Birthday Adventures

I promised more on my birthday festivities, specifically a good story about a betta fish. So, here ya go.

At the Mount everyone is asked to fill out this little sheet with 2 things: 1- what kind of dessert you want on your birthday, and 2- name a few things you would like as a gift that cost $10 or less. I said I wanted carrot cake for my dessert (no raisins, of course) and for my gifts I listed a plant or some knick-knack type things to put on my shelves.

I got my carrot cake, which was delicious (raisins and all...) and my gifts were quite the surprise. I was standing in line for breakfast Wednesday morning when one Sister turned to me and asked "Do you like fish?" It being Wednesday I knew we were having fish for dinner so I said "Yeah, I don't mind salmon patties." to which she replied "No, kiddo, turn around and look at your gifts." There's a table by the door to the dining room where the gifts are always placed, and there stood a plant,a gift bag, and a betta fish in a little bowl.

Yep, I got a pet. I named it Squiggles right away and I was so excited all day to come home, open my other gifts and take the little guy downstairs. At dinner on your birthday the whole community sings to you, which is both very sweet and mildly overwhelming. After that I got to open my gifts which included my new plant (see below), the fish and some supplies for the little guy. Oh, and an envelope with $10 in it as an insurance policy just in case the fish decided to head to that great fishbowl in the sky a little prematurely.

Let me just say that insurance is always a good idea.

So after all the excitement at dinner, I found a large flower vase to house the little guy in until I could find a decent tank somewhere (which I did--for FREE which was so exciting). Alyssa and I were in my room while I opened the rest of my gifts and we watched the fish on my dresser as he kinda shook violently around. Alyssa joked that maybe he was having a seizure or something.

Too bad it wasn't a joke.

I had his new vase full of water and was letting it rest while the water purifying stuff worked its magic. I took the  plant out of the little bowl he was housed in and realized the fish was 1-not moving, 2- turning gray and 3- starting to go belly up. So not good. I hadn't even had this thing in my possession for an hour and it was already dead. Come to find out, people were taking bets all day on if this thing was alive or not, go figure.

So I ran back down the hall to get Alyssa, and we both decided he was definitely dead and that there was no way either one of us was about to flush this poor thing. So we ran upstairs and found a Sister we knew would assist us, blessed the poor fish and flushed him. I then proceeded to take the $10 I got and bought a new fish.

This one is still alive and well, and enjoying his nice new tank that I set up for him yesterday.

Never a boring moment in my life :)

My new plant

Meet Luc

He thinks he's a tough guy

Here's his tank!

The More We Get Together-- Take 2

I'm giving this post the same title as last week because it's still extremely fitting to the week I've had for a reason or two.

The first being that last Friday Ann, my boss/director/supervisor/however-you-want-to-call-her at the Cafe, saw my post and immediately jumped on top of it- "We should teach the kids that song! It would be lovely!"

So cue me once again singing this song against my will in front of a group of people. But they're only my kids, and they loved it, even if they stared at me like I'm a crazy white girl for a moment or two after. Worth it. The kid's loved signing it, and we now have ourselves a Kid's Cafe Anthem. Hoorah!

Now, on Monday Ann started to tell the kids that it was my birthday on Wednesday. The kids were so excited, making me so many cards on Monday that I figured all the hype would be worn out by the time by birthday actually came about (I was wrong, but I'll get there). After dinner on Monday I noticed a bunch of the girls seemed to be missing, but I didn't think much of it, assuming they were at the gym or something.

That is until a couple of the girls came running into the room I was in telling me Ann needed me right away in her office. I walked into a room of 15 girls all singing at the tops of their lungs "The moooooooooore we get togetherrrrr, togetherrrrr, togetherrrrrrrrrrrrrr....." I was absolutely amazed, I loved it!

So Wednesday finally came along, and I received all the cards the kids had been making me all week. And when the kids showed up so many ran up to me and gave me a big hug, wishing me a happy birthday, and more cards were made and pictures were colored, and we had birthday cake and it was wonderful.

