few events I haven't written in yet, because I'm still deciding what day to do them!! Not to mention the entertaining Nick wants to do that I will have to squeeze in somewhere.

Happy Friday everyone. I hope your weekend is fantastic!