feeling proud and patting ourselves on the back a little

I've been avoiding blogging mostly because I've been too tired to write after work, too many long days. Summer Reading ended over a week ago and I'm finally starting to lose that hungover feeling that I think comes with being too tightly wound at work for too long, too fixated on making sure everything is great and going off without a hitch; working too many hours to accommodate being at every activity and trying to cover vacations on top of it to boot. It was a lot of fun, but damn, I'm glad it's behind us for a while.This Summer Reading was a huge learning curve for both Prairie Dawn and I; this, because it was her first summer reading; this because it was my first summer reading in charge, and also overseeing the adult programming aspects. We definitely learned a lot.

Today I was finally able to type up an article about the wrap-up of our program for the local papers and was awed by our stats:
We wound up with a total of 419 participants (babies-adults)
54 programs over our 6 weeks of Summer Reading
A grand total of 1,277 people attending these 54 programs! That's NUTS! NUTS! I'm totally usually that as our biggest selling point when I apply for grants this coming fall/winter for 2014!

We're patting ourselves on the backs, and yet, already thinking ahead to a busy fall. Our next big thing is a back to school activity for kids 4th-12th grades. Think Double Dare--trivia combined with messy, disgusting challenges! I think Prairie Dawn and I get as pumped, if not more, than the kids do about this stuff! We're still planning our fall calendar, but almost every activity is planned out from Aug. 1st - December 31st, and there is definitely something satisfying in that--I hodge podged things together from when I started until Prairie Dawn started, but now with her help I can plan things out months in advance...and that is a very good feeling. :)


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