But they still weren't done. One more surprise was left after dinner. I was in the middle of a game of pool when two girls once again came rushing in to grab me up "Come quick, Miss Carrie!" and I was lead into a dark dining room, where only the Christmas lights around the windows were lit. And I heard lots of giggles. Then all of a sudden 20 kids jumped up from behind a table, yelling surprise, signing happy birthday, and of course reprising their favorite "The More We Get Together." It still absolutely floored me.

It's been amazing to see what these kids will do to make sure someone has a special day, or even a special week like I had. They were so proud to surprise me with drawings, cards, messages on the chalk board, hugs, and songs whenever they had the chance. 

I love those kids. I'll be sure to hang onto that when things turn back to normal and I'm ready to throttle them next week :P

Hands down, one of the best birthdays I've ever had, and that was just at work! It was made very special at the Mount as well, but I'll save that one for Monday I think. I've got a good story about a betta fish I might share, so stay tuned :)


In totally unrelated news, check out Alyssa and I giving an interview about the beginning of our experience at the Mount here

The More We Get Together

One of my participants at SBEC was singing yesterday morning. I have no idea what sparked it. I was standing at my desk grabbing their books and I just hear her singing:

"The more we get together, together, together, the more we get together the happier we'll be."

As I was coming around to the table where my class was gathered, she was just singing away and said "Teacher, I remember when you sang that song to us!" And a huge smile lit up my face. I'd almost forgotten. It was my very first day at SBEC back in August, when I was still trying out all the different ministries. I was sent to help out in the classroom upstairs and the first question thrown at me by the teacher was "do you sing?" I lied and said no, because there was no way I was about to sing in front of this huge room of people.

Evidently it didn't matter what I said, I was singing for them and that was that. I was ridiculously embarrassed, I don't sing on my own. But there I was, singing away. And they loved it, they just smiled and smiled at me. And then they started to sing it with us. And I smiled. And everyone loved it.

And now some 5 months later, one of the women from that very first day is in my reading and job retention class. And she remembers that song, and that I sang it to them, and that it has a good message that they all loved, as simple as it is. The more we get together, the happier we'll be.

It's a good message for me to reflect on today. It holds true for whatever I'm doing and with anyone, but especially at my ministries. The more time I spend working with my participants at SBEC, the happier they are because they keep learning more and practicing more, and they realize a potential they may not have known they had. They're reading whole books with me, for goodness sake! Books! They probably never thought they'd make it through reading a whole worksheet, and here we are reading 130 pages of kid's poems. Talk about happy!

Same thing for my kids at the Cafe. The more time we spend together, the happier we all are. I say it all the time. They're happy for attention and activities to do and food to eat and someone giving them the time of day for a couple of hours. The longer I'm there with them, the more time we have together, the better I feel the relationships getting, the more I value them, and the more they trust me

I love that it's simply "the more we get together." It's not the more things I give you, or the more things you give me, or the more money we spend on each other or anything. It's just being together. That's all it takes to be happy, spending time with people you care about.

And man, am I one happy person.

Pictures

After lunch this afternoon, I came back to my room and was looking around on facebook for a few minutes before getting back into my reading and reflecting for the day. And I found myself browsing through all my old profile photos, the ones that I picked to represent myself right up at the front, to everyone who visits my page. Here's me, in a nutshell. Here's how I want you to see me.

As I was flipping though them, I got to the ones of me as a high school senior and a freshman and sophomore in college. And I found myself saying "man, that's just not me anymore. I look nothing like that."

In the midst of my looking, I saw it had hit 1 o'clock, so I signed off and picked up a paper I was given last week to use to reflect on. The first question underlined in the text was this: "What are your hopes for the future as you reflect on the years that have passed?" Pretty neat, huh? That's exactly what I was thinking about as I was putzing around for 15 minutes before I got back to work.

