I was completely stressed yesterday getting ready for our Young Women's activity that night. We combine our youth activities each week with another ward so instead of our 5 girls that show up to activities we have 15-20. For this combine YW activity, we decided to make burb cloths, decorate onesies with freezer paper stencils and paint, and tie baby quilts. The secretary in our ward YW presidency is having a baby in November so we thought it would be fun to do some for her. She isn't able to come to week-night activities so it will be a surprise.
Anyway, the reason this was so stressful was because last week we moved up this activity to this week (it was supposed to be the last week in October) and I didn't have time to work on it until - uh - yesterday. I spent the morning cutting out the freezer-paper stencils. At 1 I quickly got "dressed" (into workout clothes), dropped off Sarah for her dance carpool and headed to Joann with Rachel and William to pick up the fabric to sew onto the burp rags. I got home just before Sarah got home at 2:30. I threw the fabric into the washing machine while I started to collect everything I needed for that night: iron, ironing board, sewing machine, pin cushion, thread, freezer paper stencils, fabric paints ... I attempted putting William down for a nap, but by 3 it was evident that it wasn't going to happen. Awesome. Rachel wanted to be held and didn't want to take a real nap either. Double Awesome.
In the midst of everything, my house became messier and messier - both from my projects and the kids stuff. I was stressing about being able to help everyone with the stencils while at the same time teaching those sewing the burp cloths essentially how to sew straight lines. I was a complete wreck and wondering WHY on EARTH I thought this would be a fun activity to be in charge of. I called my cousin Natalie to "talk me off the cliff" and enlisted Sarah to help clean up with being able to watch a "show" as her reward. (Yes, she is super motivated by being able to watch a show.) It helped immensely.
While the fabric was drying, I made stirred lasagna and popped it into the oven for dinner. During the "show" I hopped into the shower so I resembled a human being and I felt much better. I got dressed, got the kids in the car and headed to pick up Roger from BART. He made the profound (read: OBVIOUS) statement that "Young Women's is a lot of work." I was in charge of the Beehive class activity two weeks ago (we went to do baptisms at the temple last week) and we made file folder games for an orphanage in Haiti that a woman in our ward was going to visit.
So after dinner, I left Rog with the kids and headed to the church. I said a little prayer when I got there and headed into the YW room. I was 5 minutes late ... but it worked out since we have opening exercises for mutual with the young men. The room was set up with tables and chairs so I only had to add the onesies and burp cloth stations. The quilts were already on tables. Whew. I was ready when the girls came in. I put my YW president in charge of helping girls sew and I instructed the girls on how to do the onesies. We had a few more leaders helping with the quilts and roving to make sure everyone was engaged and knew what to do. And miraculously everything went fairly well. I felt at peace - not the crazy person I had been all day.
At the end of the night, while I was cleaning paint brushes in the bathroom, one of my laurels came up to me and sincerely said, "Thanks Sister Osness. That was fun." Wow. My bucket filled up so fast! Really, it wasn't much of an effort on her part, but the impact was incredible. It helped me remember "the why." I feel so grateful to work with the phenomenal young women of our ward. I sure love them.
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