Life In The Slow Lane

When people think of life in a small town I think they imagine it is slow paced, boring way to live.  The truth is living in a small town is exhausting!!  Seriously, exhausting.  When I lived in a big town, I did not stay busy.  I think I could fill every hour of my life if I wanted to.  In a small town, there is more ownership.  If a person has any sense of community, they understand volunteering is essential.  The problem is only a small percentage of people take their responsibility seriously.  So a handful of people work for the entire town. 
Small towns do not have never ending budgets to get things done.  If all the bushes downtown look shabby, people take it upon themselves to trim them.  Our village workers do not have the time for constant upkeep.  Clean-up days are held in the warm weather.  People walk around pulling weeds, picking up garbage.  Don't complain about the town looking shabby if you do not want to help change it.
Mondays are the only day I do not go into Coco's.  Last year I would spend an hour a week in Tink's classroom.  This year I am helping in Coco's class.  I spend three hours on Monday mornings volunteering.  The Kindergarten classes are very crowded.  There are 30 students in Coco's class.  Sounds like chaos, it really is not.  Coco has an amazing teacher.  She keeps her class very organized.  She does not scream at the kids.  She will take any help from volunteers that she can get.  There are teachers who do not want parents helping.  I had a great time yesterday!!  I helped kids who needed to finish papers.  I worked one of the stations where the students were working on new things.  I went with the class to their Redbird store.  They collect Redbird bucks for good behavior.  That was fun!!  I was exhausted when I left the class.  I really enjoyed it. I am always happily exhausted when I leave.
After school I force myself to go straight to the grocery store.  I am trying to cook more.  Went home started laundry, cooked up a bunch of hamburger.  I freeze the cooked meat.  Pull out small packages when I want to throw something together.  So useful!!  Started laundry.  Took a much needed nap.  At 4:00 I attended a meeting for the group that works to improve the town.  I am on the committee the plans all the events.  We are planning our Christmas activities now.  The only major event I do not work on is July 4th.  I do not want to touch that!!  I enjoy July 4th picnics.  That meeting took about 90 minutes.  I went home ate dinner and went to the Village Meeting.  I do not always attend the village meeting.  This was important because it was regarding road projects downtown.  I need to be aware how long roads will be torn up and how it will affect businesses on our side of the block.  Did not receive any good news at that meeting!
Tonight I have a church meeting.  I am part of the group that is doing the search for a new Pastor.  This is an important committee to be a part of.  Finding the right Pastor for our little church is very important!!! 
My point to this is not to say look at me, I am so important.  It is to show how small town life sucks a person in.  One person can make a difference in our town.  One idea can have an impact.  There are people that do much more than I do.  There are people that are not involved in any of the organizations but on their own will spend hours picking up litter.  They will pick a street and clean it up. 
There are also too many people that complain about how things are done but never help.  They use the excuse, nothing ever changes.  No sense wasting our time.  All the negative stuff people say when they are just too lazy or self-absorbed to get involved.
I love my town.  I want it to thrive and grow.  I want our Christmas activities to be so awesome people drive here to see what we do.  We are building something special.  A few people sit in a meeting and come up with amazing ideas.  Then we make it happen.  Hard not to want to get involved with that!!!