Must. Get. Air. Pause. Something.
Well, back at the monastery for the summer since last Monday around noon. Had switchboard from 3:30-9:00.
Tuesday, I slept in until around 10, went to a friend's for a wonderful brunch, and got back around noon, just in time to meet up with a vocation visitor. Took her on an elaborate tour, hung out with her, went out for ice cream after dinner, and finally showed up back at my room probably around 10 pm.
Wednesday, I drove the 75 or so miles to Loovul, stopped by the house to pick up a few things I forgot. It monsooned just as I was getting ready to leave the house -- I had to practically swim through the driveway .... of course, with my camera gear, trash to put in the car next to the garage, library books to be returned, forgotten bags. Thus, thoroughly soaked, as was much of my stuff. Got to the library, still monsooning while I returned books. Went on to my appointment ..... beautiful weather by then. Stopped at the store on the way home to pick up a couple things --- couldn't decide if I should try to get home or wait: dusk sky to the left, night sky to the right, and a big ol' massive V-shaped cloud pointing in the direction I wanted to go. Got home, returned monastery library books .... back to my room maybe 10. Again.
Thursday, got up extra-early for music practice --- playing bass for morning prayer and Mass. Then had a last-minute switchboard assignment from 10-3:30. Doing homework for online class after switchboard (class seemed like a good idea at the time ... now the facilitator is emailing wanting to know if I'm still in the class) when I got paged -- the switchboard swap threw me off, and I forgot I was supposed to be at evening prayer music practice 10 minutes earlier. Ran up the hill, had a minor crisis in tuning (decided the practice bass didn't need tuning, then thought one string was off so I asked the guitarist to give me an E --- I was right, it was horrendously off, which we couldn't understand how it could get so bad in just a couple hours, so I fixed it. Just as we began the song I realized what the problem had been and then threw the guitarist off b/c I was laughing through the whole song --- the reason it was so horribly out-of-key was because it was supposed to be tuned to a G not an E. Oops!). Haircut after dinner, then google-searched out various youth ministry buddies from the past for a plea for brainstorming assistance for one of my major summer assignments, and then had to type up the whole thing so they'd know what I needed help with. Back to room: 10:30.
Friday .... had to iron grow-up clothes at last minute, and I don't iron well. Primary task for today was Sam's Club shopping for our Junior High camp next week. Realized during morning prayer that we have more people this year --- was the food/shopping list going to need adjusting? Leaving after morning prayer, go to the vocation director's pew to ask about that; she was actually coming to ask me about the van --- had we gotten the van that didn't have seats. She dodges out before Mass with me --- sure enough, the no-seat van is gone. My assigned van? Still has seats. Drive down to the garage, one of the maintainence guys pulls the seats out for us --- well, pulls three seats out, then does major battle with the fourth. He then notices the brake light is on, so we wait a bit longer for him to fix that. Go back up the hill, almost forget to get the four or five coolers I need to bring with me for all the frozen stuff, run through the serving room to grab a piece of coffee cake on my way to grab a Loovul map. No Loovul maps in our map bin, so I have to wait till the vocation director is back in her office to call her, ask her if she has a Loovul map, then run up to her office (on the other side of the monastery) to grab the map. Drive down to the other building, pick up my not-to-be-named-but-whose-name-begins-with-J-and-rhymes-with-Eena companion for the trip, and do the 75-mile drive to Loovul --- realizing mid-way that the van did have a CD player after all. Get to school, run in to grab some religion books for J's pre-first year teaching summer (at a different school), try to talk to the principal about her providing funding for a trip a couple of us teachers will be attending and she told me to stop in --- both on our way in and out she was already occupied. So I left her a note because there was a funeral of one of our nun-sister's biological sister that we figured it would be good for us to attend since we were already in Loovul (hence the grown-up clothes, the Mass-ditching, and the timing-crisis). Get to the funeral, have minor internal giggle issues at the cantor (doesn't help that I didn't have any connections with the deceased individual and therefore couldn't enter into the crying around me) .... internal giggle issues erupted into (minor, fortunately) external giggle issues when the cantor announced that "The Communion hymn is 'On a Hill Far Away'" -- and I leaned over to J and asked if we should go try & find it. Shopping at Sam's involved a list from a previous year's shopping with quantities and prices that didn't match what was available, so there was a major guessing game at every turn as to how much I was really supposed to get. Leaving out various high-running tensions from various elements of the drive and J's newly-discovered aversion to the big warehouse center .... apparently I almost got myself run over with a shopping cart loaded with frozen lasagnas, lots of lunchmeat, and several canisters of Kool-Aid. Tensions only escalated on the drive home and during the emptying of the van at camp; however, peace was eventually achieved (I think, anyway), though not without major dehydrated headaches on both parts. Evening prayer, dinner, get-together fun with the new kids, trying to chase down my sister so I can get my brother's credit card number to buy a plane ticket for vacation but I can't find my phone card and our long-distance line was busy; borrow phone card, make the call, return it .... then discover earlier flight with higher fare, so I need to go downstairs to re-borrow the card to re-call my sister .... then go back downstairs for a consult about will leaving the youth workshop I'm helping with a couple hours early for this other flight be OK .... buy the ticket .... and realize I've barely read any blogs this week.
