So I get a call from a fellow Circle member at church who says the church office needs more baptismal bibs, and wasn’t I in charge of that committee, and could I swing some by the office and drop some off at my earliest convenience? First, I wasn’t aware of a committee per se, but I do have the bib box in my possession, so I thought no problem.
But, I gotta give you some history. If you know me, you know new projects excite me, and I love to help a cause (my causes are mostly tee-ninecy, but I’m all in there!) So at my third circle meeting ever with this group, we were sewing baptismal bibs for the babies and Christmas soup bags for our holiday fundraiser. I came armed with my sewing machine in its cute little tapestry rolling cart, thread, bobbins, scissors, and a willing spirit. Apparently, that’s about all one needs. The lady in charge of baptismal bibs somehow declared me “a natural” at sewing them and when she moved a few short months later, asked if I would be responsible for the bibs and handed me a small plastic box with all the supplies I would need. My immediate thoughts were 1) How hard can it be? 2) I can certainly spare a few minutes of my time for the good of the church, and 3) How could I ever tell this sweet lady ‘no’?
Now you’re all caught up. We made more bibs this past January, this time with me toting them home, or so I thought. Turns out, when I went to the box to fetch more bibs for the church office this week, I realized my box was empty. Worse, there was no extra fabric OR lace with which to make more. YIKES!!! A fuzzy memory of me handing a stack of bibs to another lady floated through my wee-little mind, and I prayed that I would not be the reason new little babies would not receive a baptismal bib ever again at St. Mary’s. I sent out an SOS email message to all 60+ circle members, enlightening them to my plight, and begging for anyone with knowledge of the bibs, or the materials I should buy, to please reply ASAP. I ended the email with a truth-in-a-joke question: “Y’all sure you want me in charge of this?!”
The end result is that my circle sisters came through with flying colors: one offered to monogram more bibs post-haste; several offered to go purchase supplies; and one called to say she found 18 bibs at her house, all ready to go. Looks like we’re a committee, after all.
Whew!!
The moral of all this hoopla is that this will teach me to be more careful what I promise, ala Captain Woodrow F. Call when he finally laid Gus to rest in Texas. (If you have no clue who Capt. Call is, watch Lonesome Dove. It’ll be 6 hours well spent!) I’m good – really good – at promising my energy. I feel that I am not so good at delivering the effort. But, I’d rather cut off my right arm than not keep my word, so I go all Tasmanian Devil around the house until the commitment is filled. Perhaps if I carefully consider the requirements of each commitment, and fully own them in an effort to stay abreast of any situation involving said commitment, I will not be so frantic when called upon to do that which I have promised.
Either that, or I gotta learn to say "no." ;)
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