Spending Fast = extreme

Yeah... that means that I've been attempting a spending fast now for 2 months, and with Girl Scout cookie sales, dating someone new (and not living in the 50s), the spending fast is now the spending diet. Still trying to meet my savings goals, but not being too hard on myself if I do spend money outside my spending restrictions. We'll see how it goes!

One of my girls has reached her 1000 box goal for selling cookies this year. She'll be able to pay her way to Girl Scout camp this summer. Yeah, that feels good!

So this might be hard...

I did my weekly shopping today, and am disappointed that I didn't spend less money, but feeling pretty good that I managed to reduce my impulse spending. It is clear that my spending for groceries will be less this month than what had become my normal (TOO high!), but probably not as good as I'd like it to be.

I also had another misstep. I'd run out of milk, so did buy a chai from a coffee shop one morning last week because I was so tired after staying up too late reading about someone who is asking the US to boycott buying Girl Scout cookies this year because Girl Scouts of Colorado let in a transgender girl to be a part of a troop if she wants. See more here. Suffice to say, I was torn! Reality is Girl Scouts is an organization who works to help girls speak up for what they believe in... and perhaps that is just what this girl is doing. But then I did go to their website.... I feel more sorry for this young girl now... I'm doubtful that she did this all on her own initiative.

I bump up against this conundrum on occasion. I purport to be so open and accepting, but how to deal with those who are judgmental or hateful? Isn't it just as bad to hate on someone who is being hateful?

Anyways...

I'm so incredibly proud of Girl Scouts, an organization I've belonged to for 22 years, and one that I will belong to the rest of my life. We are open and accepting as an organization and are providing such great opportunities to girls. I don't know who I would be without the touch of this organization on my life.

So, buy Girl Scout cookies starting on Saturday! Girls will be coming around door to door with cookies in hand this year! The proceeds from this go in part to the troop itself, the local council, and a small portion to the national organization. Before you say no to a girl, remember that she has a goal and a dream and selling cookies will help her get there. That seems worth at least $3.50 to me!

** my Girl Scout troop sold enough cookies last year to finance a camping trip to Sand Dunes national park, and had enough left over to get all the girls their new vests and books as they bridged up a level! That's some serious moola folks! **

I've been doing well since Grandma's funeral. We all needed that time to mourn, and while I still think I'm mourning a little bit, I've let her move on. We had a nice reception after the funeral, lots of family, distantly related family and friends. I was able to reconnect with a favorite past teacher so I can keep in better touch with him now. That was awesome. And I spent some quality time with my sister, and we've been in better contact since I got home.

Since then I've been thrown into full "Docent Training preparation" mode and I'm coping as best as possible. I got a little pit of fear in my stomach that despite what my VP said in the past, that she'll say something different now, and all preparations will have been for naught.

Girl Scouts keeps plugging along. I'm learning my 'place' in the troop. My co-leader is upset about something I did, but we can't find the time to sit down and talk about it. It reminds me of the time a former boyfriend told me there was something he wanted to talk about in April, but didn't want to actually talk about it till I was done with my thesis. That was agony! Suffice to say, we broke up in June, and the thesis that was supposed to be done in July wasn't done till November.

Return and Sad News

I am back from NYC and had a wonderful time. I was disappointed by a few of the sessions, two of which I had shared with the Zoo as ones that would apply to my work with them and not just Girl Scouts. I was very disappointed by the one about working with different generations - I was most excited about it and then after all that it was such a dud where I was more likely to be offended by it than learn anything from it. The session about feedback for facilitators was good and I was way advanced for it because of my experience with the Zoo and our mentoring program.

I've learned from the last PD opportunity I got to go to (Trainer's Day Camp) that I need to be very purposeful about sitting down after to process what I experienced and make a plan. I appreciated that this Learning and Development conference worked that into the days. Even if it wasn't enough time for me to process it was enough time to start and also to prove to me that yes, I do need to think about this more when I get home. Plus, I have two ways to incorporate this information that I'll have to think about using.

The extra night in New York City was very worth it. It was perfect, minus how my travel companion sometimes rubs me the wrong way.

And then when I returned to Denver at 9pm I get two voice mails. One from Mom and one from Dad, both saying to call. My grandma has died. She died when I was trying to relax and ogling the good looking guy sitting next to Maureen on the airplane ride home. It feels strange to say I'll miss her, because I haven't seen her in over a year. She just turned 97. She took care of me as a kid - we spent a good portion of every summer at her house, eating mac and cheese and chicken nuggets, playing in the school yard just beyond her yard, climbing the trees in her yard.... I'll miss you Grandma.

New York!

I'm really looking forward to this next trip. More than what I'll be doing, it's the location. I've never been to New York (yet I've been to Mexico twice now!), and am so glad I decided to stay an extra night in the city. Plus, I've been hearing about Macy for years and years, and now I get to go and get my pin too!

