Overheard in the Office:

'Maybe I should institute a rule of "no shelf punching"'

Mayyybeee.

I have a drill

and I know how to use it!
I reminded myself that this is actually true today. The fruit of my labors? A laundry shelf holding up all of our detergents, just high enough to avoid major head injuries, but low enough that Heather can reach them. Excellent! My home-improvement project of the week, I guess.
A good week to all.

Weekend of recovery

This is the first of what I hope is many weekends to detox and refocus. I just need to take some serious time to focus on the very most important things in life. And, so, this weekend, I didn't venture too far from home. I did manage to log in a few fun moments:

• Friday night, Chris and I spent two hours walking around the National Cathedral. It was beautiful and a moment of reflecting and in a way, an exercise of refocusing. (Warning: don't go to the cathedral with Chris unless you want a quiz about the characters and stories portrayed on the frescos and iron gates. If you are me, you think that was all pretty cool and love having someone like Chris to share it with.)
• Yesterday, I just got my space cleaned up. I feel so much better when my space is in order.
  
• Today, the lawn got a haircut. I did Phase 1 (of 309?) of yard work to try to get this lawn looking better.
  
• Then, a yummy brunch at Domku with two of my favoritest people.
• My nose got readorned!
• A piercing pain withstanding reward of frozen yogurt followed by a Steelers game!

A great weekend, all around. I'm feeling good and ready to head back to work for the week.

Holding hands with a strange man

Ok, so it wasn't so much a strange man as a stranger man. Allow me to explain.
I had a somewhat traumatic experience on the way to work this morning. I was reading and deep in thought on the metro. Generally, I look up at each metro stop to see where we are, monitor our progress, yada yada. So, I was doing that and apparently, I missed a stop or two because when I looked up, it was Vienna (my stop). I leapt out of my seat to try to sneak out the door before it closed, but I was too late. Now, generally, missing your metro stop isn't the worst thing in the world. You just get off at the next stop and come back. However! My stop is the last stop on the line. Usually, the train sits there for a few minutes and then turns around and heads back into the city. But, not this morning. Oh no! It pulled away toward the train yard. I started getting a little scared so I hit the red button on the emergency box. I said, "I'm still on here! I forgot to get off!" I could hear him, but I don't think he could hear me because he just kept saying, "Hello? Hello?" With visions of me hungry and hot and tired, waiting for hours to be rescued from a metro train car, I starting freaking out a little more and dialed 411 in an attempt to reach WMATA and inform them of my predicament. Fortunately, before I got through that nightmare of a phone conversation, the conductor came back through the train.
"Whatcha doin?" he called down to me.
In an attempt to sound more relaxed than my actual frantic state, I mustered a smile and said, "I forgot to get off the train! I just wasn't paying attention. I'm sorry. What do we need to do?"
He said, "Well, I'm supposed to call my supervisor, but that will take forever. Here. Follow me."
We went through two train cars to the end and he opened the door to the outside world and climbed down onto the tracks. He looked up at me and said, "Do you think you can climb down like I just did?"
"Yeah, I can."
"You a city girl or a country girl?"
"Definitely a country girl," I said as I climbed down in an awkward, long-legged fashion.
Once I got down to the tracks, I looked up at him. He took off his glove, grabbed my hand and said, "Come on. I'll be your protector. Just walk on the ties."
He led me up to the platform and told me to have a good day.
Oh goodness! How embarrassing! At least I didn't get stuck on the train, I guess!

Load up the Hope

So, I've been working as a volunteer on a project for the last few months called Convoy of Hope. (I think the name is funny... like we're rollin' through the city with tankers ready to attack with hope) Anyways, it's finally happening this weekend. It should be good stuff (barring torrential downpours!). We'll be giving away meals, groceries, health services, haircuts, resume services, prayers plus providing kids and adults entertainment and probably more stuff that I forgot! We're expecting 10,000 people and we're pretty excited about it. You can read more about it here. If it strikes your fancy, let me know cuz we could still use volunteers Thursday, Friday and definitely Saturday.
So, that's what's been swallowing me up lately. Bring on the hope!