I figured I should post something, but I haven't had a profound thoughts or experiences lately. This is how it went this week: Some days I stay home with my little star where we maybe go on a short adventure/errand, or spend some time outside in the morning. Since we are still working on potty training we never go far.
Afternoons are taken up with trying to make nap happen. If lunch begins around noon, nap tries to begin slightly after one, but then it gets delayed for extra potty trips, and suddenly it is two o'clock. If we are lucky, nap lasts two hours. If not, nap lasts one hour. Still there is not much time for anything interesting to happen before dinner time. The next day little star goes to play care. Those days, for some reason he sleeps later, we get to play care after 10 am, and somehow he manages not to take a nap there. I go to the gym, eat lunch, do some errands, check out some internet stuff, maybe mow the lawn, work on dinner, and its time to pick him up. Occasionally I actually get some work on my project accomplished- often on the one day I skip the gym.
This week I worked on the business plan, but had to quit when the question of location cropped up. And then today I noticed the nearest new children's museum is able to offer family yearly memberships for $95, very affordable, and I don't think we can match it unless we get a lot of families. And that seems to be the crux of my worries about it. I just have no idea how many people will come. I want to open up soon on one hand, on the other hand, I want to have lots more people organizing. I wrote up all the responsibility of the half time paid director- all the payment I think we can afford, and the job is way more than that- it also should pay more.
Funny thing is, we have grant money. Right now. And I'm feeling more worried about the project than ever. The next big event we should be at is the "Christmas Walk." Its like a first friday event, all the down town merchants are open and there are fun activities for kids and freebies and stuff.... and Santa. Personally, I think even having a public event called the "Christmas" walk is insensitive at best, offensive at worst. I'm sure it doesn't occur to organizers that not only are some people not Christian and don't celebrate or enjoy Christmas, but that they find this celebration to be excluding them. And I'm sure for the tiny number of non-Christians who care, our lack of participation won't make any difference to the merchants. Perhaps there are Christians who also would rather that it wasn't celebrated in such a commercial way as well.
Thinking carefully about how they could do this event better, I have to admit that honestly it wouldn't make me that much happier if they called it a Holiday walk or something non-christian when they really DID mean Christmas. At least they are not equating Chanuka (a small non-bibical holiday) with Christmas. A title that is used for a different non-religious event in Ithaca is "Light in Winter". I like that. I like "Harvest Festivals"- nothing religious about that- every culture has a harvest. How about "gift walk", "Autumn shopping", "Preparing for winter," "Lighting the night..." "Downtown celebration...". And then people would complain we were taking Christmas spirit away from the "holiday season". To be honest, non-christians often have to buy stuff for our Christian brethren or relatives, but still would rather it was called something related to the time of year or gift giving rather than "Christmas" that feels so exclusive.
In any case, since this is the big event, despite its name, our organization should be there, but it probably won't be because I will be out of town- its the Sunday just after Thanksgiving.
Afternoons are taken up with trying to make nap happen. If lunch begins around noon, nap tries to begin slightly after one, but then it gets delayed for extra potty trips, and suddenly it is two o'clock. If we are lucky, nap lasts two hours. If not, nap lasts one hour. Still there is not much time for anything interesting to happen before dinner time. The next day little star goes to play care. Those days, for some reason he sleeps later, we get to play care after 10 am, and somehow he manages not to take a nap there. I go to the gym, eat lunch, do some errands, check out some internet stuff, maybe mow the lawn, work on dinner, and its time to pick him up. Occasionally I actually get some work on my project accomplished- often on the one day I skip the gym.
This week I worked on the business plan, but had to quit when the question of location cropped up. And then today I noticed the nearest new children's museum is able to offer family yearly memberships for $95, very affordable, and I don't think we can match it unless we get a lot of families. And that seems to be the crux of my worries about it. I just have no idea how many people will come. I want to open up soon on one hand, on the other hand, I want to have lots more people organizing. I wrote up all the responsibility of the half time paid director- all the payment I think we can afford, and the job is way more than that- it also should pay more.
Funny thing is, we have grant money. Right now. And I'm feeling more worried about the project than ever. The next big event we should be at is the "Christmas Walk." Its like a first friday event, all the down town merchants are open and there are fun activities for kids and freebies and stuff.... and Santa. Personally, I think even having a public event called the "Christmas" walk is insensitive at best, offensive at worst. I'm sure it doesn't occur to organizers that not only are some people not Christian and don't celebrate or enjoy Christmas, but that they find this celebration to be excluding them. And I'm sure for the tiny number of non-Christians who care, our lack of participation won't make any difference to the merchants. Perhaps there are Christians who also would rather that it wasn't celebrated in such a commercial way as well.
Thinking carefully about how they could do this event better, I have to admit that honestly it wouldn't make me that much happier if they called it a Holiday walk or something non-christian when they really DID mean Christmas. At least they are not equating Chanuka (a small non-bibical holiday) with Christmas. A title that is used for a different non-religious event in Ithaca is "Light in Winter". I like that. I like "Harvest Festivals"- nothing religious about that- every culture has a harvest. How about "gift walk", "Autumn shopping", "Preparing for winter," "Lighting the night..." "Downtown celebration...". And then people would complain we were taking Christmas spirit away from the "holiday season". To be honest, non-christians often have to buy stuff for our Christian brethren or relatives, but still would rather it was called something related to the time of year or gift giving rather than "Christmas" that feels so exclusive.
In any case, since this is the big event, despite its name, our organization should be there, but it probably won't be because I will be out of town- its the Sunday just after Thanksgiving.
No comments:
Post a Comment