Sue

of a volunteer child advocate.

Sometimes my friends wonder what exactly I do during the week.  I am the Family Life Commissioner for Utah PTA.  This is an elected position with a 2-year term that can be repeated once.  Because I was appointed to fill out the remaining year of someone else’s term in 2007-08, I can serve in this position for a total of 5 years.  I’m now in the middle of year two.  So here’s a brief look back at a typical week for me.

Monday-Got up early to get ready and check email before meeting with 2 sisters from my church.  Taught the lesson, then dashed off to downtown Salt Lake to meet with the Underage Drinking Prevention Workgroup and discuss matters related to ParentsEmpowered.org.  Stopped at the Utah PTA office in Murray to photocopy material for the resolution I’m preparing for our next convention, answered the questions of a council Legislative VP who came in needing some help, resolved some other issues and headed for home.  Got home by 4, straightened up house, did some dishes, worked on PTA stuff on my computer, ate dinner, went to Brian’s opening night of “The Scarlet Pimpernel”, attended the opening night gala afterwards, got to bed by midnight.

Tuesday-Got up early to be in downtown SLC for a meeting of the Child Care Resource & Referral-Metro Advisory Board.  Stopped at the PTA office to go to lunch with the one of my colleagues, did some errands on the way home, got home about 4, cleaned up around house, checked email, did PTA work on my computer, ate dinner, went to work the box office for the school play but there were enough people, so we got to go home!  Gave me more time to work on PTA stuff on my computer and get to bed earlier.

Wednesday-Got up early to fight the traffic to the Capitol in SLC for Interim day.  Legislative committees meet once a month when not in session to hear reports and discuss legislation for the upcoming session in January.  Went to Judiciary in the morning and was not caught on film for the evening news while testifying, (phew!), had a working lunch with my fellow commissioners, and went to Health & Human Services in the afternoon.  Lots of draft legislation to read and hear debated.  Talked with lawmakers, got home by 7 pm.  Ate a lovely dinner prepared by Scott, checked email, worked on computer doing PTA work, collapsed in bed about 11 pm.

Thursday-Got up early, drove to meeting of the Utah Family Partnership Network at 25th South in Salt Lake City.  After meeting, went to PTA office to join group taking our receptionist to lunch for her birthday.  Returned to office to help with some items, hit sale at scrapbook store on the way home, got home by 5.  Cleaned up, ate dinner, went to performance of Brian’s play.  Got home at 10 pm, checked email, went to bed.

Friday-a day at home-am visited by 2 sisters from church, did 5 loads of laundry, vacuumed, did dishes, swept floors, admired the new paint job Scott is giving our walls, read a novel for a while, cleaned some more, worked backstage at Brian’s play.  Fulfilled vow to do no PTA work today, not even checking email, although stressed some about how behind I am on certain projects.

So there you have it-my life in a nutshell.  I think that may mean that I’m the nut.

My sunflowers make me happy.  I love them and have never had a good place to plant them at this house.  But last summer, Scott re-worked sprinklers and dug out a new flower bed for me on the north side of our lot.  We planted a few perennials for Mother’s Day to give the bed some structure, and the rest of the bed is seeded with all kinds of flowers, meaning we just broadcast seeds all over it.  At first I was a little concerned about design, color schemes, etc. and Scott told me we can call this our “Joseph bed”, referring to his coat of many colors.  So we just planted a bunch of things I like and let the seeds fall where they may.  The only thing I was careful about was making sure the sunflowers and hollyhocks got in the back so they could grow tall and not block anything.  Hollyhocks are biennial, so lots of little plants and no flowers this year, but next year we should have a tall forest of both kinds of flowers.  But this year, we have many different sunflower hybrids.  And that makes me happy!