Wow, this place is kind of dusty! Summer didn't leave much time for blogging, but now our boys are back in school. That also means a flood of fliers for after-school and enrichment activities have just come in and it's time to sort out the "matrix of fun" for the season. Luckily, this year it will be a little simpler because of a new website my husband and I created, Community Signup.

In the past, I would lay out my calendar, the school calendar, and the pile of activity pamphlets on the dining room table and plan to spend a good chunk of time sorting out the schedule for the season. Our community has a lot of stuff going on and it would take a while to go through it all.

One day, as I was preparing to do this yet again, I mentioned to John how cool it would be if someone would just put all this information in one place online so I could search through it and sort it. It would be even cooler to be able to register online right after choosing all the activities.

Well, he liked the idea and thought that "someone" should be us. Why not? So we began to plan and discuss. We'd worked together in various computer-related jobs before, but this was different. We were creating something together this time because it was something we wanted. It was so much fun to say, "John, I'd like to be able to see only the classes that a 7 year old could take on Tuesdays after school," and have him come back a little while later and say, "Now you can — give it a try!"

Last week we opened the site to the world. It's completely free to use, and even list activities on; we're only going to charge if providers want to offer online registration. There are already activities from several providers around Rochester, Michigan. We're hoping that as Google starts indexing them, providers from the rest of the US will notice and try it out.

There's been some pretty sophisticated programming involved, but the most difficult part for me has been approaching the local activity providers. I can tell all the moms I know from school without batting an eye, but telling someone new about the site in which we've invested so much time and effort is hard, even though I'm basically selling them free advertising!

I think if you're reading this, you've probably had the same thought I did. Take a look at Community Signup and let us know what you think. If you like it, you could suggest it to your local activity providers and get your seasonal activity planning done more quickly in the future, too.