I have had an eventful weekend. Ok, technically, an eventful Saturday. Bright and early Saturday morning I got up and got ready for the day and met a group of my fellow students at our college at 7 am. We headed to the United Center to take part in a day of service in honor or Martin Luther King Jr. Check in, get some free treats, listen to a speaker, board your bus. This was a city-wide event, with approximately 4000 volunteers working at 50 different sites.
My group, along with others, was bused out to the west side to a community center called Marcy Center. The center offers programing from infant to senior, serving a low-income population. The director of the center split us up into 4 groups, each working on different projects. Given they didn't know the skill set of the volunteers, the projects were very simple - basically, things the center just had not had time to take care of themselves.
I was in the group assigned to creating paintings for the classrooms. Eight in all, the outlines were projected onto the wall. We hung the canvases on the wall, traced out the design, then took them down and painted them all pretty. Lauren, myself, and two others worked on a painting of farm animals reading a book. It turned out excellent. I did the pig and the book, mixing the colors for both. We added quite a bit to our painting that was not on the original design, including the blue background, the bubbles, and the title on the book.
(BTW, the room coordinator was a girl about my age. She grew up in the suburbs of Chicago and did not know what the cow or the pig were. I had to tell her. Sadness.)
The finished product
Walt Disney watch out!
Lauren and I with lots of attitude in our new PASA shirts
We wrapped up around 3 pm and I got home around 3:30. I cooked a quick meal and crashed for a nap. Got up around 6:30 and got talked into going out with Angela, her sister Alicia, and their Navy buddy Noel. We went on a Chicago Blues tour. Basically, you start at one place, and throughout the night school buses arrive to take you to another joint. 9 in all throughout the city, although we only hit 6 (we missed a few buses at one place). These joints are the real, honest-to-goodness holes in the wall where blues got started. Each location had a blues band playing live. The night started at 8 pm and ended at 2 am - a long but fun night. Thank goodness I had a nap!
I spent Sunday cleaning the apartment and getting it put back in order. Angela took her Christmas items down on Saturday and packed them up. On Sunday I helped haul everything out to the storage closest and I packed it all in. Thanks to Jody's help over Thanksgiving, there is still plenty of room in the storage closest. When I finished putting away the Christmas items I went back to Angela and said, "What else?!" She couldn't believe I still had room until she checked it out for herself. Yayy for organization!
Oh, I also did my taxes yesterday and am less impressed by our tax system. I earned more, I paid in more, and I get less back. A lot less than last year, actually. I know, I know, that's the way it should be. It just kind of stinks the first time it really rears its head.
Thank goodness today is a holiday; the extra day off after the Saturday I had is much appreciated. From today on out, all of my extra time is dedicated to my Capstone course and the insane amount of research it requires. You would think not having to do a thesis would mean not having to do so much darn research.
The cold snap has broken. Although temperatures are still below normal, they are also much more livable. I have been on my landlord to get over to the property and do something about the weatherstripping (or lack thereof) on our front door. I am now up to my 5th time of asking him to take care of this (in two years). In my last email (do everything in writing!) I told him I know I am well within my rights to a) buy the weather stripping and do it myself or b) hire someone to do it. In both cases, I could legally take the cost off my next rent check since more than 14 days have passed since I brought the issue to his attention and he has done nothing about it. That got him moving and hopefully the issue will be taken care of this week.
That is about it here! Cary, I want to know who was right on the "Guess Who's Who" game!
Love!
~g
1 comment:
answers coming soon!!! =)
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