We did have the professionals come and clean the bed that we were given. They just didn’t come on Tuesday, but rather, Wednesday.

Let me show you a before and after photo - side by side.

Remember - this is a bed - a couch that folds out into a bed - which we are going to use for the young man in Family 5 - the brother/sis combo. I like how it turned out. The yellow is definitely brighter. The blue is much cleaner. I’m very glad we did it.

and the end view

The lady came took about an hour and a half here - working on the couch and a rug from my husband’s office. I’m very happy with it.

What you see behind the couch in the photo shown above in the BEFORE are some of the boxes that are ready for Family 2 - the man with the sick wife. We are completely ready to take his things to him as everything I’ve ordered as arrived and the packages are wrapped and labelled.

So what else? I spent some time organizing the presents we have that are done. We have 3 families almost done. We just got word yesterday that our upper cabinets are ready - the ones that were ordered for our Fam 4 - mom/daughter combo. So, we will go and get those today shortly.

We still have all of this stuff to pack up. Ewa is happy to help me, however. I am mostly just waiting on a couple of BIG things to come so I can lay it out nicely and get a photo shot before we wrap everything. What you are seeing here in the grandma/2 granddaughters’ things.

However, did have coal delivered. This year we are providing only “loose coal”.

A ton of it looks like this:

Two tons looks like this: This family consists of a grandmother with her two granddaughters.

Interestingly enough, if you see behind the coal, you can see the house which is blocks - unfinished. This is typical here in Poland. Often the houses do not have the outside stucco. work finished. It’s often because they have run out of money.

What happens now is that people are adding a layer of Styrofoam and then adding the layer of stucco. But only when they have money. So many houses were in this unfinished state that when we first came to Poland in 1994 and once people started having money, these kinds of finishing jobs were everywhere. Once the stucco is finished, then the house gets painted.

I told my husband that I guess we just have to trust the coal delivery people that they give us what they say are going to. I mean, who knows if that is really one ton or two tons of coal? How would we ever know?

Just as a reminder and for contrast - here is a ton of coal in bags - and this was last year’s photo taken by a volunteer with the Noble Packages group:

And other than all this, I did have to do a bit more shopping today for some things for US and found some more big boxes which a local toy store puts out for us to take as he knows many people need big boxes this time of the year!

Here’s a photo of some of the wrapping we still have to do. In the end, everything has to be in a box - no loose or soft packages allowed. Obviously we can have soft packages but they have to be put in a box before taking to the distribution center.

Have a great day wherever you are reading this! Thanks for coming along with me on my quilting/sewing journey as I live and serve in Poland.

Be sure to check out what my sis has for you in the store here!

Here’s one of the beauties we have!