And I'm on vacation?!?!?!?!?
That's not mentioning a tomorrow loaded with community meetings .... Sunday full (1-10 pm) of Youth Protection Training, Mass, etc, for this youth workshop .... Monday meeting first thing with formation director to discuss as-yet-still-incomplete self-evaluation (that was theoretically due a month ago!) before getting everything set up for Junior High camp .... which begins Tuesday and goes through Thursday and for which I'm cooking?!?!? 44 kids & 20 HS counselors & various nun-folks. Pack up and clean up Thursday afternoon so I can go into retreat on Friday (for which I still need to find a director) which will last a week that coincidentally enough is the same week that I have to go to Loovul both Wednesday AND Thursday and is also the last week of this 5-week online class that I'm three-soon-to-be-four weeks behind on. And then there's my quadruple-booked following week .....
Good thing I had the Tuesday morning that I did. We joked about how incredibly mellow I was (and how hyper!) --- having a year under my belt, none of the unknowns of last year (school, house, kids, non-Hill, etc.) ..... I haven't thought about any of that since then!
But, it's all good. Like the thought that ran through my head during midday prayer Monday shortly after I got home:
Lord, it is good to be here.
Everyone's so happy to have me home .... despite the craziness, I'm relatively non-stressed, and just happy for the sunshine!
But, if you notice my absence from your comment boxes, sitemeters, or even from my own site ..... at least now you know why!
Tuesday, I slept in until around 10, went to a friend's for a wonderful brunch, and got back around noon, just in time to meet up with a vocation visitor. Took her on an elaborate tour, hung out with her, went out for ice cream after dinner, and finally showed up back at my room probably around 10 pm.
Wednesday, I drove the 75 or so miles to Loovul, stopped by the house to pick up a few things I forgot. It monsooned just as I was getting ready to leave the house -- I had to practically swim through the driveway .... of course, with my camera gear, trash to put in the car next to the garage, library books to be returned, forgotten bags. Thus, thoroughly soaked, as was much of my stuff. Got to the library, still monsooning while I returned books. Went on to my appointment ..... beautiful weather by then. Stopped at the store on the way home to pick up a couple things --- couldn't decide if I should try to get home or wait: dusk sky to the left, night sky to the right, and a big ol' massive V-shaped cloud pointing in the direction I wanted to go. Got home, returned monastery library books .... back to my room maybe 10. Again.
Thursday, got up extra-early for music practice --- playing bass for morning prayer and Mass. Then had a last-minute switchboard assignment from 10-3:30. Doing homework for online class after switchboard (class seemed like a good idea at the time ... now the facilitator is emailing wanting to know if I'm still in the class) when I got paged -- the switchboard swap threw me off, and I forgot I was supposed to be at evening prayer music practice 10 minutes earlier. Ran up the hill, had a minor crisis in tuning (decided the practice bass didn't need tuning, then thought one string was off so I asked the guitarist to give me an E --- I was right, it was horrendously off, which we couldn't understand how it could get so bad in just a couple hours, so I fixed it. Just as we began the song I realized what the problem had been and then threw the guitarist off b/c I was laughing through the whole song --- the reason it was so horribly out-of-key was because it was supposed to be tuned to a G not an E. Oops!). Haircut after dinner, then google-searched out various youth ministry buddies from the past for a plea for brainstorming assistance for one of my major summer assignments, and then had to type up the whole thing so they'd know what I needed help with. Back to room: 10:30.
