Does Anyone Remember?

Last summer my husband and I worked for four months at UMCOR Sager Brown in Baldwin, Louisiana.  This is a Methodist mission where churches from all over America send teams of "weekly missionaries" to work in the kit ministry for a week.  They put together health kits, school kits, baby layettes, cleaning buckets, and birthing kits that are shipped all over the world in times of crisis.  This year, as you can imagine, thousands of cleaning buckets have been delivered to different states who have had devastating floods and tornadoes.

We're back at Sager Brown working, this summer for just two months.  It takes a bit of planning to get things ready at home to be away for that long but I'm so blessed with people that help that it really becomes almost too easy!  Our daughter is house sitting for us - she thinks it's a cush job because we live on a lake but trust me the watering is a job.  One grandson does the mowing.  And my neighbor/best friend checks the mail, takes the trash can to the street, checks the house (if daughter has to be away) and generally oversees everything at home.  Without her help we couldn't do the job we're doing - she is God-sent for sure.

There is a residence hall here that's just like the old time college dormitory with bathrooms in the hall and three beds (at least!) in each room.  Jerry and I have a two room apartment there and I am the Hostess (dorm mother!) while he works out in the heat in the community building wheelchair ramps, painting houses, rebuilding "soft" floors, etc.

My job is easy...but I thought I'd tell you a little about it because I won't be posting as often as I like and this are my excuses.  :)  The internet connection here is as slow as Christmas so I sure won't be uploading a lot of pictures.  :(

I get up at 5:30 during the week and walk for 35 minutes.  That's about a mile and a half and even though I'd like to do a little more, that early in the morning it's all I have time for.  And it's too doggone hot to walk later in the day.  We eat all our meals during the week in the cafeteria so I shower and dress and meet everyone for breakfast at 7:30.  I spend the morning in my office doing paperwork...I make name tags and door tags and do room assignments...that kind of thing.  I open our gift shop from 11:30 until 12:00 and again from 3:30 until 4:30.  Lunch is at noon and supper at 5:30.  If I have any work left from the morning I work on it in the afternoon but if not then I hang out at or near my office in case someone needs me and I read a book (or blogs) or do a little stitching.  It's pretty quiet during the day because everyone is working but in the evening people are back in the dorm so it's a little busier.  Everyone is supposed to be in their rooms by 10:00 when we lock the doors; lights out at 11:00.  I confess that I'm so tired I usually go to bed about 9:00 and Jerry does the locking up.  He doesn't mind sleeping in his recliner for a while, then getting up to lock up before he comes to bed.

This year we're only staying two months - June and July.  And I know it will be hard to believe but I didn't even bring my sewing machine!  I did bring a big basket of hand stitching projects - embroidery, applique and a quilt top to hand quilt.  I probably won't get two of them done but at least I have a choice of things to work on.  I'm still working on Twas The Night Before Christmas which is a redwork quilt top.  I've sandwiched a jelly roll strip quilt and it's waiting for me to buy the thread to quilt it with.  I'm about halfway through with the Down on the Farm wool applique table runner I posted about earlier.  I traced the twelve blocks to embroider for HocusPocusVille (and three or four other small embroidery pieces) and also brought a couple more small wool piece.  I know, I know...I'm only going to be here two months and you'd think it was going to be a year!  I did bring fewer clothes and shoes than last year.  :)

Saturday a couple of the other women and I are going hunting for a fabric shop we heard about that I didn't find last year.  I'll let you know if we're successful.

Anybody else going fabric shopping this week?