400 Sandwiches

This morning I will be gathering the supplies to make them. That’s one-third of the service projects at today’s stake Relief Society meeting before the dinner and broadcast tonight. Four hundred sandwiches for the Presbyterian Night Shelter. We are going to have assembly lines like you would not believe, and all the sisters who attend today will have the opportunity to make sandwiches.

I am really excited about this project. I have been homeless [for about half a day, as long as it took us to drive from the Hill Country to the doorstep of our friends who did not have a home phone, and yes we were strange(rs), and yes they took us in], and I have been hungry, so this is an assignment that is near and dear.

I don’t know what we are doing for Cook’s Children’s Hospital, and I don’t know what we are doing for the church’s Humanitarian Aid project, but I am looking forward to finding out, though I will probably be keeping the sandwiches moving for the duration.

I am very fond of that hospital; when LittleBit had periorbital cellulitis, they spoke to her with such love, respect, and compassion, and they gave her a choice about how she would get her antibiotics. She was maybe six years old. I remember that I was in school, and she had three medicines to take on three different schedules. I wrote it all down on index cards, and we set alarm clocks to go off every two to six hours for about a week.

And now she is all grown up (not blind, nor dead) and making her own decisions. God bless Cook’s.

When I called for an update at the post office, the fantabulous EMS clerk was gone for the day, but it is where he went that matters. He went to the other two post offices and searched them for our missing package.

Last night Fourthborn and I hosted a doll mini-meet at the Borders near Central Market. Saw some of the people we met last weekend and met some new ones and some new dolls. We had a nice time, but we were both weary, and she lost a filling yesterday. We left around 8:30, and I took her home by way of the bishop’s house so I could have him sign some food orders that a good brother in our ward will be picking up for three families today.

So, we know what’s on my plate for today. What’s in my bowl for breakfast? A sensible portion of multigrain hot cereal with a little cinnamon and a lot of brown sugar. I am in the mood for cornbread; while I’m picking up things for the service project, I am also going to get a fresh bag of cornmeal. And I have a bag of soup mix that I want to try out. With the weather cooling off a bit, I am finally in the mood to cook again.

I am also in the mood to putter and to nest, so I am hoping that the next couple of weeks will not require much driving. I am going to see if I can avoid driving in to work at all; I don’t have any more dental appointments until November, so I may very well be able to park at the T&P Station and acquire a bushel or two brownie points for being “green”. [Color-coordinated pun intended.]

I will be picking up new items for my food storage and rotating through the older cans and bags. And I will be stash-busting. Made a little more progress on the silk tie skirt yesterday and hope to do more this weekend. Once I have a front panel and a back panel, it may be time to bust out the embroidery floss (and maybe the bead stash) for some crazy-quilt stitching down the seams to hold the seam allowances in place on the wrong side of the skirt. I am buttonhole-stitching the raw edges together as I go. And then I am basting the seam allowances to one side so they will press nicely when I have the two panels done. [Yes, I am one of those sweetly demented souls who is mad for basting. A little less enamored for pressing as I go, but it absolutely makes a project.]

I love this Gütermann silk thread. My sister learned to use silk thread for her appliqué quilts, and it leaves virtually no marks when basting, and of course it feels so good slipping through my fingers as I sew. I can see myself acquiring a few spools a year as the seasons and colors change, and as my projects require it. The turquoise that I bought a year or so ago is lighter than the teal which I bought last month, and the browns are different. Eventually I could have a silken rainbow on my studio wall. That is not an unhappy thought.