Novels, Honeymoons, and Anniversaries

This statement can be taken in a myriad of ways, and I intend it to be understood in all of them: the honeymoon period of JVC is over.  

I find that I am settled in to my new life, and feel at home in Mercy House and the Wintonia.  My trip to California was mind-boggling in that sense: I was overjoyed to be back home in California, surrounded by my loving family and friends, and yet I was also quite happy to be back "home" when I stepped off the plane in Seattle - or at the very least, back with all of my things, my housemates, and of the day-to-day I have created here.  It is a weird thing.

In the other sense, the honeymoon period is over in that the fresh newness of everything is beginning to wear off. Like any person in a long-term relationship knows, this is the part where the rubber meets the road, and where you discover if you are truly in love, or simply caught up in infatuation.  Every day is a reevaluation and a refocusing - why am I here? what do I want out of this experience? how am I being intentional about ensuring that happens? how am I allowing for space to be surprised? how am I challenging myself? what is life-giving and what is life-draining?  All of these questions continue to simmer through my consciousness.  My retreat last weekend was focused on "Right Relationship", and helped me to answer some of these questions and, like those types of things always do, created new ones.  

All in all, I feel like I'm on a good track.  The thing about picking up everything you know and transplanting yourself to an entirely new state, with a new job, new friends, and new home is that you're forced to examine what really matters.  What makes me happy and brings me joy? What do I need in order to unwind?  How well do I function when I don't actually have any friends around?  How much do I truly care about dirty dishes in the sink? (Answers: Creative communities, my guitar, not so well, and, yeahhhh not much.)  It's this very strange sensation of being placed with all of these new experiences all at once.  Some days I feel like I'm on top of it all, and others I feel like I'm being swallowed by the Seattle rain.  You never know.

In other news, I am again working on a novel for National Novel Writing Month.  I hit 20,000 words last night, which is extremely exciting.  I think this is my best work yet, and I'm pretty excited about it - but if I'm not blogging much, that's why. Most of my energy is spent churning out words so that I'll reach 50,000 by the 30th at midnight - eek! I'm pretty proud of myself though.  This one might have something to it.

Finally, I wanted to share photos from the Wintonia Anniversary Dinner from last Thursday.  It was her 102th birthday since being built - woohoo! The Wintonia building has quite a history, and has spent time as a hotel, a monastery, and now, low-income housing.  There is a traditionally a dinner party thrown by the JV to celebrate - so I had a blast getting everything together! The theme was "Under The Sea".

All aboard! The living room / lobby of the Wintonia.  This is where we handed out resident awards and have appetizers.  The residents helped us by preparing their favorite dish to share with the building.
 I hung up blue and white streamers with green ones for seaweed, and (unseen) printed out a bunch of pictures of excursions and made a photo collage for everyone to look at.
The entrance to the dining room hallway is behind me!

The hallway to the  dining room!
I also painted the boat of the S.S. Wintonia and attached it to a piece of cardboard so that people could take pictures of themselves riding in the boat.  The sail is attached to a broomstick.
People had a great time taking photos of themselves!

The hallway leading into the dining room.  I painted a yellow submarine.  Everyone loves a good Beatles reference :)

A little blurry - the other side of the hallway! The other staff helped me put up fish and cut out bubbles.

The dining room - doesn't it look nice with the green paint?
More streamers, and I found blue posterboard that had been cut into waves for the walls.

The residents sat down at the tables, and the staff served them the food.  It's a nice experience for them to feel like they're in a restaurant!
I made the centerpieces out of mason jars I found in the basement.  I wrapped them in blue tissue paper and ribbon, and put candles in them.  They glowed a really pretty blue!
We also cut out underwater creatures and hung them from the ceilings for an 'underewater' effect.

The dining room looks down on Pike Street - the trees outside are turning colors and look great!
We also got seashells to place along the middle of the tables.  Some residents took some home as souvenirs.

 

All in all - a very fun experience! My years as a hall-decorating Pres girl and a Kappa Kappa Gamma helped me here.  

Love,

K