Date night in the Shanks' home!

Chris & Gracie went on a date tonight. Gracie had been looking forward to it for a couple of days. They went to O'Ch*rley's and to play putt putt and to play games in the arcade. They then went to get Chris a S*arbucks and to get Gracie an ice cream at S*nic. I'm glad he initiated this date with her. We spend lots of time together as a family, but I think one-on-one time with each parent is important also.

Since they were going out, I figured Katie & I should go out as well! Of course, she & I are pretty much always together but I still called it a date! We went to a local Mexican food place then to the mall which included a trip to our tiny bookstore where she chose a "My Little Pony" book. I was also able to find a dress for my cousin's wedding next week. It was MAJORLY on sale (like 75% on sale!) so I'm pretty happy about that!

All of us got home then we watched a "Stra*berry Shor*cake" movie together and the girls are now tucked away in bed.

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Chris & I have worked hard the last couple of weeks getting the student directory ready for Gracie's school. Other people worked hard getting me the information I needed in order to do my part.

We got it all together last weekend. Monday morning, I dropped it off at a place associated with the school district for it to be copied & assembled. Last year, myself and a few others did the copying and assembling so I was VERY grateful our PTA had agreed to pay someone else to do it this year. It was a huge job-750 directories with 9 double sided pages each.

They called me yesterday saying they were ready. I picked them up at 8:00 this morning and went back to the school to start putting them into the 35+ teachers' boxes. I tentatively opened one up to look at it-so afraid I would find something wrong that I had done. Well, there was something wrong alright! Only-thank goodness-it wasn't my fault! They had somehow assembled it wrong-some of the classes were in the wrong order! A mistake had happened during the colating (collating?). aaaagggghhhhh!

I was so upset! Our president happened to be in the office and she was quick to say that it was no big deal and not to worry about it. Still.....it really bugged me! Chris & I had worked so hard to get it all right. I showed it to our PTA teacher representative and she wasn't too disturbed about it either. I still was though!

When I finished separating all of them into the different teachers' boxes, I handed them out to the secretary and the assistant principal. The secretary then informed me that not all of them were wrong as the one I'd given the asst. principal was done correctly. aaaaggghhhh!

So, yes, some of them were done correctly & some were done incorrectly. After leaving the school I decided that I really needed to go back to the Materials Center and discuss what had happened. I didn't want to be mean but our PTA was paying them money to do this job and it hadn't been done correctly and I thought we should get a discount at least.

Long story short.......well, almost........I went back over there with 1 correct book and 1 incorrect book. After watching 2 of the workers get into what looked like a potential "disagreement" over whose fault it was, they said they would give me a discount OR I could bring them back to be corrected. I DID NOT want to drive BACK to the school, collect the 750 books from the teachers & boxes, sort out which ones were wrong, drive BACK to the center, drop them off, go BACK to pick them up next week, go BACK to the school and re-separate them into the teachers' boxes, SO I opted for the discount. UGH! I HATE THIS! I really was pretty nice about the way I handled it...I think. I told them I understood that mistakes can happen but I really felt like we deserved a discount for the mistake. The lady agreed that if they couldn't correct the mistake then we should get a discount.

I am one of those "proofreader" people (as may not be evident from the typos in some of my posts!) but I really don't like to see things published with glaring errors like that! I called our president and she agreed to taking the discount and not worrying about it. As long as all of the teachers' names & classes were there it was okay. She told me I was worrying about the small things and not to let it ruin my day! She was right. It still bugs me though because I don't want people thinking I did it wrong.

The directory Gracie came home with was one of the "good" ones. Hopefully the people who got the "bad" ones won't pay too much attention. As long as they don't look at the 4th or 5th grade they'll be fine as that's where the mistake was made. aaaggghhh!