A Small Novel

Hello all! Here is a nice long blog entry for anyone who is intrigued at knowing what’s going on!  It is currently Saturday morning and I am sitting in my beautiful house with my lovely housemates, who have somehow managed to get the football game on our TV.  It is a gorgeous day outside, and I am thoroughly enjoying spending it being lazy in this living room.   Yes, my life is rough.

Last weekend was awesome, to say the least.  I had Monday off, so there was my first three-day weekend of being a Working Adult – which, I now understand what the appeal is.  Helloooo sleeping in! Great.  But let me back up a bit.

JVs have this tradition of hosting parties at the different holiday weekends.  This gives everyone in the area a chance to visit each other, hang out, and just basically enjoy being in a different city for a while.  Mercy house traditionally hosts Labor Day, so that was us! The party was a lot of fun to say the least.  We had people sleeping on every available surface by the end of the night because there were so many people – under our kitchen table, on couches, in bedrooms, in the basement.  It was like an epic slumber party.  Everyone had a blast I think! We even set the precedent of having an awesome theme (our theme: AMURRICA) so people were pretty excited about that.

On Sunday, a bunch of my housemates and I decided to take a ferry on a day trip.  It’s fairly cheap (I mean, people use it as a legitimate form of daily transportation) and the weather was beautiful, so why not! One of the nuns told us about a Blackberry Festival happening in Bremerton, so we hopped the ferry and headed over. 

So. Beautiful.  I had so much fun just riding the ferry and hanging out with people.  The view was gorgeous.  Plus – blackberries, yum! We ate an awful lot of blackberry stuff.  Being a JV has taught me the value of a free sample (okay, who am I kidding, I was always all about the free sample) and we definitely ate our fill.  We even split a huge waffle cone of handmade blackberry ice cream – delicious!

Monday I had considered to be my epic day off, so I was planning the excruciating task of laying on the couch, playing computer games, watching movies and basically being a lump for about 15 hours.  Rough life, I KNOW.  Luckily for me, I was saved from that fate from a serendipitous text from Jen (who had to work on Labor Day, poor thing) offering us two free tickets to (drum roll please) Bumbershoot! My housemates knew that Matt and I had been longing to attend all weekend long, so they gave us the tickets.  Hooray!

What an amazing day! Matt and I tried to play Spot-The-Hipster, but realized it was quickly a moot point; Bumbershoot is the mecca for the Seattle hipster.  Whoops.  We also joked that, by the end of this year, we would slip into donning cut-off shorts, plaid button-downs, Ray-Bans and straw fedoras (the true mark of the music hipster) and only listen to obscure bands you’ve never heard of.  I’ll keep you all posted on that one.

We got to see a ton of awesome bands – and I even got to meet Eisley, which I wrote in a past post.  I got their autograph and they even told me I had a cute shirt and they liked my necklace (insert fangirl SQEEEEE!!!!! here).  So cool.  We even got lucky enough to be in the third row for the headliners Hall & Oates! Okay, let’s be real here, I don’t actually know very much about them, but I did a quick Wiki on my phone at the concert, and I’m pretty excited I got to see one of the bands on VH1s Best Bands Of All Time list.  WhaBAM.   We didn’t get home until about midnight, and then it was off to work the next day.

For those of you who are interested, here’s an update on work.

Work is pretty rocking.  I am enjoying my job, which is really lucky, because I know that a lot of my housemates are still struggling at settling in.  I think that this is the perfect job for me, mostly because there is very little structure, and I have a lot of freedom as far as my hours goes.  For example, since I was running a karaoke night on Tuesday, I worked from 1 to 8, instead of 9 to 5.  I wouldn’t want to do it every day, but it was a nice change!  I also get to be out and about a lot, which is nice, because if I was stuck inside all day I think I would go crazy.  There’s never really a dull moment – my residents are always doing something crazy or silly , and something is always happening.  You know me, I like being kept on my toes, so it’s nice to have to roll with the punches. 

Activity planning is something I’m finding that I really enjoy.  A lot of my job is just figuring out what’s going on in Seattle, and finding a way to get people to go to it.  I’m a combination activity-planner, RA, support person, and also my own publicist because (as I found out with one of my trips) I’ve really got to hype something up to get people to go.  Plus I also cover the front desk if necessary, and hang out with people if they’re feeling lonely.

I realized something really important last week – I’m not going to solve any of these people’s problems.  I can’t make their son call them, or their health better, or bring their spouse back from the dead.  I can’t solve their dependency on alcohol, or the things that move them to it.  I can only make them laugh.  Laughter is a gift that I can give.  And I’m really excited to do it.  If I can raise them out of their difficult realities and make things look a little brighter – even for a second – that’s what I’m going to go.  Even when I’m tired, or stressed, or not feeling particularly patient.  That’s my job.  And what a blessing to be able to bring that to people.  We had karaoke last Tuesday, and it was so much fun.  We sang Motown, we danced, we laughed.  And that’s my gift, you know?  That’s what I want to bring.  And I’m enjoying every second of spending my time at the Wintonia because of that.  Even when it’s rough.  I’ve just got to smile.  People have always said that my smile was something they loved about me – well, I’m bringing it to the Wintonia!

On another note, one project I’ve given myself is to revamp the library area at work.  It has definitely been well-loved to say the least, and the books there have been read again and again and again.  So, I want to make it a fresh place!  I secured some book donations, and it was so rewarding to take one of my residents with me to the bookstore to pick them up. I could tell he was so happy to feel included in the process.  They’re going to give us even more in the coming months, which is AWESOME.  I also want to work on acquiring some artwork for the library – maybe have some of my residents help to create it? It would be so much fun and I feel like they would be able to see the effect that they are having on their living space.  Make it feel like a home, you know?

Whew, okay this is one helluva post.  I’m going to head out then – hope this gave you a better insight on what’s going on in my life!

Lots of love.

K