Tired

The lock-in went very well. We had a good group of people and everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves. We slept in the basement of the church, though not very much. I looked at my watch at 3:30 AM and no one except one of the adults was asleep in the boy's room. The earliest we could have gone to bed was around 2:30 or so, the latest wass when I did along with some other people, getting to sleep around 4. We were woken up at 9 (thoughI had been awake since 8:40) so needless to say it's been a tiring day. A very good one though.

Now that I've finished shoveling

I thought I'd post on what's going on today with me. As my title mentioned, I had to shovel today. I was kinda hoping, though not expecting, it would stay warm, but I guess not. I was kind of surprised this morning when I saw how much snow there was. A couple days ago they were saying just a few inches. I heard that we might gt quite a bit last night, but this still seemed like a lot.
On a different topic, tonight I get to go to a staff training lock-in. At CrossRoads we have staff members, people who have been around for a while and can handle responsibility. Twice a year, once in the Fall and once in mid to late Winter we have "lock-ins" to train new staff members. Basically, we stay up late talking about what it means to be staff and letting the new staffees practice being small group leaders. My first lock-in was the second one of the 05-06 year, when I was a sophomore. That makes this my third lock-in, the second I've gone on this year. They're usually a ton of fun, so I'm hoping this one will be too.
Well, that's all for now. Have a good day everyone.

Real Quick Short Post

It was so nice today. I hope it doesn't get too cold again, I really like it being warm again. It's still February though, so it probably will get cold again. We'll have to see.

Hello

Hey everybody, how's it going? I'm doing pretty good. Today marks the first day of sprind vacation for most, February 19th. It's funny, with all the snow days people have been having, or really the short weeks they've caused, it's seems like everyone just had off to me. I hope everyone has a great vacation, full of exciting things. I'm not sure what I'll wind up doing, today Dad's home so we might go to the planetarium, I'm not sure if I want to go or not. As for the rest of the week, the only thing I have planned is a CrossRoads staff trainging lock-in this Friday, which should be tons of fun. I'll just have to wing the rest of the week and hope it turns out fun, I'm pretty sure it will. Again, I hope you all have a great vacation, I'll post again when something interesting happens.

Snow

A bunch of us just went outside to see how deep the snow was and it was crazy. There is just so much snow out there, especially in places where people haven't gone since it started really coming down a month ago. I took pictures, but haven't downloaded them yet, I'll put them in a post later.

Sorry Lucie

I'm going to re-post what I already wrote on my xanga tonight because I like it and I think if I were to write a post on here, it would just wind up a rewrite of that same post anyway. Sorry Lucie if you already read my xanga (or anyone really), I'll post a BRAND NEW post on blogger tomorrow. Here's what I wrote for my xanga....

"Change of Heart"
Despite the trouble this snow will cause, the delays in will enforce, the work involved in clearing it, I don't resent it. I would have in past years. I would have seen this snow fall and groaned, complaining about how hard it was going to be to shovel, hoping to earn enough pity to weasel out a few dollars for the job of removing it. But not this year. Looking around tonight while pushing the three new inches that have fallen in mere hours, it was beautiful. The way the light from different houses shone off the snow as it fell. The way it just subdued everything. I have thought of Winter as a deathlike season before, and I've known others who agreed. The leaves fall, colors are removed and replaced with some shade of gray, grass is covered over, we ourselves hide from the season's elements under layers of clothing. It can be a brutal season. Yet, as I stood there leaning on our push-broom, none of those thoughts entered my head. The snow didn't appear to be crushing, but instead almost protecting, like a blanket. The cold air wasn't alienating, but instead refreshing. It showed me that while Winter CAN be seen as a long, frustrating season, it can also be seen as a uniquely beautiful one. So let's see this 8-16 inches of snow, I'm not worried. Heck, I'm downright looking forward to it.

Hi

CrossRoads went well. Nora planned the meeting sometime yesterday before CR, so we were just about all set when everyone got there. The actual meeting went pretty smoothly, with a few noticeable bumps along the way. Those bumps are to be expected every week though, so it wasn't anything we couldn't handle. The night's topic was" love" in honor of Valentine's day this week. The night moved along at a nice pace, announcements not taking too long, moving right into the game which went well. I'd explain what we played, but it would take longer than I care to spend on it. Small group discussion was pretty good, though we had some trouble keeping our focus. Prayer went well and clean up was good. I think the highlight of the night for me though was having one of the adults say that she thought I was a good leader. I've been working at being more helpful at CR and it's nice to know I'm getting somewhere.

Later.

Wonderful Sunday

Hello again. As you can see (unless you have your eyes closed), I've managed to continue my streak of blogger postings. This one probably won't be too long though, because there isn't too much to say. Got up today at 9:30, went to church for an 11 o'clock mass. I helped out afterwards facilitating he signing of a petition for poverty in the city (it's public policy weekend), which went fine. Now I'm just waiting to go to CrossRoads, eager to see what we wind up doing. I'm not sure if Nora (our youth minister) has got a plan yet or not, it wouldn't be the first time we had to plan right before the meeting. Everything always turns out fine when we do (have to plan quickly), so I'm not worried at all. Hopefully it'll be a good night, I'll write about it later.
The picture I'm gonna put on this post I made some time last year or the year before. I took the picture, then brought it into photoshop to accent the tree, but the sky was always white. Hope you like it.

Hi everybody

Hello again! Here I am, actually posting for the second day in a row as I said I would! Miraculous! Now, what to post about?

Hmmmmmmmmmm........

Hmmmmmmmmmm............

I got it! No, no I lost it..... Hmmmmmmmmm.....

I guess I'll just post what's going on with me. Don't get your hopes up, it's not much. Today was pretty uneventful, the highlight of exciting being taking a shower. It wasn't a bad day in any way, just an uneventful one. So, let's look to the future. Tomorrow is Sunday, which means church and CrossRoads, along with general chilling in the house. This week doesn't hold anything too exciting either. We have Kieran and Isabella on Tuesday and Thursday, and the pastoral associate from our church is planning on joining us for dinner that same Thursday. This means that the house will most likely be cleaned, with a possible furniture re-arrangement also in the cards. As far as school-ish things go, I need to spend a lot of time reading this week. My Godparents gave me a book for Christmas which I still haven't read (or sent a thank you card for), and I also have the book it's based upon and another two books by the same author as the book that the book I got a present is based on.

GAH. We'll see how far I get.

Well, that's all for now. Until later, I leave you with this sunset photo. I took it at the end of January from the field.

The big 40.

Ah, my fortieth post and my first in quite some time. Sorry I haven't updated in so long, I'm still getting used to blog juggling I guess. But no more! I will be posting consistently again from now on!

At least, I hope so. =)

Seriously though, I am going to try to post more often again, so keep checking! I'll post tomorrow on what's going on with me, so for now I'll leave you with a picture I "made" last week. Enjoy!