What a week!

Gosh, everything fell on this week. I felt like I was never home. I had both my yearly mammogram and my semi-annual teeth cleaning (squish and scrape). Violet had an orthodontist appointment. Her bonded retainer on her bottom teeth felt odd, so we had them check it out. They didn't find anything, but did scrape some extra glue off. Still, I'm glad she spoke up and we went in. She's had problems with that bottom retainer coming lose and needing regluing.

We had the Juliette Low birthday party with one group of Girl Scouts. A meeting with another group. And a big service project I was coordinating finished this week. I think I already posted about the party. The meeting was good, they made cute little turkeys out of Oreo cookies. I tried teaching some songs, it didn't go over super well. The girls were inhibited and didn't want to sing. Except Violet. The quietest girl in the group and she sang the loudest. She shares my love of Girl Scout camp songs.

I talked to the lead Cadette mom afterward, and we decided to try songs again. Two girls were absent. They are cousins and the silliest of the bunch. We think they'll get into singing. And the three who didn't sing this time, are likely to be pulled in if the other three are signing. If that doesn't work, I told Violet I'm defecting to the Brownies. They'll sing with me.

The service project was collecting food for a local food pantry. Every year the Girl Scouts in our area put together boxes of food for "Operation Thanksgiving." The food pantry puts together a list of what each should contain (2 cans of corn, 2 cans of yams, marshmallows, flour, sugar, on and on, it is a great collection!) We sort the food into copy paper boxes, decorate them and deliver them to Village Hall. There they get produce, juice, a turkey and more added and are then taken to local families in need.

The homeschool Juliettes put together 4 complete boxes of food and a box of "extras." It was amazing. I opened it up to both the park district group and our original group. Violet and her friend "Butterfly" helped a lot with sorting and decorating. Every year Mr. I tells me to get as much as I want for it, and to even fill a full box if I want. I waited until the last minute, then went out and got the stuff to finish off the fourth box. Butterfly had brought over enough for a full box as well. She really gets into too. Not to diminish the efforts of any of the families involved. I left it completely open for families to bring as much or as little as they wanted. Several families signed up for items, brought them the next week and signed up for more. Everyone brought what they signed up for and many brought extra. We'll definitely do this again next year. It is just a very satisfying project. It feels personal, because even though we don't know the family that will receive it, packing and decorating the boxes and imagining how they'll prepare it all just really makes a connection.

Here are our boxes:



You can tell the last one that got "decorated." It was the morning of the delivery. Butterfly wasn't over, and Violet had done a lot. So I just threw a "Happy Thanksgiving" on it and called it good.

On a less exciting note, several things had to be done for work and could not be put off or pawned off. I finished work about 3:30 this afternoon and shut that computer down. I won't turn it back on for a week. I'm also not going to answer the phone line that work calls come in on. I set my vacation message and took forwarding off my official work phone number. But some people, mainly my boss, calls my direct home office line. I'll check for messages, but I won't get caught answering.

On a side note, switching to working only on my work issue computer is the best thing I ever did. Since I made the switch, they even changed the URL for checking e-mail via the web, I never updated it on my personal computer. So there is no temptation to just take a peek.

Tomorrow we're going to visit my folks. Then we'll start getting ready for Thanksgiving. Let the relaxing begin!