Twenty-Two

I have officially celebrated my CAP birthday.

That is the one birthday I will have during my year of service. I remember when I was talking with one of my friends who was also doing a year of service and she was discussing the implications of a year away from your home. A year encompasses a lot: a birthday, a Christmas, a Thanksgiving, a Fourth of July, and so on and so forth. You get my point. All those annual events that you are used to celebrating with your family the same way every year are going to be experienced in a different way.

One of the best parts of my birthday was a string of picture messages that I received from my Mom throughout the day. It started about 11am and continued throughout the day until almost 10pm at night. To mark my 22nd birthday, she sent me 22 pictures of things that related to/had the number 22 in them. It was simply amazing, especially this photo of my Meme.

The rest of my week (although it was hard to top the high standard set by my Mom) was also really great. We had a volunteer group come in from Significant Living which is an organization for people of ages 50 and older who are dedicated to service work. This particular group was a little bit older in fact one of the ladies I worked with was 79 years old. I only hope that when I am that age that I am willing and able to still be participating in service trips. Together with our group, we were able to finish up the laundry room that we had started last week and to complete another job that was on our To Do List. Both of the jobs consisted mainly of painting and finish work which was good for our group because it was enough to keep everyone busy all week.

The second house we worked on belonged to an older man who lives in a house which he built by himself from scrap pieces of wood and discounted supplies. He lives at the end of a holler by himself as his wife passed away several years ago. She is buried right near the end of his driveway about two feet away from his mailbox and he walks up there occasionally to put flowers out. Wade is quite the character to say the least. He doesn't get many visitors at his home so when six people show up at his home it just makes his day. He especially loved the fact that he could flirt with five ladies for two days straight.  His house was originally an Elderly Housing Project, but just needed some last things done on it to finish up the job. We were able to spend two days there and finish everything that was left to do including painting his entire house - walls and ceilings. Right before we left on Thursday, the Significant Living group and Wade took a picture together which he would only agree to if he had a lady on each arm. As you can see, they obliged him.

  

All in all, a pretty solid birthday week.