What a Funny Day

My smile is glued to my face.  My abs hurt from laughing.  And I cannot stop talking to people because with every new conversation opens up a new box of emotions, feelings, and thoughts.  Its literally an adventure around every corner! I honestly do not even know if I can pin point any specific moment or explain any one person in particular because my day just flowed together.  It swayed and crashed and brought a peaceful presence to me.  It is one of the most amazing feelings to be breaking the cycle of de-humanization.  It truly amazes me how much people have to say when you give them the chance to talk.  And it is so easy to listen! 

One example that does come to mind happened in the middle of the day when i was running around trying to do a few different things at the same time.  I was talking to Keith about unlocking his bike for him, Isic was bumping my arm (jokingly), Charles was tapping my solder waiting to talk to me, Mark was standing near by waiting for me to get a blanket for him, and I was suppose to be working the showers.  I all of a sudden started laughing and said, "I'm surrounded!" with a big smile on my face because it was such a funny moment being pulled in so many directions.  Isic immediately looked at me and said, "Surrounded by Love!"  What a moment :)

Today was a fun day because I love my job.  I have found a place I love and it is filled with people i love.  A place that challenges me and teaches me.  I hope you all have found something fun and challenging in your work today!

Weekend Outside

For the most part my weekends have little adventures here and there. There are late nights in the French Quarter or at local bars near our house.  The former JV's who live around the city have us over sometimes. Then there are the stay in movie nights or nights we all just pass out because of long weeks.  So there is not normally too much that i need to update you on from my weekends, but this weekend was different.

Friday night we went to the Sisters of St. Josephs house (a program similar to JVC), where Ellie lives (the other girl who works with Anne and I.  We went with a few other members of the community to listen to Sr. Helen Prejean speak.  She is a amazing woman with a huge heart and very entertaining personality.  Most people know her for her book "Dead Man Walking" which is about her experiences with men on death row.  She is powerful speaker who made me think/question alot of what i know about our jail system, law system, and why America still practices executions.

When we first met Sr. Helen she did not have a name tag on so we did not really know who she was but the minute we walked into the room she gave us each a huge (grandma like) hug that made us feel so welcome.  It also made us laugh a little because it caught us all off guard. 

This was the view coming back from seeing Sr. Helen on the free ferry that takes you across the Missippi.

Becca, Steph, and I decided to go on a bike adventure on Saturday around City Park and up to Lake Pontchartrain.  It was a beautiful ride and about 12 miles round trip.  City Park is a huge piece of land set just above New Orleans and on the edge of Lake Pontchartrain.  There are tons of walk paths, bike paths, and streams.  Along with the New Orleans Modern Art Museum :)  We road through the park, up the center and then off to the left side to hit the lake.  The lake is not nessesaraly very clean water but it was a beautiful view and smelled a lot like the ocean.  It is a mixture of salt and fresh water (because of Katrina).  We sat on the edge of the lake for about an hour talking, soaking up the sun, doing a little bit of yoga, and eating PB&J.  It was just the sun/water expositor i needed :)  The ride home was nice too and the nap after was a perfect ending!

Sunday my community met up with Eric (one of the former JV's who is our support person) who drove us all about 25 miles south of New Orleans to the swamp land.  We were going to go canoeing but the weeds and shrubs this year grew way more than usual and covered the majority of the open water.  We did however take a nice walk along a wood walk path that took us through a good part of the swamp.  It was so peaceful being in nature again, you forget how calming trees and greenery are when you are in a city for so long.  Its about a 2 mile loop and at the end is a big open wet land filled with long blowing 'cat tails.'  It looked like the Louisiana version of fields of grain, haha.  As we walked through the trees on the path we fallowed a river/swap water way.  Eric told us to keep our eyes open because that is where we would see a Gator if we were going to see one.  Sure enough, we did!  We saw three!

This one was chilling under a bridge that we crossed over.  It was about 8 feet!

The sky was ever bluer than this picture shows :)

 It was a very good weekend, mostly because i was outside so much! It kicked off the start of a good week :)

On a side note:   There was some sad news that we heard today that was hard to hear at the beginning of the week, but Emily and Don warned us that we would experience this eventually.  One of the guests at HTC was killed in a hit and run on Saturday night.... Renolda Miller liked to go by Zeus and normally whore a long woman's coat which he called his cape.  The cape was a polyester bright blue rain coat that went very well with his plaid pajama pants, sunglasses, and mostly toothless smile.  He was a character with a big heart and even bigger smile.  He will be missed here but is in our prayers and memories.

