up at 6:00 am...

.. to be at Sam's Club when they unlocked the door at 7:00. There is this leadership conference going on at our church today and tomorrow. The attendees were to get a continental breakfast (sweet rolls and coffee, right?) and lunch at the church. And I accidently volunteered to do the shopping for groceries this morning, to try to lift some of the load for the young,busy mother who runs the kitchen/café.  She has three kids and home-schools, trying to get them squared away so she could devote her day to working in the kitchen.

I started off by offering to keep the kids, saying she could just bring them to my house, thinking: that will give her one, no 3! less things to worry about while trying to put a meal together for 200 people. She just laughed, and asked if I could meet her at Sam's at the crack of dawn to do the shopping. But my counteroffer: 'just send me the list, and I will go to Sam's while you get your family organized.'

So she sent me an email late last night (with some stuff that she later denied and declared totally random, with no memory of having requested on her list) of items to purchase and deliver this morning. I have not set an alarm clock to be anywhere since I started the cooking job. Allowing me to be at the work place at 11:00 some days and 3:00 on others, with an occasional 10:00 thrown in to keep me on my toes. But I knew I needed to get in and out, so the prep team (including me) could get started on lunch.

As it turned out, she meant to  have two bags of clementines, to add to a bowl of fresh fruit for attendees to pick up, but what she put on her list was two boxes. So we had a truck load of clementines... and the discussion about what to do with them had surprise ending. After discovering that any fresh items returned to the store will be thrown away, (due to possibility of contamination - not resalable) we decided to take the extras to give to the shelter, where lots of people who would enjoy fresh fruit, and could use a big dose of vitamin C. I hope all those folk who live down by the river, and under the bridges will enjoy the tasty, juicy fruit.