Carnival! by Peggy Bogaard-Lapp
My entire life for the past month or so has been dominated by one simple word – carnival. As the president of the Parent Teacher Student Organization of my daughter’s school, I am tasked with coordinating the annual Spring Carnival & Silent Auction, catering to our students and families.
Although this is a pretty big deal, I have many people helping me. We have contracted a company to provide the games, and we will have food, balloon animals, and live steel drum music by the school’s music teacher. And after weeks of checking every possible pin on Pinterest about carnival games, decorations, posters, and themes, we have finally come to the last minute. It’s go time!
One of the easiest things about this year’s carnival has been the sign up for volunteers. From another PTO President I learned of SignUpGenius – an on-line sign up for events just like ours. I plugged in the times and games that we needed volunteers for, emailed out the request, and boom! people just chose the game they wanted. Since we have many families who are “tech” friendly, this has worked well for us.
My family has come to expect the most basic of dinners (I haven’t had much time to shop for groceries, much less cook) and laundry has been piling up higher than ever. Instead, mom has been making flyers and posters, calling local businesses for donations for the Silent Auction, and making list after list, trying to stay organized. I’ve woken up way before dawn a lot lately, thoughts of cotton candy, prizes, and bad weather popping in my head. Everything has been worked out so far, except the weather! Colorado has had a weekly snow since mid-April. May has already been turbulent, and rain is forecast right up until the start of the carnival. Agh! No wonder I feel stressed!
The carnival will be over when this is posted, and I will likely be sleeping in, and catching up on Duck Dynasty, and starting my list for next year.
