Sunday, November 22, 2009

a new job.

Whoops...haven't updated this thing in a while. Sorry about that. Anyways........

I started a new job two weeks ago! I am working for a company called Vin Fen. You can check it out at www.vinfen.org. They are one of Massachusetts largest human services organizations. My current position is the Program Assistant for a program called PACT. PACT works with people with severe mental illness and really works to integrate them back into the community. I am so so so excited to be in an organization that is going to allow me to grow and learn as a social worker. The goal is to gain experience with this population so I can move into a more case manager type position.

The funny part about my new job is that we've been functioning without an office for the last two weeks. We should be able to get in there and start setting up this week, but we shall see. So since we haven't been in the office the three of us from my office that have started (we are starting a new branch of PACT) have been in a different PACT office. This has been great in the sense that I can observe and learn without being thrown in right away. It also has allowed me to be able to talk to a lot of the different clinicians and social workers and just really get some hands on experience. Talk about an unexpected blessing!

So anyways - that's the new job. I haven't really described it well because we really haven't gotten our office off the ground yet...but we'll get there! It's so exciting to be able to be at the start of something!

All right...I should get back to my husband...he's been sick all week! We're hoping his fever calms down and he's off to the doctor's tomorrow. Please keep him in your prayers...he certainly is sick of being sick.

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

a rockport weekend.


so we were in rockport more often then we were not in rockport this weekend (minus sleeping hours)...and it was just lovely.

day 1: game night with the slyman's and the lear's. we played rook:


rook is currently our favorite game...however playing with six players is A LOT different than playing with four players which is what we were used to...and i'm using that as the excuse as to why i lost. it's every man for himself so I didn't have the use of my favorite games partner ever (that'd be my husband). anyways it was a wonderful evening of laughing and gaming (even if i lost).

day 2: raking and lunching and video making and harvest partying all day long at at/with church.

mmm...isn't that cutest little church you've ever seen?! yes, it is overlooking the ocean..but it's cuteness if far outweighed the the other awesome parts of the church...aka the people who make up the church.

so on with raking we went...and by raking i mean finding lots and lots of worms because it had rained and while picking up all our leaves = picking up lots of worms. it grossed me out but the kids LOVED it.


and to prove that we actually did work:

anyways after two hours of raking up for some of the elderly people and around the church we were pretty excited to be done and eat some spaghetti and meatballs!!!

So we ate our lunch and sat around watching football just relaxing. so then we helped set up for the harvest party for the kids and quickly ran away because that scene became slightly overwhelming. we were going to leave but then sat down with patrick (the pastor) and started working on some video stuff since sermons are going to be broadcast on public access tv. sooo i got roped in (willingly roped in that is) to doing video stuff for church! i'm super excited about it and so glad to be able to use some "skills" (i'm not really good at video stuff yet...) and passions to serve others.

so we were there from 11 am til 6pm and proceeded to go home and crash really early. like 8pm early. yes we are old people. so then we woke up and were off to Rockport again for church. and another good sermon. mmmm solid sermons are SO nice.

so that was our weekend. it's so nice to feel at home in a church for the first time since high school. wow it's been a long time. it actually allows us to feel content here in Massachusetts away from family in a place that we were once not so thrilled about being in. thumbs up to pigeon cove chapel.