Looking back on myself in photos, and thinking about who I was and where I was when they were taken, I know that I'm not the same person. The most obvious difference is my appearance- I used to have long hair, now I don't, I haven't since junior year. But it's not just that. Junior year of college was one of the most important years of my life, so much happened. I became Catholic, I went on the service trip to Poland, I helped raise $1,300 for cancer research and donated all of my hair, Alyssa and I had our own place and had to deal with the real problems of rent, bills and living paycheck to paycheck, I came here to the Mount for the first time, I finally let people out of my life that were toxic for me. If I had to sum that whole year up in one photo, it would be the one below of me right after I gave all my hair. It was the most outward representation of so much that was changing within me.

I'm not the same girl I was when I was 17 or 19 or 21. I'm not the same person I was this time last year or even just 5 months ago when I began this program. Who I am right now won't be the exact same person I am a year from now, or even 8 months from now. Yes, I look different, I look older, maybe I look wiser [or so I'd like to think :)] but it's beyond that.

I'm different in how I think, how I feel, how I love, how I pray, how I feel God move in me, how I feel the pull of my life, my desires, my hopes and my dreams.

My hopes for the future are that I will continue to grow into the person God intends for me to be, and I know that God desires for me to be happy with who I am, no matter what. I believe this process will be lifelong, but I hope to always be happy with who I am in that moment.

I'll never be embarrassed or ashamed of "who I used to be" anytime I look back on my life, but only proud to see how far I've come year after year. I know that I am only who I am today, because of who I was then. And I'll always find peace in knowing that at that time then, and this time now, I'm exactly where God wants me to be.

Now, I can't title a post "Pictures" and not include a few :)

 

Sophomore Year

Junior Year

Senior Year

A Normal Weekend...

I'm evidently not allowed to have one.

As I was leaving the Cafe on Friday my boss asked me if it would be a quiet weekend at the Mount. I told her besides the Canisius students coming on Sunday (which I was soooooooo excited about!!) it was going to be a low key weekend.

I lied. But not on purpose.

I'm notoriously clumsy, to the point I should probably come with a disclaimer warning, my own roll of bubble wrap and a helmet. My mom actually probably should have made my middle name Clumsy.

Yeah, that bad.

So, anyway, here's the story: Once a week I'm in charge of cleaning up the copier room in the library here at the Mount. So yesterday morning I went and got my cleaning supplies (and lost Alyssa somewhere in the process) and went to start my work. The first thing I wanted to do was clean the table with the paper cutter, pencil sharpener, stapler, etc. on it. I move everything onto the paper cutter so I can clean half the table, spray the cleaner and start wiping the table.

(do you see where this is going yet?)

Because I'm stupid and was apparently in my own universe at that moment, I slid my hand right underneath the blade of the paper cutter, which (go figure) is just far enough off the table that my finger fit right underneath it. I cut my pointer finger on my right hand pretty bad. Upon realizing what I did, and in a complete panic, I ran straight upstairs to the infirmary to find a nurse.

Of course, the one time I need someone there is not a soul in the hallway outside the library, and I couldn't find anyone upstairs in the infirmary. So I ran down the hall to try and find the nurse with no luck. Finally, I just stopped by the desk back at the front. By this time I was pretty much flipping out and bleeding pretty bad.

But just then the nurse came popping out of the bathroom and I just held up my hand and said "I need help!" so she finally got me to sit and grabbed some towels and bandages and started to clean me up. It wasn't until I sat down that I realized how bad it hurt and that I was shaking and crying. The nurse was great, calming me down, cleaning me up and sending me downstairs to rest.

On my way back to my room I stopped on the 1st floor to see if I could find Alyssa yet. She still was nowhere to be found, but I did run into a Sister who saw my bandaged hand and asked what I did and told me I better get my butt to the hospital right away. So I went downstairs to our hallway and tried to find Alyssa, who wasn't in her room and I was so drained by that point I didn't even know what to do with myself besides cry some more.