Friday .... had to iron grow-up clothes at last minute, and I don't iron well. Primary task for today was Sam's Club shopping for our Junior High camp next week. Realized during morning prayer that we have more people this year --- was the food/shopping list going to need adjusting? Leaving after morning prayer, go to the vocation director's pew to ask about that; she was actually coming to ask me about the van --- had we gotten the van that didn't have seats. She dodges out before Mass with me --- sure enough, the no-seat van is gone. My assigned van? Still has seats. Drive down to the garage, one of the maintainence guys pulls the seats out for us --- well, pulls three seats out, then does major battle with the fourth. He then notices the brake light is on, so we wait a bit longer for him to fix that. Go back up the hill, almost forget to get the four or five coolers I need to bring with me for all the frozen stuff, run through the serving room to grab a piece of coffee cake on my way to grab a Loovul map. No Loovul maps in our map bin, so I have to wait till the vocation director is back in her office to call her, ask her if she has a Loovul map, then run up to her office (on the other side of the monastery) to grab the map. Drive down to the other building, pick up my not-to-be-named-but-whose-name-begins-with-J-and-rhymes-with-Eena companion for the trip, and do the 75-mile drive to Loovul --- realizing mid-way that the van did have a CD player after all. Get to school, run in to grab some religion books for J's pre-first year teaching summer (at a different school), try to talk to the principal about her providing funding for a trip a couple of us teachers will be attending and she told me to stop in --- both on our way in and out she was already occupied. So I left her a note because there was a funeral of one of our nun-sister's biological sister that we figured it would be good for us to attend since we were already in Loovul (hence the grown-up clothes, the Mass-ditching, and the timing-crisis). Get to the funeral, have minor internal giggle issues at the cantor (doesn't help that I didn't have any connections with the deceased individual and therefore couldn't enter into the crying around me) .... internal giggle issues erupted into (minor, fortunately) external giggle issues when the cantor announced that "The Communion hymn is 'On a Hill Far Away'" -- and I leaned over to J and asked if we should go try & find it. Shopping at Sam's involved a list from a previous year's shopping with quantities and prices that didn't match what was available, so there was a major guessing game at every turn as to how much I was really supposed to get. Leaving out various high-running tensions from various elements of the drive and J's newly-discovered aversion to the big warehouse center .... apparently I almost got myself run over with a shopping cart loaded with frozen lasagnas, lots of lunchmeat, and several canisters of Kool-Aid. Tensions only escalated on the drive home and during the emptying of the van at camp; however, peace was eventually achieved (I think, anyway), though not without major dehydrated headaches on both parts. Evening prayer, dinner, get-together fun with the new kids, trying to chase down my sister so I can get my brother's credit card number to buy a plane ticket for vacation but I can't find my phone card and our long-distance line was busy; borrow phone card, make the call, return it .... then discover earlier flight with higher fare, so I need to go downstairs to re-borrow the card to re-call my sister .... then go back downstairs for a consult about will leaving the youth workshop I'm helping with a couple hours early for this other flight be OK .... buy the ticket .... and realize I've barely read any blogs this week.
And I'm on vacation?!?!?!?!?
That's not mentioning a tomorrow loaded with community meetings .... Sunday full (1-10 pm) of Youth Protection Training, Mass, etc, for this youth workshop .... Monday meeting first thing with formation director to discuss as-yet-still-incomplete self-evaluation (that was theoretically due a month ago!) before getting everything set up for Junior High camp .... which begins Tuesday and goes through Thursday and for which I'm cooking?!?!? 44 kids & 20 HS counselors & various nun-folks. Pack up and clean up Thursday afternoon so I can go into retreat on Friday (for which I still need to find a director) which will last a week that coincidentally enough is the same week that I have to go to Loovul both Wednesday AND Thursday and is also the last week of this 5-week online class that I'm three-soon-to-be-four weeks behind on. And then there's my quadruple-booked following week .....
Good thing I had the Tuesday morning that I did. We joked about how incredibly mellow I was (and how hyper!) --- having a year under my belt, none of the unknowns of last year (school, house, kids, non-Hill, etc.) ..... I haven't thought about any of that since then!
But, it's all good. Like the thought that ran through my head during midday prayer Monday shortly after I got home:
Everyone's so happy to have me home .... despite the craziness, I'm relatively non-stressed, and just happy for the sunshine!
But, if you notice my absence from your comment boxes, sitemeters, or even from my own site ..... at least now you know why!
posted by Steph Youstra at 11:52 PM
6 Comments:
So long as you can say "Lord, it is great to be here" amidst all that insanity -- that's incredible. Blessings on your busyness.
Your life sounds wonderfully... alive. But yes, it is good to be here!
For one thing, you're marvelously brave to drive into a v-cloud (welcome to Indiana). And go into Sam's Club (I always wait in the car - but sometime I'll have to tell you about my first trip to an Ikea, complete with sobs). a source of great American overabundance anxiety. AND you play the bass - I had no idea - while laughing all the while.
This is why you're here, albeit on a hill far away.
Wow!
Sister Steph is certainly in the house!!
Sam's is evil. Perhaps I resent it the more for feeling pitifully dependent on its existance.
But Steph didn't kill me, and yes, Lord, it is good to be HERE!
Dang, girl, just reading about all your busy-ness hiked up my anxiety level! I'm glad you're able to appreciate the moment, and I hope your ability to just "be" continued into the next several weeks! Then I hope you get a real vacation somewhere in there this summer, too!
Me, I'm pro-crastin-application-ing... I cleaned my room!!
You WERE noticeably missed. Welcome back!
Post a Comment
<< Home