Cooking For the Community

There are many differences between living with roommates and living in an intentional community.  In general living in a community is a lot more like living with family.  Roomates are friends that you live with and community is an adopted family that you take into your life and become apart of.  Its a place to grow and learn about yourself and others.  You are not nessearly best friends with everyone in your community but thats ok, living with all different types of people is what makes a person grow and learn the most.  I got very lucky with my amazing community! We are all very different people but our differences are what makes us such a fun group.  We really have no problem speaking our mind (so there is lots of joking that goes on) and we are real easy going (so sometimes just sitting on the couch watching a movie or a game is exactly what we enjoy doing together).  Community has its challanges as well.  Having to discuss everything from how much toilet paper we use to the amount of cheese we buy can get very tedious.  In the end though it makes everyone happy becasue we have to come to a lot of agreements and compromises. 

One of my favorite things about living in a community is dinner time! We do our grocery shopping on the weekends.  After deciding what meals everyone wants to cook we make a list of exactly what we need, hop on the bus, and shop.  At least 3 of us go so that we can carry it all home.  We spend an average of $75 dollars a week. Then we decided who is making their meal when.  Each meal has a chef and assistant chef.  Then the 3 cleaner-uppers (makes clean up real fast).  Dinner is a community event for us every night of the week.  We cook togeter, pray together, and eat together.  On occation someone is missing or something comes up or we have a different dinner event to go to.  But if we are all home than we are all eating dinner together.  Its amazing the value of a meal together.  The conversation does not have to be deep, it does not have to be formal, and most of the time elbows end up on the table (hehe).  The importance comes from sitting together and enjoying eachothers company.  We mostly talk about our days and then wonder on to different subjects after everyone has vented or laughed about the days happenings.

We make $75 dollars go pretty far. Yesterday i made a cauliflower curry and rice dish.  We have had the beef bowl recipe, from my little black book or recipies.  Black bean burgers.  Tuna pasta medly.  Veggy noodle soup.  Ster fry.  Apple sauce. Cinimin buns. Cookies.  And more. We get very creative and my cook books (on a budget) that i got for Christmas last year have been a BIG help. I think the favorite dish i have done so far is Breakfast for dinner :)  I do a vegiterian version and a bacon lovers version (i think you all can figure out the difference and of course all of the bacon fat is used in the bacon lovers version haha).  I have never been much of a cook (as most of you know) but something about cooking for my community and having the support of the people i am feeding gives me the energy and excitment to make goooood food.   

This new love of cooking does not nessesaraly mean that i will be jumping on the opportunity when i am back in CA, haha, but i do not doubt that i will learn a lot this year and become a much better cook ;)

Oh The Treasures You Find

Oh the treasures you find and the gifts you are given. I mean this in many ways.  Each person i meet is a treasure in their own way, a special, God created, treasure: whether they spill shampoo all over you in the morning, complain about not getting any socks, get angry that you didn't do their laundry, or give you a big hug just because, they are all treasures to me. 

One of the reasons i love working at HTC is because no two days are EVER alike! There is always a new adventure to deal with, new people to talk to, or new treasures.  I really do not think i will ever be very good at working at a desk simply because i love the fresh air too much.  Being outside working with people is where i shine best.  And i cannot say this enough, no two days are similar here but each is a treasure. 

Then there are the actual treasures that you are given as gifts.  The other day a guest came up to me and gave me a funny little horse toy.  I really have no idea how to explain it but its basically a wire horse about 3 inches long.  He asked first if i liked horses and when i said yes he presented the toy to me.  (He first tyred giving it to Anne, but she did not say that she liked horses.  It may have been a peace offering because he was in a bad mood the day before haha).  Sometimes the gift may be a cookie, a can of soda, or a peppermint.  Then there are the gifts that come in the form of pieces of art!  During my first week someone gave me a picture that they had colored in. It was one of the line drawings that kids get with meals at restaurants and normally come with a box of crayons.  It is now hanging on my wall.  Last week Anne, Ellie and i were given paper butterfly's made out of magazine pages that also hang on our wall. 

Some of the treasures that come our way are found objects.  The laundry seems to collect the most because people forget what is in their pockets when their laundrey goes in the washers and dryers.  I find the best treasures in the dryers.  Most of the time i find old papers, lighters, and pennies but sometimes i get something more interesting.  I found $100 the other day (in the form of a Las Vegas game chip).  Then there was a very large Lima bean (painted green and slightly burnt because it went through the dryer).  Oh and the tooth, the molar, complete with a big cavity (Dr. Rick was clearly needed about a month ago to take care of it before it fell out and ended up in someones pocket, as their treasure).  There are many found treasures at HTC, most go unnoticed or are picked up by someone else, but then there are the few that make it into the office and become our treasures. 

I have found many treasures here in many different forms.  Every moment here is time to be cherished and grateful for.  Most people here have few possessions but the bags that they carry and the objects they own are their treasures.  The gifts i am given and the kind words that are said to me are my treasures.  But more so are my memories.  Anne and i have begun to journal about the moments and funny quotes from our day to days lives here.  We usually go get daiquiris on a Friday afternoon, sit in a nice place, and reminisce for hours, making sure to write down all of the treasured moments from the week :D  I

t will be fun to go back years from now and remember all of the treasures!

Go find some treasure!