Just then I hear the same Sister come running up the hallway looking for Alyssa, who was down the hall in the laundry room. The Sister ran right up to her "you have to take Carrie to the ER right now." Alyssa had no idea what in the world was even happening, so she looked at me with the most alarmed face, and I raised my hand up.

Within about 30 seconds we were in our jackets and heading out the door. We went to one of the hospitals here in Erie. 1 hour, 2 stitches, and a best friend almost passing out at the sight of me getting stitched up later, and I was good as new (well....kind of.)

Needless to say, it's been killing me, especially once the nerve block wore off. But it could have been much worse, and I'm thankful for that much.

Now, I tend to injure myself in some capacity once every year or two. So I guess it's good that I got it done and out of the way early this year. In the meantime, I'll work on that bubble wrap and helmet...

My boo-boo

Back At It

I can't believe how much I missed work last week, which sounds odd even as I'm typing it. I've never missed work in my life. But I did, I missed the refugees I teach and I really missed my kids.

Something that absolutely made my day today: I was walking around after I finished cleaning up the cafeteria and kitchen at the Cafe and one of my favorite girls came walking up to me. I gave her a big hug and we walked with an arm thrown around each other out into the hall, and I told her I missed her a lot last week. She said "I missed you a lot yesterday, Miss Carrie." And it kind of smacked me in the face, the love of this child, who I know comes from almost nothing at home. A sweet, bright young girl who just needs some love and attention. I go away for one day a week, and she says she really misses me. I mean something to her, and she means something to me.

I get that from a few of the kids, but not as blunt as it was today. When the kids find out I don't come in on Thursdays they always seem a little alarmed, asking why. I just tell them I have other things I have to work on every Thursday.

They're also amazed when they learn I'm a volunteer and don't get paid to be there: "Why do you come here if you're not making money for it?" I always just say "I really like being here and spending time with you." Some look at me like I'm absolutely crazy, others get that it's not about money, it's about them, and they seem pretty happy with that.

I gotta say, I'm pretty happy with that too.

Happy New Year, 2012!

Hard to believe it, but it's here already. 2011 flew by me, way too quick as always.

I've never been one to make new years resolutions really, and I'm not going to make any right now at the start of 2012, but I will share the goals I made for myself at the start of my year here at the Mount. This start of the brand new year is as good a time as any for me to really renew these goals, maybe add a little more to them and refocus for the next part of this great adventure I'm on.

The goals I set for myself back in August are as follows:

• I want to better understand what God has in store for my future, and I want to better understand specifically what I desire as a career before I go off to grad school.
• I would like a better understanding of my Catholic faith, I want to learn more about the Church as far as traditions, history, teachings, etc.
• I would really like the read and understand the Bible, I haven’t read much of it yet. But I don’t want to just read it for the sake of reading it, I want to understand and really ingest it.
• I would like to learn how to spend a little more time in peaceful prayer with God, I don’t turn to God as often as I should sometimes, especially when I face more difficult matters.

I've made strides in all of these goals since beginning here in August. The Sisters are providing classes to facilitate goal 2 and 3, and it's been a great start with more to come. My ministry placements are helping me with goal 1 in part. My reflection days and daily prayer with the community are bringing along goals 1 and 4.

As I've said before, this year at the Mount is about discovering who I am, who I want to be, and what God has in store for me. That's what this new year is about. That's what every day is about. I can't imagine a better atmosphere to be doing all of this in.

2011 was a jam packed year, it was full of ups, downs, blessings and some hard moments. I find myself in a place now as I enter 2012 that I never would have dreamed of as I entered into 2011 a year ago. It just shows you how much God is in control, and it's amazing the places you'll end up if you just listen to Him.

I'm looking forward to seeing what this new year has in store for me. Happy New Year everyone!