Graduation Update...

Yesterday was our last "official" graduation planning meeting. I really, really, REALLY did not want to go or lead it, but our graduation mentor (who is AWESOME!) talked me down from the ledge a couple of days ago and I went on as usual. It was only slightly painful.

The mom's were pretty well-behaved which was a HUGE improvement over the last few meetings but at one point we were getting up to go and look at the size of the sanctuary of the church we are using and see how the chairs were arranged when one of the grads came up to me. He's like "I have a question..." To be honest, he's had a lot of questions in the last couple of months because his mom wasn't attending and he tends to be rather condescending. So I'm like "What's up?" Well, he goes in to this whole schpeel about the cost of everything and how on some paper we gave out in the beginning states that we are only going to pay out somewhere between $50-$75 and so far we have spent more than that.

Okay, first things first...ever heard of the ECONOMY? Um...unless you've been living under a rock for the last two, maybe three, years, the cost of EVERYTHING has gone up. The guideline sheet was written like two years ago. And really, they are GUIDELINES, not written in stone with a guarantee! So luckily, a bunch of the mom's heard him and came up to chime in. Gotta love some of these ladies! So then HIS mom, who finally put in an appearance, looks at me and is like "Well SOME of us are budget conscious!" Well, this brought out some comments from a lot of people about how they were ALL budget conscious due to unemployment and spouses being out of work and then we went on to actually READ the sheet that she and her son were referring to and at the point of where a cost was mentioned, it did NOT cover (or mention) half of what we have paid for. So the mom started to threaten that she was going to go over our heads (so to speak) to our group's chairman to complain. I mean, maybe if she had showed up half of the time, she would have had the right to complain - or maybe voice her concerns about the costs, but she chose not to. Two weeks before the ceremony is NOT the time to start a war over this. AND...teach your child some manners, too! I have watched my son get verbally attacked by some of these women and he has NEVER taken a tone with them that showed disrespect.

Well, we all walked away and went on with the rest of the meeting and when I got home, one of the mom's had already sent out an e-mail to the group that was so wonderful, so encouraging and yet firm, essentially telling people of all of the BLESSINGS that we have been given and how much MORE all of this could have cost and that we should be focused on THAT instead of complaining! I was thrilled. I mean, I almost cried because I felt that finally, other people had had enough of the nonsense. I sort of felt vindicated.

Ten more days...ten more days...