Turns out the next trip is not going to be Mexico in October, but Kansas City in September. Sheesh. I probably shouldn't have gone if I looked only at money, but on the other hand, it's Shannon's wedding reception, and school will be in session and I haven't been to Kansas since 2006. It's time. I'll probably drive out to save some cash, so if anyone wants to road trip with me, just let me know:)

As for the Mexico trip with Girl Scouts... it's not that I'm less enchanted and excited, but with the research I'm supposed to have been doing I'm less excited and more nervous that I won't manage to get anything to contribute. At least I'm taking the camcorder to the conference in New York... hopefully I can get some good interviews with women there to pull together into a video for the event, even if I'm not able to get the actual research/paper writing done. Don't get me wrong... I am excited about Mexico and looking forward to meeting everyone and learning more about leadership, but I'm also preparing for Docent Training at the same time... uhg.

So the benefit to having my sister over this weekend (aside from the obvious!) is that my apartment is now clean and tidy... something I won't have to do before I leave for the airport! Woo!

We now have 7 girls in our Girl Scout troop and I've started to come to a realization after our wonderful meeting yesterday, with only 4 girls, one of whom had to leave before we'd really done anything.

I came into being a troop leader with the assumption that we could do anything, travel, earn gold awards, etc. After a dose of reality of running the troop with my co-leader since late January, that is still a goal, but a very long-term goal. It's all we can do to get all our girls at the meeting any given week, or attending one of our field trips.

If we end up providing the girls a safe place, and help them become more focused and understand how to work in a group, we'll have done a good job. Opening up different opportunities for them too is a huge plus, like our idea of bringing in a person to talk to the group from each of the different areas in which they want to work. We have three future vets!

I am feeling oddly positive after our recent meeting despite my realization that my goals to start should be smaller. Perhaps I'm just learning the reasoning behind why SMART goals are important!

GS and work update

Luckily for me this last month has passed very quickly, because it has been full of moving stress at work as nearly everyone in our department packed up and moved to a new desk. The library, which I am responsible for, also moved, and that was a task to get done, believe me!

Girl Scouts has been going very well! Slowly our troop is growing, and now we have 4 total girls, though one is not super reliable if she's going to be at the meetings or not. My co-leader and I finally decided we needed to lay down some ground rules, which I am kinda glad that we didn't do that right away. Hopefully the girls have had enough fun so far that they want to stick around, and Bobbi and I were very honest about it all too. We made a group agreement that Bobbi and I agreed to as well, and then our next meeting will be a parent's meeting to share the group agreement with, and a court of awards ceremony, though I'm not completely sure that we've actually earned any tri-its yet.

I hope it's OK that we're making our juniors earn tri-its for the rest of this year. It's just easier to keep them as one grade level. Since we have 3rd graders and 5th graders who with the old model would have been a troup together we thought it would be OK. Our 3rd graders seem advanced and our 5th graders seem less so. Next year will be juniors and probably the year after unless we need to just bridge the older girls to Cadettes. It seems like it might be easier to do what the older girls need and find a way to fit the junior badges into the interest patches. And hopefully the journeys will align well enough that it's not like having two separate troops trying to accurately meet the needs of our girls.

As a trainer with Girl Scouts I always thought that I'd be the by-the book leader... HA! We're doing good by our girls as best we can, even if we technically aren't a troop yet (we need 5 girls I believe) or even if our 5th graders are doing brownie-level work. I think these girls really need us because their families seem a little bit less stable then what I grew up with. It doesn't seem like any of these girls have very many friends at school, which is so surprising. They seem like such sweet, nice kids. :(

On the whole I'm very much enjoying doing Girl Scouts as a leader. It's such a new experience from training and from being a leader. I'm starting to look forward to doing some more training since I'm getting an idea of how to actually lead now!

OK, off to work! Then veggie sushi with Adam and Stephanie for dinner!

Maybe another try?

I've started thinking again that perhaps I do have something noteworthy to share. We'll see. Perhaps this blog will become a story about my journey with Girl Scouts or working at a Zoo.

Right now I'll just say that I was so inspired and feel so reassured after hearing the State of the Union last night. Granted, I'm young, but I've never heard a politician speak before that talks about politics the way I've always thought it should be. I've heard things come out of President Obama's mouth that I myself have said (except that little bit about expanding nuclear power and offshore oil exploration!). A good friend of mine said it well, however. It was inspiring and frustrating, because after Obama is out of the office in another 3 or hopefully 7 years, who comes next? Will she or he be as inspiring? Will she or he be as frightening to me as Mike Huckabee was when he was a presidential contender?

I also find it frustrating how the general feeling is that nothing is getting done and that Obama isn't keeping his election promises, yet Massachusetts voted to replace a Democratic senator with a Republican senator. Now I'm all for a diverse Congress, but folks, if you're going to complain, vote a Congress in that is one-sided! Sheesh... I mean really!

As to Girl Scouts, I'm very excited to be so close to finally working with a troop. For the last year and a half I've been training adults at the Zoo and training leaders for Girl Scouts... kids always seem easier to work with... though I'll probably eat my words within the next few months. Next Wednesday I will meet with the troop leader and the (apparently) two girls in the troop thus far. Guess we can't be legal yet... yikes!