For most girls this is something you start planning for a week into the first semester of school when you’re supposed to be getting back into the swing of being back in school. But that’s not how it was for me. I’m homeschooled, and being so I don’t have a prom like everyone else due to the fact that the only other people I go to school with is my seven year old little brother. And then because I am in a very good home school group and close to a town that is friendly to homeschoolers I got the opportunity to go to the home school prom.
However going to the prom was a lot harder for me than just finding a good dress and the perfect accessories. When I told my parents I wanted to go to prom my mom didn’t care per say, but my dad was against it. In his words “When I went to school there was the junior and senior prom. You’re neither.” And since I was a freshman my dad was sticking to not helping me with anything that had to do with going to prom.
It all started with getting enough money to buy the ticket to prom, because without that there was no way I was going to get in. Fortunately for me at that time my parents were giving me an allowance and I saved every penny I got from it to pay for my ticket. Unfortunately when it came to buy the ticket at the early bird special I was about ten dollars short and since my dad was completely against me going and my mom’s hands were tied I had to call relatives.
Anyone who has ever asked for money from relatives knows that pulling teeth is easier. Because if they do give you the money you’ve got to deal with the guilt trip or, due to the economic situation, they have to tell you ‘no’ because they’re barely scraping by with what they’ve got. Of course maybe that’s just my family. In the end I finally got the ten dollars that I needed and a little extra for a dress.
Now is when the nanny goat comes into the picture. Being homeschooled and living fifteen miles out of town it’s hard to make money. My way of making money was getting Billy kid goats, raising them on the milk I got from my nanny goat and then when they were four months old selling them at the Livestock Exchange. At the time I was short of hay for my nanny so any and all money that I got went into my goats (so any money that I was given for my dress? Yeah it went into the hay fund for my goats too).
When it came to get more baby goats I got my usual two Billy kids and took them home. Unfortunately one of them had died and so I went back and got another Billy kid. A few days later I found out that my nanny wasn’t giving enough milk for two babies and since I needed two babies to make any profit it became apparent that I needed another nanny goat.

Now I had about eighty dollars saved up from doing chores and selling stoves for my dad’s Chimney Sweep business and because I wanted to be a big shot I used that money to buy the nanny myself instead of borrowing more money from my parents. This turned out to be my biggest mistake.
At this point my goats were fine but I was in hot water when it came to prom. Here it was almost two weeks before prom and I still didn’t have a dress worthy of prom. However my biggest problem was that I was broke! And I had already asked every relative I could for money and they had all given me money… and all that money had gone into my goats hay. And then I had just spent the rest of my money on another nanny goat.
At this point I was faced with either using an extremely ugly dress for prom or using the money that I got from selling one of my goats at the Livestock Exchange. Considering this money was supposed to be used to continue feeding my goats it was a huge decision. While trying to figure out what I was going to do I was so stressed that I was even considering selling my prom ticket and not even going! But in the end I decided to use the money that I got from my goat to buy the eighty dollar pink strapless princess dress that I wore to prom.
While I never regretted going to prom, I did end up regretting the choices I made to get there. And though Prom was by far one of the best nights of my life… it was also one of the worst. The entire day before hand I was entirely brain dead because I was so stressed. Was I going to look okay in my dress? Was my mom going to get home in time to help me fix my hair? Was I going to remember everything for the sleepover at my friend’s house afterwards? Was I going to make an idiot out of myself at the first formal event I’d ever been to?
When I got over to my friends house, with whom I was riding with to prom, I was shaking I was so nervous. I hadn’t gotten my hair done at all and it wasn’t even brushed and to top it all off I was wearing a strapless dress and I had forgotten to shave… But as any good friend I quickly got things straightened out and we started out for the hour drive to prom.
When we got there we got pictures taken by the parents who had brought us and had entirely too much fun in the parking lot being a bunch of giddy teenagers. Finally we went inside, got dinner and finally began the prom experience. Afterwards we took the hour drive back to our home town and spent another four hours talking about how much fun we had. We finally made it to bed at five in the morning.
And even though I could look at all the bad things that happened before hand I get to look back on it and not only remember the valuable lessons when it comes to livestock, but also remember that when you make decisions to think them through thoroughly.

All in all prom night was the night I finally got to go to a formal event, got to dance with the guy I’d been crushing of for years, however I got turned down by another guy and tore my dress. But in everything that happened before and during prom I learned two very important things. Decisions are not something to take lightly and also that no matter what happens friends will always be there for you.
Now to just get the hundreds of pictures to my relatives for return payment…