Happy Happy Halloween

I saw this fella hangin' out in the bushes in our front yard and thought he would be a fine addition to today's post! Yuk!! I do NOT like spiders at all!

Yesterday was "Boo to the Flu" day at our school district. Our District Office staff wore our official "Boo to the Flu" t-shirts that Tresa's company made for us. Here is a picture of some of us sporting our awesome t-shirts!

Our four "germy" nurses came by in the afternoon for a brief photo shoot with our two "hip and happening" hand sanitizers. They all looked so funny. I took a couple of pictures and then off they went to entertain the kids at the two grade schools.

Here is a germ getting wiped out with hand sanitizer!

Can you say "Good Sports"?

Have a Happy Halloween everyone!!

The End Is In Sight

Everything is starting to fall into place for our "Boo to the Flu" Halloween campaign at work. The orange bracelets I ordered arrived Wednesday and I spent most of that afternoon and yesterday dividing them up to distribute to our 2000 plus students and staff. Quite a task in itself.

They are cute though aren't they?

The costumes are done!! I am so glad. It's been a crazy couple of weeks running back and forth from my office to my boss's office. I would go to my desk to check e-mails and phone messages, handle what needed to be handled and then run back and sew for a little bit and then repeat over and over throughout the day. I wanted to keep up with my work as much as possible, because I hate being behind.

Anyway, you remember the hand sanitizer costumes. My boss and another staff member will wear these.

Here are the germs that our four nurses will wear. They'll be wearing green or purple tights and long sleeve t-shirts under them. It should be pretty funny. Keep in mind I did not create the character. It's straight off a picture on the Internet. I could never come up with something like that!

Now I am just waiting for the t-shirts to come in so I can get those out to the district office staff and the principals and assistant principals. My daughter's marketing company did them for us. They are black with a white ghost and say "Boo To The Flu" on them. They are really cute.

The plan is to wear this stuff the Friday before Halloween. It is our effort to keep flu prevention in the forefront. We don't have any confirmed cases of H1N1 in our district yet, but Irv's little Catholic school has 2 confirmed cases this week. We know it's coming, but the more we can do to remind the kids to cover their coughs and wash their hands, the better off we will be.

There is a high school in our area that is closed this week because 1/2 of their 2000 students called in sick the other day. They don't have any confirmed cases of H1N1 yet, but just a lot of sick students and staff.

So say Boo To The Flu and have a great day!

BOO TO THE FLU

A couple of days ago I hear my boss yelling from her office, "Oh, party planner Kathy. We need you." I knew that couldn't be a good thing. "We have another thing for you to organize for us."

I said, "I suppose you need it tomorrow." (Mind you....my boss is awesome. We have a great relationship, so I can be a smart ass if I want to) A few weeks ago she gave me two days to order and receive custom t-shirts, make raffle coupons, banners and buy decorations! I pulled it off....so now I have become our party planner and my services are required once again.

This time I am being given three weeks to make six....yes, six Halloween costumes, order custom t-shirts and order custom stretchy bracelets. The t-shirts are already ordered and so are the bracelets. That only took a couple of days....now the costumes.

We have an anti-flu campaign going called "Boo To The Flu", so they want our four nurses to be germs for the Halloween parties and parades and then my boss and another staff member are going to be bottles of Germ-X hand sanitizer!! How cute is that? Here is the germ I found on the internet. It will be two pieces but that's about all I know so far!! HAHA!

I bought some lime green fabric and some purple and white felt for his spots. I have no pattern because everything that might have worked is out of print.

I drew a sketch of the hand sanitizer costume and that one won't be too bad, except for the "pump".


I really thought my costume making days were long behind me, but not so. Thank goodness I don't have to do this at home. I have fabric coming out the wah-zoo and tons of stuff to make and get listed in MyOtherShop for the holidays. No, I will doing all of this at work thank goodness! That does mean toting a sewing machine, ironing board and iron to the office, but oh well.

Today I cut about a zillion circles out of felt to glue on the germ costumes! This is what my desk looked like today.

I will give you little updates as I make progress with my project.

I had a nightmare last night that the ugly green germs were chasing me down the halls of the school trying to give me the swine flu, but the hand sanitizers came and squirted goo all over the floor and the germs were slipping and sliding and fell down and I escaped!!! Chee Hoo!!

Just kidding. No nightmares....all is well in party planning land. :)

Wake Up and Smell the Coffee

I stopped at Starbucks the other morning and ordered my usual "tall, non-fat, no water, extra hot chai latte." The drive through is usually staffed with female 20 somethings and today was no exception. When I got to the window to pay, I handed the girl three singles, one quarter and two pennies. That would be $3.27 for my $3.22 drink.

Now I'm not sure if she just wasn't awake or if she had not had enough coffee yet, but she stood there staring at that money in her hand for the longest time.

I didn't give her any foreign coins or bogus bills...just $3.27.

She seemed quite perplexed as to why I gave her those two extra pennies, but eventually she entered the amount into the register and then very slowly took the nickel out of the machine and turned to hand it to me....still looking terribly confused.

Then I asked her for a stopper (that is a long green plastic stick you put into the little sippy drink hole in your cup so it doesn't splash all over the place). She handed me one....holding the part that goes right in my drink!

Being the germophobe that I am, I wanted to say, "Now could you hand me another one, but without the cooties this time," but I didn't because I am a nice, very patient person and I figured the hot drink would kill the cooties any way.

Hopefully my little barista just wasn't awake yet!

It's Cootie Season!!

Okay, so I am a bit of a germophobic. I don't stress out about germs. Thinking about germs does not keep me up at night. I don't have a hand washing OCD....well some might find that debatable...

I'm just a little picky about certain things.

I admit that I do wash my hands....a lot. I admit that the second I get in the car after shopping, I grab my hand sanitizer. I admit that I don't like touching the salt and pepper shakers in our lunch room at work. I admit that sometimes my hands just feel "dirty" and I have to wash them. I admit that I push doors open with my shoulder whenever possible or I pull my sleeve over my hand to open a door if necessary. I admit that I don't eat leftover food in our lunchroom at work because I don't know how long it sat out the day before. I admit that I don't like touching money....dirty, dirty money!

I am not like this at home where I know who touches things or where I know how long food sits out. Hey, I'm just trying to stay healthy and in all honesty, I rarely get colds and the flu. (knocks on wood).

I do not get flu shots or tetanus boosters. If I were an unhealthy adult with a compromised immune system, I might consider a flu shot, but a tetanus booster? Not a chance. Could I end up regretting my decision one day? Maybe, but I doubt it.

At the school where I work, we just put up posters and handed out hundreds of flyers about how to stop the spread of the flu. Nothing earth shattering...just common sense stuff like wash your hands, cover your cough and sneeze and stay home if you are sick....duh...no kidding!!

I have a feeling we are all going to get very tired of hearing about H1N1 (swine flu) this flu season. I realize hundreds of people have died from it, but what about the tens of thousands that die from the regular flu every year....why has that never freaked us out?

Sometimes I wonder if it isn't just a way for the pharmaceutical companies to make more money...

I will continue my germophobic hand washing ways and keep my fingers crossed that every one else washes theirs too!

Shoo you cootie bugs....shoo!!