a swing and a hit

today was my first go at eucharistic ministering at st. thomas more. i found myself oddly nervous. i was thinking that because i'd done it like a bazillion times at my old church, i'd feel like an old hat. but i really was afraid i'd make a mistake. probably i was intimidated because i was worried that everyone in the church would be looking at me like, hey, who's the new EM?

but anyways, it went off without a hitch. i really enjoyed it. what i liked most which i don't remember thinking about before, was that i got to really connect with about 1/2 the people in the church. i looked them in the eye and then, as i placed the eucharist in their hands, i generally touched their hand (or their tongue for the one lady! oops!). it just felt like i was bringing the community closer to me and i really liked that feeling.

i'm up at bat again at 8:00 AM this tuesday, as it's all saint's day (a holy day of obligation, if you pay attention to that stuff).

catching up

this weekend chris and i teamed up with tricia and adam to drive up to asheville to visit michelle. it was a fun-filled weekend which include delicious home cookin' (thanks michelle and scott for the great meal!), a shortish hike in bad shoes, wonderful restaurants, a random high schooler swimming in the city fountain, my cousin hannah, a brisk view of the clouds surrounding craggy gardens, and good conversation with good friends, just to name a few.

thanks guys for the good times.

p.s. to michelle, i'd have featured a solo picture of you but i don't have a picture of you alone, so i hope this'll do;)

a year in the life

dara brown's blanket,
originally uploaded by Waldie's World.

i can't believe it, but on 10/21/05 i finally finished cross stitching this blanket. i started around christmas time last year when i found out my friends dave and maria were expecting their first child. well, almost a year later i've finally finished the blanket. dara is now over 4 months old!

so, the lesson learned is it takes longer to make a blanket than a baby. remember that when you're thinking of doing either.

whose child is this?

check out my brother's blog for a hilarous rendering of my mother and a recent unfortunate event.

peace corps interview

some have been asking how my peace corps interview went on friday, though i think i might have already recounted my impressions to most of you. but for those who're interested here's a brief summary.

the long and the short of it is that we'll definitely get into peace corps (barring any medical complications). bernadette, our regional recruiter, said that she was going to start the recommendation process before we've even finished our interviewing with her. see chris's post for more detailed info on the process (or the peace corps website). in any event, she has to recommend us to national peace corps, then they call us back with an offer. when bernadette recommends us she picks a location and a type of job she thinks we'd be good at. pc national can take the recommendation by offering us something within those paramaters or they could offer us something totally different, it's their descration based on what is available. anyways, bernadette has it in her head that we would be best suited for an agricultural assignment. now if you know me and chris at all you'll know that our agricultural experience pails in comparison to our youth work and community development experience and you might be thinking we'd be more suited to that type of work. but bernadette does not really listen so well to what we want. she wants us to be "flexible" and be "open to the peace corps experience." she says that they are in dire need of people willing to do ag work and that it is extremely difficult to place couples, leading us to believe this might be the only way we'd get into pc in the next decade.

now, i think in general an agricultural assignment wouldn't be so bad if it were in africa . we'd still be in the country of our choice; we'd still be living and working in the community and learning a lot about the culture; and frankly, all povery, social inequality, etc. in developing countries are tied very closely to agriculture. so that would be cool. BUT bernadette has given us doubt that she is really listening to our desires and chris and i are sceptical that we'll get africa. so in summation, we're still going through the process with pc, but we're really going to be sure to have some other back up programs which might be more suited to our specific desires. (our couples interview is friday, november 18th--more then.)

they're up

you got it, square dancing old folks!,
originally uploaded by Waldie's World.

finally posted the pictures from the weekend in mississippi. click on the picture to see the album.

witty title goes here (i'm tired tonight)

after 2+ years of sitting (peacefully i might add!) and not actively participating in church in terms of lectoring, eucharistic ministering or what-have-you, i've finally decided to get up and serve again. there's really no excuse for me taking so long to do it, except that i got worn out from my last church, which i admit is a poor excuse because that's why people get worn out (because there's not enough of us!). but anyways, tonight i got trained (which is a funny concept as i was never trained before) but i appreciated the training. and starting next sunday i'll be a eucharistic minister again. check out the schedule if you'd like to come at receive from me (that's a joke). i'm looking forward to it.

thanks acs

i can't believe i'm saying it, but thank you, student loan corporation. they just forgave $300 of my undergraduate perkins loan because i work with "at risk youth." for once it pays to work for no money! woohoo!

a small step for mankind (catkind?)

allie,
originally uploaded by Waldie's World.

alright, i don't 100% buy maslow's hierarchy of needs as an absolute theory that will explain or fix everything in and of itself. but i do think he had a good point on the lowest level and i got to see it in action this weekend.

