Post-Appalachia

So I flew into Westchester on Saturday night and am already in Lake George with my family and best friend. It feels so surreal being here. It's great to see the family and friends for a bit, don't get me wrong, but it's just so odd that it's all already over. So many of the hours and days this summer crawled by, yet somehow in hindsight the weeks flew. It's a little hard adjusting back home because nobody really understands. I'm really blessed that my dad came to visit me last summer, so he knows the extent of the job and the day to day obstacles. At the same time, he is able to recognize that joy on my face and see the twinkle in my eyes when I'm talking about home-owners, and he understands just how important they all are to me. But because he was the only one to visit me down there and unfortunately couldn't come again this year, I'm really struggling with explaining all of my stories and accurately portraying the significance and beauty of my summer. I feel pretty useless, laying around in the sun and on the couch up here on the lake, but my body is thanking me. It needs some rest, and a break from shotgunning Monsters and surviving off the varieties of Hostess treats. I'm so thankful that I got to visit my church again this summer- they're all such amazing people and I'm so lucky to have such a great community to fall back on. It's funny, now that I'm on staff and see my church group through different eyes, I am now so much more thankful than ever to be part of such a unique and incredible group of people! I wouldn't have wanted to be raised by any other group of wack jobs :)

All in all, my summer was challenging. Humbling. Moving. Rare. All of these words can't even begin to encompass what it really was, but they'll have to be enough and you'll all have to trust me when I say that I have the best job in the world.

Last week!

The fact that I haven't written on here in a week or so is a good indicator of how busy we've been. Mannnn things are/have been nuts here! This weekend was our big Lowe's event, which didn't turn out to be as big as we had hoped/thought it would be. We were told that about 25 volunteers would be working with us on the site from 9-5 on Saturday and 8-noon on Sunday.. but only about 7 volunteers came the first day and two came the second day. It didn't end up being a huge deal, although it definitely set us back in terms of how much work we're going to be able to get done by the end of the summer, which is a big bummer! It was really neat though, being able to be on site all day and to direct the volunteers as they were working and show them how to do some projects. Being the volunteer and being able to do the physical work is definitely something I miss about coming on ASP rather than being on staff-- but that's something I'll get to look forward to as a Group Leader for sure!

This week's volunteers are great. I mean great. They came in here with their bright yellow and pink shirts on (we have two different churches this week) and were immediately ready to sing and have fun! They have lots of experience which is just what we need to get these projects done. We have a lot on our plates this week, probably more than we should at this point in the summer, but we're dealing with the hand we've got. We've also been blessed to have some "helping hands/liasons" come work with us for a few days, who essentially just are extra staffers to do whatever we ask them to. We try not to abuse this privilege... but they are super helpful and we love them!!

I reaaaally needed this energetic batch of volunteers too because I'm feeling the tidal waves of exhaustion hitting me. Now that it's week 8, I'm much less excited to wake up early and do hardware, much less excited to wake the volunteers up, much crabbier at the end of the staff meetings past midnight... and of course all of these things are inevitable. I am so excited though to get back into a normal sleep/eating schedule because my body currently thrives/hates me for drinking so much Monster and sleeping so little. (In the picture, you'll notice my staff and a few guests doing the ritualized shotgunning our Monsters on "Blue Monster Mondays". We quickly developed a passion for both shotgunning and Monsters.. so we pretty much do this before runs every day. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger...? Maybe?)



Overall though, this summer has been incredible and I just feel so blessed to have been a part of changing all of these families' lives... I can't wait to see the finished products at the end of this week!