Making Headlines

A couple of Thursdays ago, Judah and I spent the majority of the day at church for a "Sew Day".

For Judah, this meant spending the morning familiarizing himself with several fascinating boxes of sewing notions the ladies had brought in and playing all kinds of invented games with seam rippers, quilting rulers and spools of thread, and at one point chopping at something with a rotary cutter that had been left 'open' and was extremely sharp.

Thankfully no real harm was done to his person. Not sure about the table, though.

For the ladies, the day involved making donated fabric into numerous bags which could be easily tied to walkers or wheelchairs for a couple of local nursing homes and assisted care facilities.

We got the idea when one of the gals at church made one for her mother, and had dozens of requests come in, "Tell your girl I want to buy one of those for my wheelchair."

These bags are perfect for helping these folks to pick up their mail or newspapers each day, and gives them a place to put their cell phones or keys while out and about.

We arrived at 9 am, and promptly got to work, and were thrilled at all the progress we made. It's amazing how hard a group of dieting ladies will work with the prospect of protein-style In & Out cheeseburgers on the menu for lunch.

Shortly after arriving, we learned that one of the gals who organized the event had mentioned it to someone who mentioned it to a newspaper, and not long after we were into the swing of things...a reporter and a photographer from the paper showed up.

Lesson learned: Always dress as though you're going to get your picture taken for the paper.

**blushes** True to form, I showed up looking a tad frumpish.

Oh, I had makeup on and my hair fixed, but if I'd known the newspaper was going to be there, I would have worn a blouse instead of a comfy t-shirt.

And possibly touched up my toenail polish.

And had a hair cut.

And maybe had my teeth whitened.

And an eye lift...

It's said that TV cameras add 10 pounds...but newspaper photographs easily add 10 years. It's no-win!

Live and learn.

They interviewed each of those present, asking how we came to be involved in the project and craftily sneaked in questions involving our full names, ages and the area we happen to live in.

Lesson learned: Never give out your age to a reporter.

It might seem an innocent enough question, but these are the kinds of details that make it into their reporters shorthand.

Oh, and when they say, "Watch for the write-up on Saturday", don't believe them.

Stories like this are 'filler' and subject to being bumped for more important last minute inclusion into the paper.

Instead, you'll completely forget about it until you get an excited call from one of the sewing group ladies telling you that we were finally in the paper!

A non-Saturday printing like you'd been anticipating.

Then you'll have to scramble to obtain a couple of paper copies for the old scrapbook because you usually read the news online to avoid having to deal with piles of paper. And because the online news doesn't include all the photographs in the physical copies of the newspaper.

And after rounding up said copies, you will sigh with relief that your picture wasn't included.

But then cringe that you have, in fact, been quoted...and that your age is put out there in big blaring black and white numbers for the entire desert to see. Ugh!

The only positive to come from the experience was that Judah (for once) was pictured in the background of one of the photographs behaving nicely.

A total fluke. At one point during that day I clearly remember getting after Judah for running down the length of end-to-end table tops to get up enough speed for a good jump, and playing dinos between stacks of fabric.

I'll give him this, however...many of the ladies commented that he'd been a very good boy (for most of the day) which was really something considering we were there for 7 hours, and frankly, I'm glad there is photographic proof of it out there somewhere!