Skeleton in my Daughter's Closet

I have done something I'm deeply ashamed of. So I have decided to publish it on the Internet.

Both my daughters are home sick from school this week, which means I am home as well. And while at home, I have been rooting around in closets, finding reorganizing projects that need to be done but for which I don't have the energy. Think I may have got a touch of this virus, too.

Yesterday I was shifting some things around in the very top of my daughter's closet where I have a couple of quilt projects in no man's land: I have cut out the pieces and then basically decided they were too hard to sew together, but they are too valuable to throw away. And next to those UFOs (quilter-speak for Un-Finished Objects), is my dark secret.

At least five years ago, the Craft Coordinator of our MOPS group organized a charity project. She had the moms in our group color white squares of polyester with fabric markers. Then she asked me if I would sew them together and quilt the whole project, which was supposed to be given to a children's charity ( a foster home I think).

I never did it!

Those cheerful blocks, bearing messages like "God loves you," "Shoot for the stars" and "Jesus calmed the storm," are still unfaded from their half a decade in the dark of my daughter's closet. When I put it there, I meant to do it soon, but as time has passed, the guilt over not having done it yet has kept me from getting it down. Meanwhile there is a foster child somewhere in Orange County with no blanket because of my laziness mixed with guilty feelings. For this UFO to get to its intended destination, I will have to call my ere-long Craft Coordinator and bring to her attention the fact that I never fulfilled my promise, and ask her where this quilt is supposed to go!

Can any one else relate to this? Have you ever put something off for so long you feel like it would be an insult to even attempt it now? An apology that should have been given long ago? A thank you note that now seems way too small for the kindness that originally inspired it? Even just a birthday card you should have sent but didn't? For my part, I leave these things neglected, believing that doing the undone might call more attention to the failing in the first place. But then I think if I were the recipient of a decade-old apology or a month-late birthday card, I'd actually appreciate it. So...

I'll make you a deal, readers. I'm going to 1) Call my friend the Craft Coordinator and then 2) make the quilt. But YOU have to do something you've been putting off, and it can't just be cleaning out the junk drawer. Instead, you must rectify the sin of an undone kindness! I'll never know if you did it or not, but I trust you. For my own part, I'll post the finished picture. And all this is not to earn forgiveness for myself, because that's not how forgiveness works; however, it will make me feel better if my neglect inspires someone else to cope with theirs.