Day 11, and belated Day 10: How I lost a day

[Alicia Brown]

Happy Saturday night everyone!  Sorry I missed you yesterday, it was a weird, not very good day.  Imagine starting the day very excited to finally be giving away a beautiful suit that you are too SMALL for now!  Then imagine going through not one, not two, but three different closets only to discover that you must have already given that suit away.  Bummer. 

Time to implement giving plan B.  Give a three-part gift!  Buy three challahs from school, thus making a donation to the school, then give two away, one to mom, who I will be seeing on Saturday, and one to my dear friend M. who is not feeling well.  Keep the third for my family and get excited to make chicken soup with matzoh balls for dinner.  In fact, M. would love some matzoh ball soup too!  Perfect!   

Insert life here.  Daughter gets sick in the car on the way home from school, so now  daughter, daughter's coat, clothes, and car seat all need to be cleaned.  Scratch trip to supermarket to buy ingredients for soup.  Call  M. to tell her I will drop challah off tomorrow morning on my way up to my mom's, sans soup.

The rest of the evening really did not go well.   I am glad the school got a small donation, but delivering the challahs would have to wait until tomorrow.

Saturday morning, rise and shine.  It's snowing a little bit, but not enough to cancel the trip to mom's.  Unfortunately, my son woke up with a fever.  My husband and I gave him some tylenol, then  I called mom to let her know we wouldn't be coming, and put one of the challahs in the freezer.

I waited until a little later in the morning to call M. to see how she was doing.  Late Friday evening, not feeling well had turned into extremely sick, and she had to go to the hospital.  At this point, I need to ask those of you in the giving community to send some positive energy, prayers, whatever healing spirit you can to my friend.  She is 29 weeks pregnant and is now in the hospital with pneumonia and influenza B. 

I have no more room in my freezer for another challah, but I'm not worried about that now.

I am, however, feeling a bit lax in the giving department.  Fortunately a trip to the supermarket helped with that dilemma.  Volunteers from the local food shelter had a table set up outside the door and they were giving shoppers lists with the items they needed most.  I happily bought two boxes of instant oatmeal to give to them on my way out.

Back at home, my son was still not feeling well.  This meant that he would not be going to the pajama havdalah party at his school tomight.  He had been looking forward to it all week, so we were all upset.  Whenever one of the preschool children is home sick, the teachers and classmates call to wish that child well.  My son assumed that since this party was at school, someone would call him from the party.  I knew that this was not going to happen, but I didn't want him to be hurt by this, so I made some frantic phone calls and facebook messages and text messages to try and find someone who was going to be at the party.  One of his teachers called me back.  She was not at the party, but when I explained the situation, she got on the phone with my son to wish him well, and tell him she was sorry he could not be at the party with his friends, but that they would all be happy to see him on Monday.  I am so grateful to her for saving the day!

Saturday is almost over now, and tomorrow is a very exciting day, I am going to my bosses' daughter's wedding.  It will be my first Orthodox wedding, and I'm looking forward to a new experience. 

Sleep well everyone!

[Deb~ Community Manager]

You have had some rough times but gave through it all. Have a wonderful time at the wedding!