More is More

I’m really sorry I missed the TECC this morning.  It seems like so much has happened since I posted last Friday.  Saturday my day started out great, but got ugly in the late afternoon/early evening when I began to exhibit symptoms of food poisoning or stomach flu.  It turned into one of the worst nights ever.  I won’t go into the sordid details, but I just have to say how thankful I am to have a loving husband who takes such good care of me when I’m sick.  I don’t know what I would have done without him!

I was better by Monday, but just completely wiped out.  Monday was the monthly DDA Challenge and I was the hostess.  I had a card half done when I got sick on Saturday and I was so sad not to have it completed for the challenge.  It’s still sitting half done and I still plan to finish and post it at some point.  As I began to feel better, I needed to focus on the Saints Alive Dinner at church this week.  It was last night and I was the event coordinator – my first time in charge of an event since we started attending this church.  This is a twice a year ministry for the senior members and I was really excited about it, but I was also very behind from being sick.  Tuesday night one of the gals who was working on the dinner with me, Veronica,  was coming over to help make favors.  I also called on my Club and two of them (Thanks Barbara and Carol!) came over and helped make quick work of the 50 favors.  Veronica had baked cookies and bought cello bags to put them in.  We stamped 2 different Bible verses from a retired SU set and punched them with the scallop oval punch.  We ran Glorious Green cardstock through my CB with the Top Note die and wheeled it with a jumbo wheel to form the topper.  This was an Italian dinner and our color scheme was red and white with a touch of green (based on the Italian flag.)  The favors were set in the middle of the place setting.  You can click on the photo below to see a full table setting.

On Wednesday afternoon several of us met at church to do some of the food prep.  My wonderful friend Darla was in charge of the food for 60 people and she had never done anything quite that big before.  She’s a great cook and I knew she could do it, but this was new territory for most of us.  Thankfully my friend Lori has lots of experience in this area and she had given us a recipe she uses often for a pasta bake.  So our menu consisted of salad, pasta bake, garlic bread and lemon cake.  Everything was super yummy!

 Here is a photo of the centerpeices.  Such a simple idea and it looked so cool.  It was just 3 different sized/shaped glass bottles filled with roses from clearance bin at the supermarket (what an awesome find!) and some tealights.  We had a little game going throughout the evening and the winner at each table got to take home the centerpiece.

I had worked with an initial team of 6 women to plan this event and each person took charge of an area (Darla and Stephanie on food, Denise doing table decor, Veronica the favors and Lisa handled ticket sales and the youth), then we also had 5 more women join us last night to help with execution.  Plus we had a dozen of the youth come to serve the tables.  It was such a blessing to be involved with such a wonderful team of volunteers and to see how well thinsg work when everyone is using their gifts.  Not only were we able to be a blessing to the seniors, but we were so blessed by the building of relationships and the joy of accomplishment.  And those of you who know me or have ever seen me at a StampMania know that I am never happier than when I’m running an event and managing a team!  🙂

LOL!  The girls told me I had to take a picture of my Tasks Poster.  I had a big poster in the kitchen listing all of the tasks we needed to accomplish and the order they needed to be done in.  We checked things off as they got done.  Of course I also had a typed up time line to use as a guide.  I was actually shocked at how close we came to it in the end. 

On Wednesday evening I had the idea that I would really like to have a little thank you gift to give each of the ladies on the volunteer team.  At that point there was only time to work with stuff I had on hand so I searched through my alterables and found a bunch of little note pads that I knew I could fix up quickly – see hoarding can pay off!  *wink*  I simply cut and scored some covers out of cardstock and added some dp and stamped images punched with my Marvy scallop punches.

Oh and I also found a package of mini gel pens so I incorporated those as well.  It was really fun to have a little token of appreciation to give each lady.  I just wish I would think of things like that sooner.  I am mean, I am a stamper afterall… why do I always think of stamped stuff at the last minute?  LOL!

 I took my camera to the event to take people pictures, but once I got the table photos beforehand we got so busy that I never got back to taking any more.  I really need to have someone in charge of photography!

Just when I thought I would have a day to catch up on bills, groceries, laundry and errands my sweet sweet hubby e-mailed to say that he could get off work early so we could use our Disney passes this afternoon.  So off we went.  All those chores (and hopefully not any late fees) will still be there tomorrow!

 So now you’re caught up on my week.  I hope you are well and having a fantastic weekend!

-Jami