My college degree

I graduated from college in 2004 with a degree from the UW/WSU in PR/Marketing. I worked until 2008 when the economy tanked the the small (we're talking under 12 people) company I was working for was forced to lay me off (last hired, first fired fun!) anyway at that point Sean was on his first deployment in Iraq and we decided well maybe I should just stay home with Lilly since most of my paycheck was going towards gas, lunches, and day care for Lilly. At first this idea was a little new and scary to me, but I adapted and now I love having the ability to not only be home for my daughter whenever she needs me, but that also allows me to be on the PTA Board, chair some committees, be on the Little League Board, volunteer in her classroom, coach softball, as well as take care of a household where 5 people live :-)
I have gone of track a little bit, anyway I've recently realized that I use my college degree way more now that when I was working - how crazy is that! Between publishing a newsletter once a month, doing a bulletin board to showcase the PTA once a month, designing flyers for our PTA functions, and taking on an entire rewards program for our amazing readers I use a lot of those PR/Marketing skills in order to make newletters that don't look like they were done by a 5 year old, flyers that are not only eye catching, but understandable, and having a bulletin board that looks fun, but also conveys a lot of important information.
It's rewarding being able to do all these things, all things that I enjoy and have fun doing and know that I am actually using the things I learned in college!
For example this year the PTA has decided to take on the AR Rewards program at school since we have a new librarian who was not familiar with how the program was ran and it is something we all feel very strongly about and wanted to make sure all the kids still benefited from this amazing program. I am currently running the program and I gotta say I'm having so much fun with it! I got to design T-shirts, Bookmarks, Certificates, and make things that are being displayed in the library - not to mention coming up with an entire theme for everything. It's awesome!!
Some people may think that people who go to college and then become a stay-at-home parent have not done their degree justice and only wasted their time in college and I will admit before I became a Mom I was one of those people. I always had respect for those people who made it their life's work to devote themselves to their children and give back to the organizations that their kids were involved in, but I never quite understood it. I used to be a career minded person thinking that what you did for a living and the paycheck you brought home defined who you were as a person - boy was I wrong. It's about how you live your life, how you choose to spend your time. People that choose to spend their time doing things that benefit their family, and their community deserve praise and support - and I would be saying that even if I wasn't one of those people.