on thursday chris's parents found this kitten (if you can call it that, it's so small (smaller than the picture looks!)). they tried to put the kitten with another momma cat who had just given birth, but she rejected him. so they brought her into the house and started bottle feeding her. on thursday she was so small and starving for food and water that she could barely hold her head up. on friday, when chris and i arrived, she was mostly sleeping and lolling around, waking only to eat (voraciously!). by saturday she was interacting a bit and even peeing! on sunday, though, she had a complete transformation. she was roaming around the house, eating the solid food in the other cats' bowls and even playing (with the one who wouldn't hiss and swat at her, thanks buffy).

i have to say, as someone who works in the world of long range goals it was amazing and gratifying to see a theory in action. as i watched the kitten gain more and more strength (and subsequently, gain skills) i felt that she was taking the small steps that so many of the kids in our country are also struggling to take. so many skeptics think that children can overcome any obstacle, and they can. but there are people out there struggling to just make it another day. if this kitten can undergo such a drastic transformation over a weekend imagine the difference that can be made in our country if we just gave people a fair chance.

honeymooners

happy (10th?) anniversary tomorrow to mom and jim!

reid shinanigans

this weekend chris and i head off to mississippi for the reid family reunion. some highlights to be expected (in no certain order):

seeing the reids (of course)
the reid reunion on sunday
sleeping in a king sized bed in a dark cool room
going to the mississippi fair (fried candy bars, perhaps?)
meeting the blues (finally!)
lots of animals!

enough is enough

dag yo! when does it become a child welfare issue??

FAST

i facilitated the second session (out of 10) of my families and schools together program at elw last night. it went really well. actually, it was probably the smoothest session i've ever run. that would be thanks in part to two things: 1) only 5 families (also out of 10) showed up. i'd love to have better attendance, but it is always easier to have fewer people. 2) i have a really good team. sure there's one guy who does nothing, but you'll always have that. the other staff and volunteers are great! (thanks tricia helping out!) they're the kind of people who can just do something and not have to be walked through it, which seems to be an amazingly rare trait these days. so thanks guys for making my job easier!

papa reid update

the CAT scan on friday indicated still no change. he will continue chemo as regularly scheduled and the next checkup will be in december. the doctor was very pleased, as are we.

caffeine

caffeine,
originally uploaded by Waldie's World.

one of my most favorite things in the world is my morning cup of coffee. i am very particular about it. i usually only have one cup a day, no more, definitely no less. but what provides me with almost more joy than the actual cup of morning joe is the arrival of my new shipment (ordered in 5 pound packages). for the next 6 months i'll be savoring oromia blend.

hurry up and wait

i had my peace corps interview scheduled for 2:00 PM today. for the past couple of days i kept thinking it was at 12:00 and had to remind myself, no waldie, not 12:00. it's 2:00. 2:00! bernadette lorenzo was going to call home at 2:00 and i was totally jazzed.

well at 12:00 the phone rang and it was bernadette rescheduling the interview! perhaps i'm psychic.

but i'm bummed because i was really excited about the interview. not just excited about the interview itself, but i like to get things done. this would've been another check off the list of things to get done and would've been one step closer to being in africa.

oh, well. so now we're rescheduled for friday, october 21st at 3:00. this time, i'm going to keep thinking 3:00 and it'll happen. hopefully.

another one enters the blogosphere

gashwin.

1 hour 15 later

turns out they didn't really need me at the red cross afterall. i should've known, and i kind of did. but i sat for an hour and talked to a very nice case worker/volunteer, got a brief tour of the building, and came home an hour early. that's my karma for laughing when chris's application got overlooked a month ago.

the good news is that i got home an hour early. and as i'm sitting here typing this the phone rang and i was able to have a very pleasant conversation with my father-in-law, with whom i speak rarely, if ever, on the phone.

diggin'

diggin',
originally uploaded by Waldie's World.

this is a picture of chris, with our head lamp on, trying to get something from behind the stove. something i dropped, i should add. what a sweet husband.

but i posted this picture because it seemed to be a fair euphemism for what this week has been like...diggin' to stay afload.

both chris and i have been super busy for the past few days. he's been busy with school work, exams, and work work. i worked 10+ hours monday, 12+ hours tuesday. and today i finally worked a normal workday, but i am about to head off to volunteer for red cross katrina disaster relief. it's my first night at it so i'll let you know how it goes. i don't really know what to expect but at least it's not my normal work.

that goat's got devil eyes!

as many of you know, chris and i have no tv. so we tend to be a little out of the loop when it comes to tv shows and pop culture....alright, alright, it's ME who's out of the loop. chris reads enough magazines and "stuff" to keep him amazingly up to date. ANYWAYS, at a friend's house on friday night i was FINALLY able to see some of snl's tracy morgan skits, brian fellow's safari planet and astronaut jones. i didn't see all of the shows, but i saw some of the favorite and oft quoted of the reid family. hilarious!

i heart america

yesterday i went to the opening ceremony and swearing in of the new city year class in columbia. i love going to those events every year. it reminds me of my own americorps year, which i feel so far removed from, and makes me feel connected again. i even teared up during the star spangled banner, which i've been known to do from time to time. it also reminded me that good things are always happening in small movements around the country and that people are working to make positive change. it's nice to have those refreshers every once in a while.