What a difference a day makes...

So yesterday at work I attended my first town hall meeting. These take place a few times a year to keep all the employees up to date on organizational changes. This one I knew I needed to be at because since the beginning of October major things have changed with in the place I work. All of the changes had something to do with the budget. Like a lot of people and places, the economy is still affecting our every day lives. Thankfully I still have a job... for now. Due to state budget cuts that took away 10% of our annual money, leaving us a half a million dollars short on budget. Unfortunately this means that parts of our organization will be closed and some people will lose their jobs. Oddly enough we were given small holiday bonuses just last week, and they are buying a new company vehicle, and having to spend over a thousand dollars worth of supplies for the outreach team. This doesn't appear to make sense to be spending when good people are losing their jobs, their jobs that they have dedicated their time and energy too, I get most people do that, but working with some of the kids they work with is extremely challenging and the people that are really good at it are harder to find. The point is the company has certain money that has to be used on vehicles or they lose that money, a portion of funds that is untouchable unless it is used to help families pay their bills, etc. You get the point. So as hard as 2009 has been on our organization, the C.E.O says next year will only be worse. Not exactly what we wanted to hear. We can look forward to more cuts in February and possibly even more after that. The general tone of the meeting was a total downer and truly I left feeling depressed. And one of my co-workers who I have never even seen in a bad mood said she needed to go home to take a nap. We all just felt drained and in limbo. It's hard to muster up the motivation and pump up the energy when you don't know if you will have a job in a few months. Do I keep working hard to help my clients? Of course. BUT I felt sad thinking of these families that may some day not have a program like ours to turn to. We are the only program of it's kind in our area, the next closest one is three hours away.

I am very aware that working in the social services you may be helping hundreds of people and there is a clear need for your services, but if money is an issue these are the programs that usually get cut first. I could go work in an office and do something I don't care about. Wait, scratch that. I can't. I can not let myself waste away doing something I don't like. Now there are definitely long days and days I can't wait to get home and leave all the stuff at work and yesterday was one of those days. A day of uncertainty. It got me thinking about people who work in the same place for thirty years (obviously I am not one of those people, and lots of times my jobs have ended before I wanted them to due to budget cuts) but that stability must be nice. Knowing that you will have that office in six months, the same amount on the paycheck, the routine. Then again I know it would be nice to pick up and leave all of that behind, to be spontaneous, to go do something you've always wanted to do but never had the courage, the thrill of taking the leap and praying that you land somewhat soundly. I also got to thinking that none of us have any idea what tomorrow will bring and all I can do is be present with this moment. We can try to prepare and plan, of course. But for the most part I want to just be here and feel like I do pretty well with change like this and I am flexible and creative and will "figure it out". There is always another option, a plan b.

Moving on... so today I am sitting in my office and my boss (well, old supervisor, technically he is my co-worker now because his position was cut, kinda odd, new adjustment) he comes over to me and my co-worker and says "Who wants to make someone's Christmas?!" And I immediately said "I do!".... "let's go.." So we left and went to Wal-Mart where we were going to go shopping. He began to tell me about the funds we still have left over and have the option to help those in need. This woman just recently left a domestic abuse situation with her six year old son and they have barely been living in a hotel for the past few days. She contacted our services and is now getting help. Everyone pulled together immediately, I think part because of the holiday and part because everyone has been feeling a little down about the future of our organization and to be handed a perfectly good candidate to help -you just jump at the chance to do so. The woman had nothing. She has tried desperately to keep her son at his school and he eats lunch at school and that's about it. They have no resoureces or support, until now. They were provided with tons of blankets, clothes, shoes and even games. While we were at Wal-Mart we bought $200 worth of groceries. It was very satisfying being a part of the whole process, and also very fun shopping for someone else. I had a chance to hand deliver the items to the woman at her not so nice motel she is currently at, however within the next few days she will be moved to a better, safer location thanks to our organizations funds. Also the woman is ten weeks pregnant.

This may sound like a totally depressing situation, which it was and they will have a rough road ahead of them. But the fact that this woman was courageous enough to leave her abusive partner with NOTHING and deal with the fact that she will have to accept help from others if she wants to better her situation for her and her kids. I truly believe this family has a better chance at life once they reached out for help and help was given. It's incredible helping someone who you know is going to do something good with that help. So many women stay in abusive relationships because they don't know what they will do next, but there are options, there is help if you look hard enough and more importantly it is SO worth it.

