A Very Busy Day

Today started with a meeting at 7:30 and it seems all I did was run from one appointment to another for the entire day. The first one was our weekly construction meeting where we plan the week's activities. The 9:00 was our staff meeting where we met not only our new Executive Director Chris, but also another AmeriCorps employee who moved here from Missouri. Next, we met with a group from a Presbyterian church who will begin a house in October. Moving on, I ran to help one of our new AmeriCorps, Kim, move a dresser and bed into her new apartment. This I followed up with a conference call with Silver 4, the AmeriCorps NCCC team that will join us from August until the end of September. Throw in a meeting with Chris, another trip to move a mattress, a last cigarette while leaving the office where I witnessed a police officer drop his ticket book (that I subsequently retrieved and will report tomorrow) when he drove off in pursuit, and a mad dash to avoid a thunderstorm on my motorcycle, and you can call it a day.

I mention all of this, because in all that hustle, the meeting with Chris was the most significant. In fact, it was one of the most significant I've had since I moved to this town. Chris comes from a construction background, has worked in non-profit development, and was a priest. I've mentioned here that I'm interested in pursuing opportunities abroad with non-profits and I had an opportunity to share some of this with him. In fact, I got to share a lot with him. I'm reasonably certain that I could stay with this affiliate when my AmeriCorps obligation ends (which I believe is August 27). To fulfill my requirements, I am to have completed 1700 hours by then. I'm not certain I will achieve that - it will be close. The two months I spent in St. Bernard don't count toward my hours, and that put me a bit behind. I believe that around that time, I'll post something summarizing my time here in Baton Rouge, so stay tuned!

To get back where I started: the meeting with Chris was a great opportunity for me to remind myself of some of the reasons I took the year off. To say (write) it out loud again, I wanted to spend a year living from my heart, helping others, making connections, and learning about myself. I don't want to get ahead of myself, and I'll save some of that for the end of August, but it's always good to assess where you are, how you got there, and where are you trying to go. Rather, it's good for me to assess that. You do what you have to do for you.

Anyway, if you want to see a work in development, you can take a look at a map of some of the houses that we've built this past year, and some of the ones we're getting ready to build. It is a work in progress, and I will update the map with icons to distinguish new business from old business at some point in the near future as well as update it as we secure the property we will build on this fall. It uses the Google Maps API, and is available here.

(Ok, last aside. I've snickered before about blogger's spell checker doesn't recognize blog or blogger. It doesn't seem to recognize Google either. Cute.)