This holiday season has been the most relaxed and enjoyable holiday season (and perhaps period of my life) since I have moved to Chicagoland. Yes, I am still faced with the usual quandries of retail and acclimating myself to a “new” home but I have been able to handle them better. I attribute this to several factors. 1 – I have removed a lot of toxic elements from my life recently, 2 – I am healthier than I have been in years, 3 – I have more work experience which allows me to better handle situations while establishing and maintaining boundaries and 4 – I am more firmly rooted in my faith. This year, my days and weeks have not smeared together into one big blur. I am performing better at work with less effort and find myself just having fun. Does this mean I am looking to be a life long retail employee? No, not quite, but I am nonetheless enjoying the task at hand until the next adventure comes along.
My cat has been a big source of comedic relief for me lately. 1 - I enjoy purchasing a bouquet of flowers every now and then to place on my long bookshelf. The flowers tend to end just above Freckles´ head if she is sitting on the bookshelf. Lately, I have found her sitting underneath the bouquet, just intently staring at the flowers. It is the oddest thing I think I have ever seen her do. 2 - I discovered that she has an impeccable squirrel call. One morning I thought she was choking behind my blinds so I quickly rushed over to help her only to find that she was calling all of the birds and squirrels! All of them were in the middle of tweets and cackles. Another morning, I heard Freckles calling the squirrels through the patio door in my living room. Turns out, she attracted FIVE squirrels! They were quite curious of her so I certainly got my ammusement in by watching the squirrels climb to the top of the screen and make their way upside down to tease Frecks. 3 – Lastly, Freckles snorts. Yes, snorts. She keeps doing it when I play with her at night and I laugh so hard I can barely breathe. This 10 year old feline is so entertaining!
Ok, enough chatter about my cat and work.
I attended the pilgrimage in Missouri at the beginning of November, like I had previously mentioned. There were over 1,000 people in attendance for the last day and came as far as Syracuse, NY! We walked a portion of the Lewis and Clark trail to the shrine of Our Lady of Sorrows where countless miracles have happened over the years. You can read more about the stories here. I ended up running into far more people I knew than I anticipated. Several of the ladies from my recent retreat were there, some folks who used to live in Chicagoland and others that I know from other various occasssions were in attendance. I discovered that pilgrimages are a beautiful little microcosm of life: you struggle through various tribilations on a long journey and finally you reach your beautiful destination to take a deep drink of refreshing consolation and enjoyment, similar to life´s journey and targeted destination of heaven. I went on this trip not knowing what to expect but was pleasantly surprised to have learned an overwhelming amount about myself which I think has supplemented my recent fortitude. I very much look forward to doing this again next year!
Life has had a fun way of showing ma again just how small this world is in the recent weeks. My social self noticed another new face at church, so of course, I could not resist introducing myself. Long story short, I discovered that this gentleman with whom I was speaking (he is my age) and I have mutual friends. I took note that all of them were people with whom I traveled to Spain. Turns out, T (the gentleman) and I lived in Spain at the same time, went to the same school and had the same classes together and did not even know it! Further, he went to Guatemala for a few months for a volunteer program and worked with another one of my friends, who also was in Spain with us. It was very enjoyable to chat with him.
Speaking of surprises, a few days ago I get a call from my father. I anticipated he was still in Australia visiting N for another few days so you can only imagine what kind of situations I thought my dad had to be in to call me from his cell phone in a foreign country! He was actually on his brief layover in Chicago before his last leg home. As we were chatting, he told me his flight got canceled. We ended up making plans to meet at his hotel for a small bite and to exchange stories. The timing could not have been better, either, because I had just ended my shift at work. It was great to be able to catch up with my dad twice in the span of a few weeks!
My last exciting story is that I helped make, bake, frost and pack too many cookies to count for the Feast of St. Nicholas. Tradition has it that little kids leave their shoes out at night and St. Nick fills them with various goodies. Every year, Mrs. B makes a small batch of cookies to help foster excitement amongst the members of her family. This year, however, Mrs. B decided to send these beautiful cookies for all of the boys, faculty and staff at the school that her eldest son attends. Of course, I excitedly accepted the invitation to assist! It was fun to spend the afternoon which faded into the evening with her family making dinner, doing homework and preparing the cookies. Sparing many details, Mrs. B left very large shoes in her kitchen on the eve of the feast of St. Nicholas as St. Nicholas blessed her with a beautiful new stove after hers baked the last batch 3 cookies short of our goal.
I will be home for several days for Christmas and look forward to seeing as many people as schedules allow. More details are in my email.
Until next time!
