That's awesome! Our youth groups are supposed to be "service organizations" and give back to our community. But the current leader likes the girls to come up with their own ideas and, well they don't. So only a few things get done each year, those are things they've done yearly. I'm of the opinion if they don't organize something, as the leader, you should. But she doesn't. And I can only give suggestions to my child.....eh.

Yeah, I think the leaders should definitely come up with ideas!

This.. I just started volunteering here when I quit my job during the pandemic, and then they all came with at various times. Even Isabelle can pack food bags!

Elly's going to start working at the library after school gets out too, and she's excited about that. ... again, because I work at the library, and we need more people :P

I think it's hard for kids to come up with ideas by themselves, because really.. their worlds are pretty small? Like, when 4H was in person we did some community service acts before meetings, but since we're just doing small group meetings, that's gone now. I don't know why youth group doesn't do more, but.. whatever. We try and do what they can!

Exactly! Especially if they've never been shown/taught what kind of projects they are able to do around the community.

And I'm sorry for griping on here but another issue I have is the way she deals with raising funds to pay for the projects. For instance, let's use the current girls service project. The girl in the top position picks a project for her "term". This one picked a no kill shelter. We have one in our town. Great. So we could just buy some supplies and go donate and spend some time there right? No. Because the girl not only comes up with the idea but has to host a fundraiser to pay for said supplies. Ok that can actually be a good idea..... but all the fundraisers the girls know how to do have already been earmarked for another statewide project. And then throw covid on top of that?

And we have funds available since we've been doing fireworks sale as a general fundraiser the past 3yrs. Grrr it just annoys me that she won't just allow them to use some of the already there funds and accomplish a project!!

Edit: You got a forum point while making a post! Check out the shop here! Hah! Subeta trying to make me not be grumpy? Lol

Grump away!

And yeah, that does sound difficult. Especially with Covid stuff!

I know at one point the girls were selling girl scout cookies, cookie dough, candles, chocolate, t-shirts, flower bulbs and magazines.. for different things! I was like... guys... really? I can't!

It makes sense to use some of the funds you already have. That's what we did for 4H and youth group this year, we just.. bumped into funds from the last few years.

Hopefully in the next year we'll be able to have new ones but it's so hard! You can't be having car washes, bake sales and stuff right now, too many people, etc.

Oh gosh yes. I hated fundraisers when my kids were in elementary school. Too many when you add in multiple kids in same household!! And no family or close friends nearby to help by buying or taking to work to ask ....

Now thankfully it's just youth group fundraisers. We usually host meals for the masonic lodge men, occasionally do a food sale (like bbq chicken or ribs aided by same men lol), and that's about it other than the fireworks. And like you said, with covid, we just haven't been able to do those.

I need to work on organizing my closet, but I have ben putting it off. And now i'm up at a friends for vacation, sooo..no closets for me. XD

M closet gets put off til summer every year. Or until I can't stand it anymore. It will stay nice for a month or so...then it will slowly become a mess again as people throw stuff in there or move stuff to find something..... me included lol

Helloooo :)

You win! You harpooned all of the leviathans!

Harpooners Guide to Sea Monsters You win a Harpooners Guide to Sea Monsters!

You are also rewarded with a silver trophy! Yay! It was only 19 this time! Can't believe I did it after so many years - got a bit obsessed last night haha. Got that after about 10 tries today!

I love a good clean up - have you watched get organised with the home edit?!

what volunteering do you do? I volunteer on a helpline for people who've been affected by sexual violence. It's something hard but really rewarding :) I've been doing it for 5 years now.

Ooh congrats on the win!! and thanks ;) I have not watched that specifically, but I have seen other organizing videos, of which I've used a few tips here & there

I love watching people organising things but I'm not that keen on doing it myself! haha.

You win! You harpooned all of the leviathans! Level 7 was easy but I bet level 8 us hard!

oh gosh, congrats on the levi win! I need to play more and get past level 6, now that I see everyone doing it!

