The things we do for our church

Every year, the church which I am a member of holds a gift donation drive for families with imprisoned parents. All gifts go to the children in these families. Because my church has done so much for both me and my daughter, I try to give back in every way that I can. Participating in this annual gift drive is just one of my ways of giving back.

Plus, I have a weakness for all things involving charity and assisting others in need. So of course I wanted to participate, anyway!

But because I've had trouble keeping up attendance at church (my daughter has been having...issues with the church and faked illnesses), I was not able to get the papers needed for this or to select a child to give gifts to. But, thankfully, I was able to contact one of the event organizers by email and made arrangements to drop off gifts for the child I selected.

So the plan was to go to Target yesterday and get the gifts. We would ALL go after picking Jennifer up from school.

Well, that was the PLAN, anyway. Something came up with my husband's side job and we couldn't go out. So we talked and decided I'd go in the morning. I found out via my friend that I had until 10 a.m. the next morning to drop off the gifts.

The problem was, this morning, I was not able to take a shower. (Don't ask.) I usually get up anywhere from 5-6 a.m. in order to have a little "me time" in the mornings before the chaos of the day starts up and I was fine on the time. JUST COULDN'T SHOWER!! And because I was dirty, I didn't want to put on clean clothes. Sooo, I ended up running around in my pajama pants. (I slept in a regular long-sleeved T-shirt and wore a sweatshirt from the other day.)

And I was literally RUNNING! LOL I was going so fast to get Jennifer dressed and off to school, get a load of laundry done, change the baby, go out and get the gifts, wrap the gifts, throw laundry in dryer, take a shower and get dressed.

But it was the whole "get the gifts" part that was interesting. I don't normally run out and about in my PJ's, though I know some people do. I'm just not comfortable with that. I HAVE gone out in my PJ's for fun, but later changed into regular day clothes. So it was a little weird wearing my PJ pants when I ran these errands. (Note: They are not regular PJ pants per se, but lounge pants. Still not your normal pants-worn-in-daytime thing, though!)

On my way to Target, I drove REALLY fast. The stoplights were all green and I thought that was pretty cool. God was on my side! Yay! But I worried about the speeding. At least if an officer stopped me for speeding, I could honestly say, "I'm on a mission from God!"

Which...is true, anyway.

Well, I flew through Target and got the items. Problem was, there was a hold-up at the register. The machine had troubles. GAH!! Two different people had to come over and fix it.

THEN I had to get the wrapping paper and gift box. (Forgot them at Target.) THEN my husband texted me to let me know we needed baby powder. So I went into a FOURTH place wearing my PJ pants! I was running at this point.

Anyway, the rest of the stuff happened. I got back home at 8:45. I got the laundry from the washing machine at the laundromat that we'd stopped at on the way to taking Jennifer to school, threw it in the dryer then wrapped the gifts. As I wrapped the gifts, I had some trouble with the wrapping paper and it ended up looking a little funny. I swear, I can NEVER decently wrap a gift!! I have tried but it was never up to snuff. My family jokes that they KNOW a wrapped present came from me just by looking at it. (Someday I hope I will be a better gift wrapper.)

After that, I got the laundry out, jumped into the shower (skipping washing my hair to save time -- woot!), got dressed and got on out of there. When I got to the church, the doors were locked. Gah! I couldn't figure out how to get in! Oh nos! So I eventually made it to a window and a teacher inside told me how to get in. (You need to know the code, people! LOL) When I got inside of the foyer, I RAN to get to the office on the other side of the building. I was running, clutching the gifts and hoping I didn't drop them and break one of them. (Again: You can tell it's a gift from ME! Haha)

But when I got to the office....just five minutes before 10....NO ONE was there. The doors were open, the lights were on, but it was...empty.

I rang the bell on the desk. And I waited. And waited. Eventually, I looked around and asked, "Hello?" I started to worry that maybe they left and just forgot to lock up.

Then I turned to see a lady smiling as she walked up to me. I explained I was a member of the church and donating for the gift drive. Etc., etc. Gave her all the info and she wrote it down then thanked me for the gifts.

I left the church grateful at being able to get all that done in time. I was also grateful that I finally got my shower and showed up at the church office clean, perfumed and wearing clean decent clothes.

More than that, though: I'm also grateful that, these days, it's socially acceptable to go out and about in your PJ's.