Picture tagging game!

In solidarity with my illustrious friend, Athena...


The rules are simple:

1) Go to your photo files, select the 8th photo folder
2) Select the 8th photo in that folder
3) Post that photo along with the story behind it
4) Then challenge 8 blogging friends to do the same!


Here's my photograph:

This was the day of the JVC Camden Community Christmas Extravaganza (briefly referenced in this post from December). We had decided in the weeks leading up to Advent that we should dedicate a whole day to preparing for Christmas as a community, especially since we were planning to visit our families for the actual holiday.

The plan for that day was to run a 5K in the morning, take naps (this was added to the schedule shortly after the last of us crossed the finish line), snap a photo for the community Christmas card, decorate the house, put up and decorate the Christmas tree, go to dinner and end the evening watching It's a Wonderful Life while sipping on hot chocolate with peppermint schnapps. (I just love recapping that day.)


Anyway, when we opened the box of Christmas ornaments, I was a little saddened when I realized there was no tree-topper in the box. Mark suggested that I just make one, but we had nothing around the house to create an angel or a star.


Undeterred by an apparent lack of supplies, I thought about it until I remembered that the volunteers from the Philadelphia Mercy Volunteer Corp had given us a box of Christmas chocolates when we invited them over for game night earlier in the week. The chocolates were individually wrapped in shiny, gold-colored cellophane. The six of us had devoured all of the treats the day before.


I rooted through the garbage until I pulled out all of the little gold wrappers. Then I tore a side off of a cardboard box and cut it out into the shape of a star. We wrapped the gold cellophane around the cardboard, and Voila! We had a tree-topper. Stephanie and I called it "the simple-living star" because it was made out of recycled materials.


Mark took this picture of me and Steph right before we put the star together. We were pretty pleased with our ingenuity at making out Christmas tree truly ours by rigging up our own star, (There's a great picture of Mark placing the star on top of the tree) so we gleefully held up the wrappers at the camera.


OK, I tag:
Lauren
Bridget
Laurie (or Ben)
Marc
Corina (do you still blog?!?)
...
I think that's all the blogger friends who haven't already done this or been tagged!

Happy Advent!

It’s been a while since I posted. Work has been fine—no major incidents or issues. There was one dude who got hit by a car, but he wasn’t severely hurt. I guess I’m getting more and more used to life back here, because things shock me less and less. My first six weeks here were so filled with huge, strange emergencies, but I didn’t know that they were anomalies. So it’s a little less crazy in terms of horrible things happening, but no less so terms of how fast we move around here. I would never have believed how often so many people have to go to the doctor for so many problems if I didn’t work here, or who have a whole other host of issues that need tending to.

A quick aside—I think a lot of the tenants think I’m a receptionist, not a case manager. Maybe that’s because I’m the youngest person here, or maybe that it’s because I’m young and a woman, but it’s still frustrating. On the other hand, the ones that know that I’m a case manager often come to me with a problem that I have no idea how to fix. It’s one of the drawbacks of never having the same day twice, I suppose. That’s a weird conundrum—the people I can help don’t think I know what I’m doing, and I have no idea how to help the ones that do believe in me. (This is a fairly broad generalization—I do a lot of work most of the time! I’m just referring to a few specific issues that tenants have.)

Community life is going well. Last night we made an Advent calendar from today until Christmas Eve. It was a lot of fun! Amber got a little wooden frame that used to be part of a set of barnyard toys. She put in little dividers so that there were twenty-four slots, one for each day. It’ll be exciting to see what everyone else put in, and what we are given to meditate upon for the day. I added a few… actually, I’ll wait until the days that we open the Advent calendar to tell you what’s in it! Oh, I love this time of year!

Speaking of Christmas-y stuff, the JVC Camden Christmas Extravaganza shall commence this Saturday. (Yes, it has an official name. Shut up.) We’re going to take our community Christmas card photo, then get a tree, then have dinner at Buca di Beppo’s, compliments of Amber Rose’s parents! (Thanks, Col. and Mrs. Yakkel!!!)

I’m starting the countdown for my visit home—23 days! Just over three weeks! I am so excited!

Love to all,

Molly