OMISTF

I tend to agree to take on big projects, then regret it later- when I'm in the midst of feeling totally overwhelmed... To make it even worse, I often come up with the projects myself! I have a bad case of OMISTF. If you're not familiar with OMISTF, it's a common disorder also known as Open Mouth, Insert Size 10 Foot.

Well, I did have some help with this one...

My babbling about is all related to my position as missions director at our church (actually I prefer the title of coordinator- I think it sounds less stuffy, but my official title is "director"). So anyway, one of our department goals this year was find a new way to reach out to our local community. After much discussion amongst our missions team, and after conferring with my pastor- we decided to adopt a local school. I approached the principal of the church's neighborhood school, Garden Gate Elementary, early in the summer and she responded with great excitement.

So that's how I ended up shopping for the components of 30 "back to school" gift baskets for all the teachers at the school. J and I hit several Targets yesterday (they have the best prices on school supplies!) I also applied for a Target Visa card at the first store we went to so that we could get the 10% discount on all the stuff we bought (the discount was good at any Target for the whole day)...

Here's the breakdown... We bought:

800 spiral notebooks
500 three prong portfolios
230 cute pencils
150 boxes of colored pencils
150 glue sticks
75 pencil sharpeners
30 bottles of hand sanitizer
30 laundry baskets to use as gift baskets
30 packages of Dove chocolates
30 tins of Altoids
30 packages of colored highlighters
30 packages of cute sticky notes
30 assorted packages of student awards
16 packages of bookmarks
15 rolls of clear cellophane
white and green ribbon (school colors)

And last, but not least- 30 Starbucks gift cards to put on the front of the baskets.

I had a budget of $1,500.00 to work with, and I still have a little left to spend. That's a good thing, because I'm still short on a couple items, but I need to wait to go back to Target until they restock the department (I hear they will restock on Monday).

Fortunately, I did have some help assembling all the baskets today (Thanks to John, Andrea, Reannie, and Christy!). Equally important was the help given to me by the crowd of teenage and young 20's guys who unloaded both my vehicles and carried everything upstairs after church.

And actually, I'm not feeling so overwhelmed now. One of my mission team members has agreed to help me with recruiting church members to help out on campus this year. I'm actually getting excited about the whole thing...

One of the cool things about adopting this particular school is that two of my own kids went to Garden Gate, so we have lots of fond memories there... Including this one of Teenage Daughter on her very first day of kindergarten-



Here's to making some new memories this year!