If I have been AWOL lately it is because I have a new project. One that is consuming me until I feel like I have it under control. I am woman possessed. More so than usual.
As some of you know I am a volunteer for Hospice of North Iowa. I love what they do. As a volunteer I have been able to have 2 “relationships” with women at the end of life. The one lady was unusual as I was her volunteer for over a year. Volunteers can do many things with Hospice and when I moved back to Ohio after Chris’s dad’s death in 2011 to help get the estate settled I had to go on “leave”. Since then I have been gone so much that I have just not been able to have a relationship that required a weekly visit.
I kept trying to figure out what I could do to support them and I finally came up with THE idea. I pitched it back in January. I heard nothing. It was still on my mind but I figured the answer was that my idea was not a good fit for them.
In August I was thinking about it again and thought maybe I would try to call someone else in the organization to see if there was any interest. Before I made that call I got a call. My email had made it to the desk of Kathryn who is with the Bereavement unit and she wanted to talk to me.
Long story short I got the gig!!! It is a perfect fit and I am all consumed right now to try to get this underway.
And the project is…….making sympathy cards for them! Simple sympathy cards that the team can all sign and send to the families upon the death of their loved one. It is a huge step up from a form letter that has been sent in the past and I am THRILLED to be able to do this for them.
So I have been working hard to get the supply established so that they can actually start this project. How many cards, you ask????? Kathryn estimated that they would need 650 in a year. Yes, you read that correctly. So I am doing it!!! I am in production. So far no two are alike . I committed to doing this for a year and then we will re-evaluate. They are simple and thanks to my good friend and blogger, Bernie at One Mixed Bag, and her husband, Roy, who own The Rubber Stamp Shop—–I have speciality stamps for the inside message and for the back of the card!!!! I sent them the message that Hospice wanted and they made the magic happen and I am so grateful to them for doing that for me.
Slight glitches in the process today included Buddy stepping in my cup of hot tea (don’t ask me if I kept drinking it) and me dropping a fully inked stamp for the front of the card on my favorite Life is Good tshirt. 
Other than that—-I am rolling along, singing a song (well–not really—I am watching Breaking Bad episodes as I work on them which is a pretty weird thing to be watching while making Sympathy cards, I admit) and making cards like crazy. Chris has figured out my production rate and how long it is going to take me to finish. I need to ramp it up but I want them to be special so there is no rushing me.
It is a pretty huge undertaking but one I am very excited about. Here are some of my favorite ones so far. Click on any image to begin a slideshow.