It was a good reminder to me that that is what it is about, helping one person at a time. Also gaining a little more perspective on what some people are struggling with. And praying that our organization and others out there have the chance to thrive in order to serve those that need it.

So whether I am at this particular job for the next two months or the next two years, who the heck knows. But I do know that in my next job I hope to continue to help those that want it and I hope this experience only furthers my passion for working with young people.

Quick trip to Iowa

Hey there... Matthew and I drove to a tiny town in Iowa to see his Grandma. We spent one day getting there, taking our time, exploring small towns, having a great time. We drive right through Amish country and saw several buggies on this trip.
At Grandma's our niece Ainsley wanted to have a tea party and the boys nicely joined in.
We stopped by this Apple Orchard... one Matt has driven by dozens of time but never actually stopped. We thought 11 a.m. on a Sunday was as good of time as any.
It was a very cute barn, with a shop attached, and lots of space for goats and some lamas. We bought some banana nut bread for Grandma and rhubarb jam for me, in honor of my Grandma Sugar. She always had huge rhubarb plants growing in her backyard in Iowa and she would make sauce and put it on vanilla ice cream. I knew we had vanilla ice cream waiting for us at home so I thought it was time to try it again.
There is a family favorite pizza place in town but we thought we would branch out a bit and ended up going to a cute Mexican restaurant, good food, and a cute little doggy bag to take back to the hotel full of leftovers.
We drove down town to the park that runs along side the Mississipi river. They have a pretty nice sized park full of objects, art work, and toy trains covered in lights (the picture doesn't do it justice).
On this drive I love looking at every thing through the small towns and all the barns I find to be very unique. Some are depressing as you can tell they have just been left alone and on the verge of falling over, but I thought these two were cool lookin.
The week before Iowa had gotten a lot of snow, but thankfully our drive was relatively sunny and dry. This semi must have slide off the road a few days before, we couldn't believe that it hadn't tipped on it's side.

It was a quick, fun, nice trip and I am very glad we made the trip.

Married!

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Too many awesome wedding pictures to put up here... but can we just show you two? We are very pleased with how our pictures turned out.... and have yet to figure out exactly how we want to keep them (around the house, photo album, dvd, etc.) Married life is even better than engaged life. Hope you all are enjoying this holiday season and thank you for sharing in our excitement!!

Little kids

We had a really great Thanksgiving. We spent most of the day at the Weiss' eating, hanging out, chillin with the niece and nephews and relaxing. Good food, great company, very nice. Then we came home and layed around for a few more hours enjoying some of The Office and Home Alone again (which is on all the time now), I even let out a tiny laugh at a part that I have seen a million times and in my food coma state I thought deserved a tired funny response.

This picture is actually from Halloween. My mom and I joined my sister and her adorable family to the petting zoo where little man Kestan was dressed head to toe as a cow. He had these little mittens that you had to struggle to find tiny fingers as he reached up for your hand to walk along side him. This kid is beyond cute, and like we all are in love with our niece and nephews, cousins, kids and grandkids... I of course think my nephew just so happens to be one of the cutest kids around, and that's that.



So Kes has began to LOVE uncle Matt... he just thinks he's the coolest, which is great. Anytime my sister says "Lindsay's coming over.." or "it's Lindsay!" Kestan's first response back is "Matt!! Matt!" We got a voice mail today from Kes saying over and over again "Hi Matt... ejghj eidh Matt, Hi Matt... eidjha wj wu Linly Hi Linly.. Matt! Matt Hi Matt!" You get the picture :) So pretty much any voice mail from an almost two year old that goes like that, is pretty great. And I know being an aunt is way easier and less tiring than being a mom or even a grandma for that matter... but as exhausting and life changing little ones can be.. at least they are so dang cute, that helps, right? :)

It's the most wonderful time...

Hello there. I woke up early with the dogs and then have taken the afternoon to be lazy. I have to remind myself that we have absolutely nothing planned the rest of the day and I really love that feeling. Matt set up our wifi at home because soon I will be working from home! It will be an adjustment but I am pretty excited about it. Work provided us with lap tops and soon cell phones to keep up with our clients. Working from home actually saves our organization money and let's us have more flexibility and thankfully keep our jobs at least for the next year that is. I definitely still have a long day at work every once in a while but I have truly enjoyed all of experiences (even the not so pleasant ones) with kids and their families because I know I am gaining alot from each encounter. So I find myself cozy and at home, currently on my lap top on the couch while Home Alone plays in the background, and a meal cooking in the crock pot. I love this time of year when all the good holiday movies come on. I have added a few to the list over the years but for the most part my favorites are the ones I've been watching for years.

