Once upon a time — in what we might think of as the “Happy Days” era — courtship was governed by a set of guardrails. Potential partners generally met within the context of larger social institutions: neighborhoods, schools, workplaces and families. There were certain accepted social scripts. The purpose of these scripts — dating, going steady, delaying sex — was to guide young people on the path from short-term desire to long-term commitment.

Over the past few decades, these social scripts became obsolete. They didn’t fit the post-feminist era. So the search was on for more enlightened courtship rules. You would expect a dynamic society to come up with appropriate scripts. But technology has made this extremely difficult. Etiquette is all about obstacles and restraint. But technology, especially cellphone and texting technology, dissolves obstacles. Suitors now contact each other in an instantaneous, frictionless sphere separated from larger social institutions and commitments.

www.homeschoolblogger.com/earthenvessel/

This past Saturday was the annual Pregnancy Center Gala and Auction. As usual, my hubby was there that morning to set up the computers and make sure all was running smoothly in that realm.This is the same time that many hard working volunteers and Pregnancy Center staff are busy decorating the room for the evening.

Around 4 pm our sweet sister team of sitters arrived. We showed up at the St. Petersburg Coliseum a little before 5 pm and had a little time to look at the all the wonderful silent auction items before it was time for us to work. (We call it work, but it really is a joy!) Hubby was going to bid on a fishing pole but when the bidding went over $100 he decided that was too much for us.

My job every year is to connect with the lady who works out all the problems with registration. She keeps a list of changes to names and bidder #s which I take to make changes in the computer. That way when all the bidding is over, the item that were won go to the correct people!  

I am also part of the data entry team. Once again, after all the bidding is over, there are volunteers assigned to go gather up the bidder sheets and they are brought to the computer room. That's when the computer room really comes to life! Usually about 3 of us meticulously enter each Item # and the winning bid and price. I'm not sure how many Items there are in each auction but I would feel safe in guessing maybe around 200 items. As we are entering the items and winning bids, hubby is gathering the already entered sheets and sorting them by item #. When we finish entering we take over fine sorting what hubby started while he starts running reports for the cashiers and invoices for the folks who won their bids. It is a fine tuned machine as we all work together!

As we are doing all this we get to visit with wonderful friends, who unfortunately, we seem to only get to see at this one event each year. I should have brought my camera but didn't this year.

Today we had a review day because they were suppose to come start our back deck. But come to find out, the guy that was suppose to do it had to go pick up his little boy from school because he got sick. Oh well, sick children are alot more important than my deck. I hope he gets better soon. It was not a wasted day, we had review and then I went to town and we picked up some sweet potatoes, pumpkin and some peanuts from a farmers market. Right now we are enjoying parched peanuts. Yummie

Just checked on my blogs, and together I have had almost 1,000 visitors this month. Wow! Word really does get out. This is not just in the US, this is from other continents as well. Thanks for all the readers.