ready, set, GO!!

I was feeling pretty good about the weekend--sure my husband would be out of town, making life a bit hectic, but I had an easy-going shopping trip planned for the Adopt-an-Apartment project to look forward to. The volunteer coordinator expected to assign a family to me next week and I was eager to get the details. I had a tour of the apartment planned for Wednesday afternoon so I could take some planning photos and fine tune my list of what we needed. I was working with some friends to plan a big move-in day May 17 and feeling pretty good about how ready we were--pretty much finished fund raising and we'd even collected several items. I had even treated myself to a fun weekend trip to Target on my actual 3oth birthday and I came home with the most adorable brightly-colored shower curtain, bathmat, and soft fluffy towels. It felt pretty nice to have a room done!

Then the phone rang.

"Hi Melissa, it's Tracy. From Upward Bound House? I was calling because I just got out of a meeting, and well--remember the apartment we were hoping to get ready for next week? It's ready now. And we have a family too. A single mom with a 10 month-old baby."

I am not actually sure what Tracy said next because I was concentrating on scraping my heart out of my throat and swallowing it back to my chest. A single mom? With a 10 month-old baby? Alone?

As I tuned back into Tracy's voice she was saying, "I know it's really last minute, and I know you expected to move the family in next weekend, but we wondered if there was any way you could be ready sooner?"

My head span--husband out of town, work projects piled up, and all my friends had their time set aside for me NEXT weekend... I wasn't sure I could possibly do this any faster.

Tracy was still talking, "I just found out about it myself--this family. Maybe you could try to do some work on a few week nights next week? See... they are just sleeping at St. Joseph's until they can move in."

I knew about Saint Josephs--they operate the Bread and Roses cafe for homeless people and run a great food pantry. I knew that they gave folks a place to do laundry, take a shower, or use the phone, and that they could refer people to emergency shelters or housing programs as needed... but do they even have beds there?

"Monday" I heard myself saying. "We can be done by Monday."

- - let the games begin! - -