u/nimaku

I am an MBC for the Nature Merit Badge and just started it as a group with a patrol. I have been approved for a while, but this is my first time counseling for a merit badge. This requirement says “Make plaster casts of the tracks of a wild animal.” Since tracks are sometimes luck of the draw on finding them, is this something that would be acceptable if the group participated in making a cast together, or does it need to be each individual Scout making their own cast with their own track? Or is this an “up to the MBC’s discretion” thing?

We have some events in our iCal calendar that are repeating events (like music lessons for the kids or whatever) that get pulled into our Skylight calendar. The Skylight seems to struggle with assigning people’s colors for these events. Sometimes it freezes and refuses to let us change the color altogether, so it has to stay as the default color for the iCal calendar. Sometimes it lets us do it for ALL of the events in that series, but if we need to change which adult is responsible for being chauffeur that week, it doesn’t work. It would be really helpful for organizing rides and easily seeing conflicts if our “mom,” “dad,” and “grandparents” colors could be assigned to those events.

Has anyone found a work around for this that doesn’t involve getting rid of the repeating event in iCal and entering each week individually?

I’m a couple years out of “active” cancer treatment, still in “maintenance” treatment. I was able to take several months off during the worst of it, then built back up with part time for a while. Now I’m back to full time, and it’s killing me. It’s been almost a year at this pace. I am exhausted physically and mentally. I feel like I can barely walk sometimes because everything hurts. I make it through the day at work, running purely on adrenaline and pure force of will, wearing a cheerful public-facing mask like I’m OK. Then I come home and crash on the couch, sometimes barely able to climb the stairs in my own home.

I spoke with the powers that be about the possibility of 0.8 FTE. That’s where my husband and I have calculated out a (hopeful) sweet spot of paying bills and work vs. respite time. I was hopeful that they would be flexible with me given the fact that they were understanding of me needing to work back up with part-time after surgeries and chemo. I was basically told they won’t do it, and they don’t want part-time employees in general. I was literally told it’s easier to just find someone else who wants full-time. I feel defeated and expendable. My choices are to keep burning the candle at both ends or be unemployed. I’ve spent over a decade in education for this profession, and another decade actually doing it. I don’t even know where to start envisioning myself doing something else; I just want to do it for a few hours less per week.