For the last nine years I've been doing this rather crazy little project. Our county Holstein club partners with the neighboring county and puts together an auction of registered cattle. People consign cattle to the event and the club gets a commission from the sale of each animal that goes through the ring. Every auction needs a way to log it's items, and it is my job to put together the catalog for the annual sale.
For the most part, I enjoy the production of this book. I like sitting with my computer, entering the animals into a format that, after nine years, has become rather automatic to me. I like the history of the event, now in it's 63rd year, and appreciate the opportunity it provides for this community of dairyman to get together and appreciate each other and the beautiful animals they are raising.
What gets me a little nuts is all of the unknowns: how big will the book be this year? When will I get the consignments? Can I get it to the printer on time? Each entry takes about a half an hour to enter into the book. Say there are 80 entries - that's 40 hours of time that I have to find to get this project done!
It used to be less complicated, finding the time to do the book. When the kids were babies, I could cover a table with a layer of newspaper, a layer of white paper, fill an egg carton with poster paint, hand them paint brushes and buy myself at least an hour of quality catalog time every day! When that didn't work, there was television, DVD's, occasionally an ant invasion to hold their attention. My husband could be rather ingenious with setting the youngest up in his bouncy seat with an array of toys dangling from the ceiling and tacked to the wall of my office to keep him entertained. It always seemed to work.
When we lived near my in-laws, they were very gracious in sacrificing their weekends to assist my efforts. Mom would play with the kids and fix meals while I cranked out page after page. It worked. It was exhausting sometimes; but it worked.
Then we moved to the farm. No more familial support staff. In fact, it's a role reversal! I am needed in the barn! So not only is my help on the weekend a near seven hours out of reach, about 18 hours a week are completely unavailable.
It helps that the kids are in school. That usually means the mornings are free. Unless... with school comes PARTICIPATION! I love participation. I love being mom! But oh how I wish I could put all of those things on hold for about two months to regain just a snippet of time for this book! But that would mean putting the kids on hold, and were it not for them, I'd be working a full time job SOMEWHERE and be completely unavailable to do this project at all! So they must continue to come first. You just can't pause parenting.
So what really happens is I periodically turn into a whack job until the book is done. Because you can only plan so much in this thing and the rest is up to owners, obligations, and other unforeseen hiccups, glitches... and occasional grace and support from friends.
It's nuts. This year, I am wondering why I am driving myself crazy for this thing?
I know why. When my grandpa died, my family found, in a closet in his house, a stack containing a copy of nearly every club sale catalog ever produced in the approximately 50 years he was around to attend them. He enjoyed this sale enough to keep all of those books. Now I am the one who makes those books. I like to think he's still a part of it, because I am now a part of it. I hope someone thinks my books are good enough to collect and appreciates this event the way he did!
So it's after midnight and I am waiting for a copy of this year's catalog to print out so I can see what my next step is. I will be a tense, crazy whack job until the thing is finally shipped off to the printer; but it will be a fine book when it is done! In April, the people will attend the sale and peruse the book and (I hope!) have a great time. By then, I be might be happy I spent a month or two being a tense, crazy whack job.
