The Barri (more than one Barrus): Day of Service

It's been such a busy day, all service oriented. I didn't start off with a plan to have it be all about doing stuff for others, it just turned out that way. But I feel that it is important to make note of these activities, so here is what I was up to today.

7:00am First thing, Brandt asked if I would make him waffles for breakfast. I did, and included yummy peaches and raspberries to top the waffles. Brandt didn't either of those things on his waffles, but I did. I consider this an act of service because I could have said no and made him eat cereal, but I didn't.

8:15am After Brandt and Blythe left for school, I ran over to Mikayla's house to walk Brick to school. This is pretty much an every morning thing. It is something of a nightmare every time Mikayla needs to get all five of her children out the door to do anything, and the effort to get Brick across the street to school isn't worth it. It's much easier for me to go over and walk Brick, frequently accompanied by Cora and/or Kal, to school, so Mikayla can stay home with the babies and those not interested in walking. Brick was upset today because they couldn't find his running shoes and he had to wear his church shoes. He was convinced other kids were going to make fun of him. I gave him a long hug at the door of his classroom and assured him it would be a good day.

9:30am I came home and almost immediately went across the street to help my neighbor, Lynn Paulus, do some packing. She and her family are moving from the ward, and while they don't have a huge living space, they have lots and lots of stuff (SO. MUCH. STUFF.) and I knew she would need help getting it ready to be moved. She was floundering a bit, sitting at the kitchen table trying to make a plan. I gave her some suggestions, and then said, "Let's start putting things in boxes!" We attacked her daughters' room and got five boxes packed before I had to leave to my next activity. I'll go back.

11:00am Kathy Dutson had asked me to pick up some medication for her, so I ran over to Walgreen's and then dropped it off to her. We had a nice visit. Kathy is largely homebound and she loves to have someone to talk to. I was glad to be able to talk with her for a bit.

12:00pm From Kathy's, I went directly to a school bond meeting. Back in March, I agreed to serve on the executive bond committee, the group who is working to get a school bond passed in the November election. I am a person with many responsibilities on my plate already, but I agreed to do it because I have been worried I will need to get a job and thought my involvement would look good on a resume. I haven't worked for over two decades, and being directly involved in the planning and carrying out of a political campaign would beef up my "work" experience. It has really been a huge time commitment, and I'm sort of regretting that I did it, but maybe it will be valuable in the future. I certainly feel strongly that we need the bond, even though it will mean an increase in property taxes, so I'm putting my time where my mouth is. I was at the meeting for two hours, which has been fairly standard over the past months. Every Wednesday afternoon from twelve to two.

2:00pm One of my fellow committee members, Rebekah, is having car troubles, and she asked me if I could give her a ride home. I was happy to do it. Short but sweet service at the end of long, less sweet service in the meeting.

2:20pm I had about an hour before I needed to pick Brick up from school, so I sat down at the computer and printed off some precinct maps as part of my bond committee responsibilities. I am over the door-to-door efforts, and I've been breaking down large voter precinct into smaller areas so people can go talk to their neighbors. It's a big job and has taken lots of time, time I would love to be paid for. Even $7/hour would be bringing in big money at this point!

3:15 As school was about to get out, I ran back over to Rock Canyon to pick Brick up from school. The difficulty in getting Brick to school is much the same when it's time to get Brick from school, with the added problem that small people at Mikayla's house are often napping when she would need to go collect him. I picked Brick up and he asked if he could come to my house to play. He's been asking for a while, and I haven't been able to say yes. But today, I was going to be home and we didn't have anything pressing to do for a bit, so I agreed. We picked up Kal who also likes to be at our house, and they both came home with me. Normally, I would have brought Cora home, too, but she was playing at Grandma Sue's house.

5:15 Mikayla picked up Brick and Kal about 5:00pm, and we prepared to go help Paul Moreland with his eagle project. While this was largely a young men's activity, I had spoken to Michelle earlier in the week about what they were doing tonight, and as I like Paul and want to support him, and Kent and Brandt were going anyway, I suggested we all go help. Blythe didn't want to go, but work is good for young people, and I want to help our children develop a love of service. So we all went. The Morelands provided pizza, so we ate, then worked at weeding and replenishing sad in a large volleyball court at Carterville Park. It was manual labor, hot in the late summer sun; real work. I was glad to see our children involved and doing, even though it was challenging. We were there until about 7:30pm, when we cleaned up, loaded tools, and came home. We stopped for a Swig soda on the way home because we deserved a cool, refreshing, sweet treat.

So that was my day. Good service. I felt like I did the work that needed to be done, and all with a positive, chipper attitude. Here's hoping I can move tomorrow after all the sand moving this evening. Pictures are all from the eagle project this evening.