Pajamas at the lake....

I've just returned from delivering 65 pajama sets to a shelter up near the lake cottage. They are so grateful to receive any and all donations that they get, and they are completely overjoyed that they've been getting brand new items. They keep saying "Bless you! Bless you!" when I go there with the pajamas.

They have no idea that part of the reason I'm doing all of this in the first place is because I have already been so blessed, and sharing that is giving me much more joy than they could ever imagine.

The shelter that I deliver to is so old, and so ready to just fall apart in the next storm. Makes me wonder how old their buildings actually are, but I dare not ask. I don't want to embarrass them. They have two buildings, one of which is their "store." Not a store in the general sense, but a free store. Their residents and clients are allowed to go into their store and just pick out whatever it is that they're needing.

They've never had pajamas in their store, much less new ones, or new anything, for that matter. One of the directors of the shelter told me that the mothers who are "shopping" for their children's pajamas are just overwhelmed with the choices that they've had since I've been bringing the boxes and bags of pajamas to them.

Hearing something like that, of course, only makes me want to bring more. Which I will, the next time we go up to the lake cottage.

The lake cottage. Here we have not one, but two, comfortable homes, and there are so many people up here struggling to just make ends meet with the one that they have. Which is why I say, and have been saying for years, that I am very lucky, very blessed.


I heard from one of the stores about pajama donations--- Marshalls sent me a $50.00 gift card, which I will use for pajamas, of course. That seems like a rather small donation, coming from the company which owns Marshalls, but I can make that go very far. I will look at all the clearance and sale racks, and I will see to it that their $50.00 gift card will buy as many pajama sets as possible. Which isn't hard to do, because with careful shopping on those clearance racks, I can find pajama sets for as little as two dollars each.

Memorial Day weekend at the lake was busy... boat-traffic busy, but that just added to the fun of it. So many power-boats and jet-skis, and I saw the first sailboat on the lake. It had a multi-colored sail, similar to the one on my husband's boat. He didn't take his sailboat out for its maiden voyage yet. We had company up at the lake this weekend-- friends K and B drove up there for the first time. It was a sunny and not-too-hot afternoon and we all had lunch on the back porch. They drove up just for the day, but didn't stay overnight. We all had a great day, and it's truly nice to spend the day with just the two of them. We don't often get to do that, since they come to our parties where there's so many people in the house that we don't get much time with individual people. We found out that K is an expert sailor, so I know that they'll be back when my husband gets the boat in the water. I think that B is like me-- just as happy with her feet on the dry ground.

The weather was so "iffy" all weekend long... cloudy one minute, sunny the next, with a bunch of quick rainshowers tossed in to make sure we were all paying attention. But it was sunny during the important days, like when K and B were there. We didn't want them to see the property for the first time in a pouring-down rain. The property is beautiful at any time, but just more fun on a sunny day.

So many ducks and sea-birds all over the lake this weekend.... I feel like we're living in a nature preserve when we're at the cottage. And the two white ducks that come up onto our property-- they're like our own private weather station. We know that rain is on its way when those ducks settle down into a nap on our back lawn. We also had four brown/green ducks that have made their home on our back lawn... but now there are just three of them. Don't know what happened to the fourth one. Guess he found a mate and is now off on his own, or maybe he has found a new cottage property that he liked better than ours.

We also have our own squirrel that comes out every morning and evening to dig little holes in the flower beds. We know it's the same one because he has just a teeny stump of a tail, and his coloring is slightly irregular. Gracie chases that squirrel up into the trees unless I catch her before she starts to run after him. I keep trying to get her to understand that the poor squirrel has been caught once too many times before, given the absense of his tail. But she's a dog, and just doing what a dog needs to do.