That does sound really hard, yet rewarding! We pack bags of food for kids in three different school distrcts, and deliver it to the schools each week. We've also been doing pop-up pantries here, since our school won't partner with us.

And I open, work, and close the library a few times a month. Right now we're only open Thursdays and Saturdays, but I guess we're adding another day soon!

And church stuff, we're getting ready for vacation bible school right now, etc etc :P

So nothing really exciting, but it's good to get out of the house and do some good!

Level 8 wasn't too hard. Level 9 sucks again tho!

All this past year our schools have given free lunch to all kids in school or out, toddlers up to 18 if out of school or 21 if special needs. Kids in school just got it and if you weren't enrolled you could go pick it up 2x a week. Breakfast and lunch. Is/was awesome. I'm hoping they'll continue this summer. And even next school year possibly. Sure was nice not having to pay full price for Nathans meals at school :P

I totally refolded all my hubby's tshirts and all the keepsake kids shirts (special events, activities, etc - I'm hoping to make a quilt for the kids MAYBE one day....) much more space available that way lol Loved it. Turned stuff on hangers around again, if don't wear in 1 yr get rid of. Easy quick hacks. Slowly getting rid of my plastic stuff in the kitchen for glass, it doesn't stack as well but lasts better and I am finding I like it. (storage bowls, etc)

Oooh yes, we got rid of all our plastic stuff two years ago and I LOVE IT. The only issue is the lids aren't glass, and they still break and wear down which is.. annoying.

I realllllly need to finish my closet. Maybe tomorrow.

WHICH IS THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL! There's a half day, and then it's summer vacation and I for one am looking forward to it!

I hate half days. We don't have them often here, except the high school thank goodness. They do 3 half days in Dec and may, the last 3 days of each semester. Which is aggravating for me this year as I had to find Nathan a way home, since he wasn't registered for the bus. Thankfully daughters boyfriend and daughter stepped up and got him.

They're not always my favorite, but I'd prefer them over full days, I guess?

last year we had a half day on a Monday though, that was awful!

They're just so disruptive to the schedule for littler kids. As a parent and kid myself I loved them. As a teacher nope.

Congratulations on the leviathan win !

I have been so out of the loop regarding school starting/ending, especially after covid hahaha, I don't even know if people started going back to school or are still working from home XD

I don't know about elsewhere, but we still have a lot of work from home, tho more are going back in person. And most schools are in person with precautions, and a virtual stay at home option if you want it, but you had to sign up for semester or whole year.

Had to give up chase. Not spending 8mil. Got to level 70 and earned over 4mil in 2 weeks.

why haven't you come over to chat? 😝

Ours had synchronous virtual all year, so either fully in person, virtual doing the exact same lectures and work, etc. Or you could do a mixture, like just going in for certain classes.

My kids were home until the fourth quarter, when we finally felt safe sending them in. Elly has just showed up virtual a few days though, because she wasn't feeling well, or Monday and Tuesday this week after her second vaccine. It looks like they're keeping this option for next year too, which is great!

Now kids aren't missing stuff if they're not feeling great, but fine enough to lay and pay attention. And the virtual snow days were good too, they basically did half classes most of the day, so they had time to go outside and play and shovel and such. It was nice only missing one actual day of school (because the power was out for everyone in the area!)

Hi hi! Sorry I've been MIA. Stuff kinda got away from me and then my laptop went on the fritz. As I had previously mentioned, I generally use my work laptop to get on here since my dinosaur always needs to be plugged in.
Anyway, when we get laptop replacements, we usually turn in the old ones. I did not b/c I knew better. Always good to have a backup. Unfortunately, I had to come into the office to get it to connect b/c of the various outdated software on it - including being pre windows 10 - and since my car is waiting on repairs, I had to schedule a Lyft driver, which is actually my first time. Hopefully getting back home will be just as easy.

I had downloaded the pics I was going to share on the other laptop so I'll have to do that again but not until I get a replacement or it gets fixed. I think my hard drive died though, which would really suck b/c there were some things that I had on my desktop that weren't saved. Actually, I had more documents too... well shit. (kicking my own ass about the "backup" part)