Moment of Joy

I'm not getting a lot of joy out of life these days. Mostly because of stuff I don't want to get into on the blog, so I'll just sum it up with this: I need more money and less paperwork in my life.

Anyway, I just experienced a moment of joy sitting at my desk. Since it's usually the site of more bad news these days, it feels especially sweet.

Inspired by my Bandmate Cindy's journey to minimalism, I decided to start cleaning off my desk. It's about 4 times the size of my old desk and yet I have managed to drown it in paper and crap.

Not sure mom would have given me her gorgeous old roll top if she'd known what I was going to do to it. But I do love the desk, I swear. 

So instead of writing yet another parenting for dummies type article yesterday,  I started cleaning. You may note that I have not finished. But this is an improvement. Before I had kids, I was so organized, you have no idea. My teacher desk never looked anything like this. Well, except for when I came back from maternity leave with Ironflower. But that was the sub's fault, not mine. I had my desk back to normal within the week. Now, I'm ashamed to admit how long my desk has looked like this.

What was I talking about? Not my organization failures. Oh yeah, my joy.

My joy came when I threw away some school fundraising forms. I hate the stuff they sell for school fundraisers. I hate asking people I know to buy products that are crap - that's why there are hardly any sponsored posts on this blog.* Okay, not all the products are crap - but the prices are. Normally, though, I feel guilty when I don't try to sell stuff for the school. I mean, the school needs money, right?

But this year I realized something, as I paid all the organization dues and spent a bunch of money at the Book Fair and wrote checks for over $75 for three fancy field trips and remembered my property taxes and signed up to volunteer in the classroom and recalled that parents send in extra supplies and party foods and reward prizes and craft projects.

I'm really okay with how much we do for the school. So I'm not going to buy or sell any over-priced wrapping paper this year. Or next year. Or the year after that. I mean, if I was good at selling shit, I'd have gone into selling real estate (thus justifying my obsession with House Hunters) or pharmaceuticals (thus making a shit ton of money). But I'm no good at trying to sell things I don't love and the truth is, my kids' school doesn't need more money, it needs all teachers to differentiate instruction, but that's a different post.





*Unless someone starts offering me six-figures for sponsored posts. In which case, screw my integrity.