Thanksgiving; Planes, trains and automobiles. If you have not see it, please rent it. Classic Steve Martin and John Candy. Love it.

Christmas; Scrooged -Bill Murray, maybe not so traditional but hilarious and sweet. Definitely How the Grinch stole Christmas (the cartoon). Home for the Holidays -Robert Downy Jr. and Holly Hunter, dysfunctional family makes for a great comedy. Another family with a lot going on but still the underlying idea is about love; Family Stone.

I am not a big candy eater, I like gum and reesee's peant butter cups, but around this time of year I love candy canes, plain. simple. peppermint candy canes. The grocery store by our house had fifteen kinds but no peppermint, thankfully Target had some :)

I put up our christmas lights on our porch and windows for the outside and love them. I don't want to rush and get a tree but when we do get it I know I will love decorating it, especially since my wonderful aunt Tracy hand made us a beautiful tree skirt for our wedding present, it's going to look great under our tree!

And if you've ever been around me during christmas you already know this but; my abosolute favorite christmas music is by the Carpenters and Amy Grant and then I like the really old stuff by Bing Crosby, Nat King Cole, all the stuff my grandma likes to hum along to.. warms my heart as she would say.

I hope you are all having a chance to enjoy your traditions, start new ones or whatever it is you chose to do...

there's something about the air

so work has been going well, busy but good. there is something kind of odd going around with all of our families, some things seem to be extra chaotic and we can't decide if it's the weather, this time of year, or perhaps too much dairy. i don't know what that means, i just had to add a third thing on the list for some reason. i took off work early today because i had a sinus head ache, and this was my first one ever, so i have much more sympathy for people who say they have a sinus head ache, i now understand. and later in the evening my boss called me asking where one of my clients lived, i told him and said "why, are you meeting up with them?" which this never happens in a normal situation so i instantly knew that something had gone wrong. he said "yes, SRS was called and we have to go over there now, i will tell you all about it tomorrow". so, this obviously is not good news and this has been a very chaotic family since the beginning (July). however it did make me wonder, if i was at work would this same thing have happened? i had called this mother five times in the morning from 9-noon because i knew they had a scheduled meeting tonight and i wanted to confirm a meeting with them for tomorrow, however mom never answered and never returned my calls (which is unusual for this family). i was on my drive to pick matthew up from work because his car wouldn't start this morning. his car is fine, just hates the cold weather and we were leaving at the same time so it was just easier to take him then wonder if he caught the bus, etc.
so, i let myself burden myself with this families issue for a few minutes. wondering if i could have done anything different. then i stopped myself, and reminded myself not to feel burdened or internalize any of the negative things i see and hear every day (there are lots of good things i see too) but when you feel compassion and empathy for families it is also easy to drown yourself in their problems too. i take myself back and remember that i can only help people who want help, and even then i can only do so much. their burdens are not there for me to carry. i know that it is all worth it at the end of the day even if i only help 2 out of ten, at least those two were helped, right?
i also know that things happen for a reason. and whatever happens with this family (i obviously don't know the whole story yet) but there could be an issue of the mother losing custody of her kids and as sad as that is, it might be something that saves this family.
i want to continue to help, to be energized to help those that want it, and know that my part is my part and the rest is up to them.
i continue to work from a place of goodness, to try and see the bigger picture more often. i know that even a little is better than nothing, and i'll strive for a lot...

do you love recess?

i went shopping on saturday with my mom and sister. it is always great having that girl time together to catch up, have fun, and grow closer. we were at an outlet store, which any sort of store/mall on a saturday is one of my least favorite things to do. i don't like all the crowds, all the hurrying, people not walking my speed, etc. but i managed to enjoy myself because of the company i was with, plus i really like people watching. i was in the little girls section of old navy looking for a cute top possibility for my niece. a mom and her daughter were slowly getting closer to me, and eventually pushed me out of the isle as i leaned into some clothes and made some weird noise that made only myself laugh as i walked away.. but before that the mom was looking at every single shirt and reading it to her daughter. the girl was around 9 or ten so i am pretty sure she could read all of these herself, which was kind of the funny part to me.
the mom -"ohhh i like recess (reading the shirt), amber! do YOU like recess??"
eight seconds later, the mom -"ohhh marshmellows, amber do YOU like marshmellows?"

you get the idea :)