"Hope Secretly Feeds and Strengthens Promise." ~Sri Chinmoy

This week went by fast!  I don't know if it was because of the fact that we only had kids for two days, that I was frantically trying to catch up after being home sick last week, that I had two volunteer trainings, or because of house stuff (plumbers, electricians, moving tomorrow, in theory), but there just wasn't enough time.

Oh but first,

Happy Valentine's Day! / Singles Awareness Day! / Arizona Statehood Day! / Anna Howard Shaw Day! / Birthday?

Sick!  Yuck.
Unfortunately, I had to stay home sick last week on the day that the first of several volunteer training sessions happened.  I woke up that Wednesday morning at 4 with a 101.3 fever.  Yuck!  I felt so bad about not being able to go in, since I knew they were already short on volunteers and there was a volunteer training which *I* was supposed to be running (and, luckily, had already prepared for), so I still did the volunteer schedules (mostly because it would have been more work for me to remember what all was happening and type it out, than it would have been for me to just add and subtract names from the pre-made schedule, but partly because I still couldn't sleep).  In a rare moment (for me) of getting things done early, I had the schedules finished before I was even supposed to start work that day!  Which was great, because then I took NyQuil and fell asleep for the rest of the day.

Trainings
Speaking of volunteer trainings, Emily took over that first one for me.  I'm so glad she was able to do that!  How did she do this by herself all those years?!  I don't remember the program closing because she was sick very often.

Anyway, I did 2 more trainings this week, although one was kind of an accident.  No one had officially signed up for Monday, so I wasn't expecting to actually train anyone that day.  But one person whose emails back and forth with me were left off somewhat ambiguously did come, so I trained her.  And man am I glad I did!  She really seemed to pick up on everything quickly!  I'll think she'll be a great addition to our volunteers.  And I realized that it was also nice to have the practice before going into the training with several people the next day.

The second training was Tuesday, and it included 2 returning volunteers and 3 new volunteers!  We actually ended early, and since their rides weren't coming until the advertised time of completion, we got to hang out for awhile.  I really like them!

Jeff also trained several new high school students that same day, and one came to help out the next day!  He was so excited about it!  And his coming was actually a huge help, since at one point, I was the only adult in the room with our K-3rd graders.  They were really well-behaved that day (I think they took pity on me), but it was still nice to have the extra set of hands.

All that was to say that I'm really excited about all the new volunteers, and they seemed excited too.

House Stuff
Plumbers
Electricians
Packing
Cleaning
Organizing
Constructing Bookcases

I don't want to actually move.  I just want all my stuff to magically be right where I want it in the new house.  And clean and organized.  Let's pray for that miracle to happen, shall we?

Also, moving day is tomorrow.

Fund Raising
I have spammed many people on Facebook, and I am truly sorry for that, but I wanted to be sure everyone saw the need for donations.  Facebook is weird about who actually sees what posts on their newsfeed, but the messages usually go through.

I've had a great response to the fund raising attempts!  Thank you so much to all of you who have donated!  It means so much to me, and it also means that I can still help with the kids!

I only need another $900 per month consistently.  That number looks bigger written than it did in my head.  But honestly, it's less than what I had to raise before!  :-)

But if you want to share something with your friends, I don't mind at all: Send them here, please!

Funny Story
I've mentioned before that a wonderful group of people, led by a former volunteer, thankfully took over creating the art curriculum for the Troopers and Braves (K-3rd grade) for me this year.  Angels!

This week, in honor of Valentine's Day, they baked another bunch of cookies, all heart-shaped, to be decorated during the art portion of the day on Wednesday.

Well, silly me, I didn't look at the folder that they gave me at the beginning of the month which included a coloring page for the kids to complete once they finished decorating their cookies.  The decoration part only took about 5 minutes.  After that, I improvised.

Since there weren't quite enough cookies for all the kids to have 2, they each only got one.  When they were done, I got out another one and asked them how we should decorate Kevin's (my boyfriend, who volunteers with them a lot) cookie.  The result is below.

Mine is on the left.  I am not silly enough to let the kids choose what goes on it.

When we were done with Kevin's cookie, there was still time and a whole bunch of Red Hots left, so they all went on the cookie that the kids made for Junior (another awesome volunteer whom the kids think of as a big brother).  Unfortunately, no picture.  Just picture one of the above cookies piled to the point of overflow with Red Hots.

Workshops
Today is the first Friday workshop in partnership with the dA Center for the Arts in Pomona.  They're coming to teach our junior high and high school students about art from all over the world.  It should be starting any minute now.

My Friday workshop (the Math/Art for 4th-6th grade) is going well.  Last week was sparsely populated because I was sick before that.  I think the kids expected I wouldn't come.  I've found that they like researching things for themselves the best.  They'll complain at first, but when I tell them that all they have to do is learn about stuff in a certain subject and look for something that's interesting, or a quick answer to a question, they get really involved in learning all about whatever subject it is.

A rare photo of the kid in the middle.

He's catching up... hanging out with his little brother.

Three weeks ago they broke into groups and had to share their answers with each other.  Each group was assigned two ancient civilizations for which they were supposed to find how to write the numbers 1-10 in that language.  Two weeks ago, they started trying to figure out whether the Ark really could hold all those animals, based on the measurements given in the Bible.  Hopefully, by the end of today they'll have a definitive answer.  And luckily, they're the ones doing the math. ;-)

Bible story for the K-3rd grade... guess which one!

Rosie comes to work with me sometimes when there's no kids.
She hates my office.

The whole quote: "Hope knows no fear.  Hope dares to blossom even inside the abysmal abyss.  Hope secretly feeds and strengthens promise." ~ Sri Chinmoy

Seemed appropriate.