Sunday, May 14, 2006

The city I love

The first annual USC talent show


Becca and Thane sing "A Whole New World".


E-Dog (aka Eric) "tells it like it is".




The Sarahs (plural, there are three!) play the piano.

other pictures

The girls in my house.

Katie (my roommate) and I before Mama Mia.

Katie, Melissa and I in Bozeman.


Me and Grandma Amy in Bozeman.


hiking pictures

In case you could not tell, I have an unnatural fascination with hiking to the top of mountains and then taking pictures. Here are pictures from a few of those hikes this spring.

Clear Creek Open Space Park in Jefferson County.





Patty and I atop Mount Sanitas near Boulder.







Karla and I at White Ranch Open Space in Jefferson County.

pictures



Me and my roommate Katie before Les Miserables.

A tribute to my mom

Being that today is mother's day, I want to pay a tribute to my mother. My mom taught me how to love, and some days that is all that keeps me going. Mom taught me how to love other people for who they are. And that is relevant everyday at my work.

Sunday, May 07, 2006

My other job

My other job is an on-call weekend manager for the Ronald McDonald House. Basically I spend the night at the house and handle whatever may arise in the night. This was a very quiet weekend. This job is so refreshingly different from my other job. I get exhausted with managing the women at work, but I do not tire of being with the families here. It is nice to just relax and talk with people rather than hand out bus tokens all day long and manage sometimes difficult behavior in a chaotic milieu. Here is a more relaxed environment. Not everything is locked off, I do not have to worry about things being stolen right in front of me. Here, people mostly just want to talk and I am willing to listen. Often, after being with sick children, they are craving adult conversation. They want some semblance of normality. At work, there are just so many people that there is no time to really have a conversation with anyone. I miss that. There is no relationship.

Monday, May 01, 2006

A Day Without Immigrants

Today, across the country, rallies and marches were occuring to protest the proposed immigration reform. In Denver, around 50,000 people participated in a march to the capital building. Immigrants and their allies were encouraged to wear white, march, stay home from work and not to purchase anything. A number of businesses in the metro area closed or accomodated the requests of their latino employees. I was unable to leave work, but the staff wore white and refused to purchase anything today. We had just one employee who marched with her immigrant fiance, and just having one person gone impacted us. I wonder how many other businesses were drastically affected. I hope this provides a wake up call to our lawmakers that immigrants do create a positive impact on the American economy, and we could not be the country that we are without them.