Thanksgiving Weekend.

Well, talk about a whirlwind Thanksgiving weekend for me. I’ll start by saying we were supposed to get our reports sent to the state on Wednesday (day before Thanksgiving), but that did not happen. I was a little stressed out about it and before my supervisor left, she told me not to worry about it and we’ll just sent it on Monday which is when the reports were due. She was going to be gone on Monday which is why her goal was to send the reports on Wednesday. Oh well, at least we tried to get it done. Wednesday was also our first snow fall. The weather people predicted very little accumulation, but they were wrong as there were close to five inches of snow. It was really neat looking out the window and seeing the snow fall. I also got fitted for a wedding in May where I’ll be in the wedding party (my first involvement as part of the wedding party and I’m definitely looking forward to it.) I think I’ll look really snazzy that day.

Thanksgiving day, I coordinated meal delivery for thirty two home bound older adults and I managed to deliver one meal as one of the volunteers did not show up. He did however, “chased” me down and caught up with me and delivered the final two meals. Initially I was a little disappointed when he did not show up to pick up the meals for delivery, but when he made the effort to trek me down, that said a lot about him. I’m guessing some other people would have just blown off the delivery, but he did not do it and kudos to him. After that was done, I headed over to Joel and Kathy for the Thanksgiving meal which was scrumptious as usual. Later that day, I worked at the house and brought over pecan pie for the residents and they thoroughly enjoyed it. Some of the guys did manage to spend Thanksgiving with friends and family which made me feel good, but the rest pretty much spent the day at the house. Since it was a pretty quiet night, I invited a number of the guys to join me in playing Monopoly and we had a blast. Even the guys who did not play were watching up play. All in all, it was a fine evening for all involved.

The day after Thanksgiving also known as Black Friday because of the crazy shopping that takes place throughout the day was pretty mundane for me. It dawned on me that if I was a shopping person, I could have gone right from work to the mall because one of the malls opened at 12:01AM. Can you believe that? Sheer insanity in my books. I soon found out that 35,000 made it to the mall during those wee morning hours. Ann’s daughter and grandkids were town and she asked me to call her at 10AM to find out what their plans were and if they did not have too much going on, I could have met up with them. When I called, Ann informed me that the youngest kid was sick and the last thing she wanted was for me to fall sick. So, I did not get to meet up with the kids which was a bummer but there will be other times. I decided to spend some time in the library close to my apartment just catching up on magazines as I figured most people would be out shopping and I was right. I went in to work at the other house and it was a pretty mundane day. Nothing too much happened. I did invite a number of the ladies to join me in a game of Scrabble and two of them did. We had fun, and good times were shared by all involved.

Saturday was another working day again and my plan was to go to the movies after I was done working. I went to the library to check my e mail and find out the scores for Liverpool’s game and found out that Liverpool won and the game would be replayed on the TV later that evening. Movies took a backseat for today, and I went back to my apartment not before buying a couple of DVDs from a DVD rental place. They had three movies I did not see in the theater for sale at $7 a pop which I thought was a good deal. So, with my DVDs in hand, I snuggled up in my apartment and watched the Liverpool game which was a very good game and then proceeded to watch one of the movies (The Shooter) which definitely was action packed. Oh, I forgot to mention that I made tuna casserole for the residents and it turned out much better than I thought it would have turned out. The other staff commented that I can’t really mess up tuna casserole and I guess she was right!

Sunday the young adults were responsible for serving coffee and donuts and it was also Sr. Carola’s farewell. She’ll be retiring from St. Kate’s, and will be going on an Advent retreat then take classes in the spring semester in Minnesota. She’s looking forward to the new stage and challenges in her life and we all wished her nothing but the very best. I told her a number of times that I’ll definitely miss her as she’s a very special person to me. It’s not goodbye but rather until we meet again. The rest of the day was spent working at the house. The women who played Scrabble with me played it again and we once again, we had a good time. Hey, the way I look at it, anything I can do to break the monotony and get them to socialize with one another, I’m up for it.

That’s pretty much how the weekend went. It was a pretty fast one no doubt, and a lot of it had to do with me working those extra shifts. I figured it made more sense for me to work on Thanksgiving and the day after since most people would much rather spend it with family since it is a major American holiday. I really did not have too much going on so I might as well work. Things will quiet down a lot more work wise in December at the houses because I’m not planning on adding any extra days except for Christmas and New Year’s Day. I guess this is it from me for this week.