Still more pajamas and more books...

The count, as of today: 176 pajama sets and 219 books. I have a volunteer in the Katy area of Texas who delivered 44 pajama sets and 22 books this afternoon to a children's shelter in her own community. Not only did she deliver all of those, but she bought all those pajamas herself. The books came from her own children's bookshelves... gently-read books that her children have outgrown. An amazing effort for one volunteer, in so short a time. Just like the woman here in our own subdivision who sent over 29 pajama sets and 48 books yesterday. Another amazing volunteer.

We had to do some banking today, and while we were in there, I told the girl behind the desk about the Pajama Program, and asked if the bank would consider hosting a "Pajama Drive" there. She thought that was a good idea, and gave me the number of the person who handles things like that at the bank. I'm waiting for a call-back from her... she wasn't in the office there today. So I have high hopes for that, since it's a very busy bank in this area, affiliated with the Johnson Space Center.

Lots of phone calls today... I found a children's shelter right in the same town as our lake cottage. Not only a children's shelter, but a homeless shelter as well. (This entire project has been one giant learning experience for me, I can honestly say that.) I spoke to the woman up near the lake who is in charge of the children's shelter.... then had her agency approved by the NY office of the Pajama Program. From now on, whenever we go up to the lake, I will be delivering a box of pajamas and books to her. One stipulation-- they will only accept children's books based on bible stories, since they are a bible-based Christian organization. I am so glad for my library experience... from the beginning of my book collections, I made it a point to ask the shelters what type of books they would accept.

So far, this lake-area shelter is the only one with such a stipulation, but I can easily fill a box with bible-story books. I've already called Half Price Books, and they will save all their bible-storybooks for me. Great company, that Half Price Books. I can't say enough about how good they've been with all of this, with not a moment's hesitation, right from the very beginning.


We're still waiting for the landscaper to start work on our flowerbeds here. He has promised to be here next week, and I'm hoping he will stick to that. He's working on building an arbor right now for another customer, and (famous last words) it's taking longer than he thought it would. I seem to remember that he told us he'd be in and out of here in under a day's time. So I hope that holds true as well.

I just wish he would get here, get it done, and get it over with. The temperatures have been getting hotter and hotter, the sun is brighter and stronger, and the days are getting longer. Which means it will very soon be too hot to be transplanting and messing around with flowerbeds. But I guess (I hope) these guys know what they're doing and they do this work all year long here.