Someday I will have a real job. Maybe.

Today I stood out in the rain for an hour, watched two little boys squabble over one of them cutting the other in line, received flowers, worked with a living saint, and now I am about to answer the phone and door about a million times. I got to be outside to hand out tickets for breakfast, the 2 little boys are actually older than 20 and one flung hot coffee in the other's face. A man brought flowers into the Inn and gave them to me saying, "I wasn't sure what else to do with them so I brought them to you." Brother Xavier is one of the kindest, most generous people I've ever met and he worked the morning shift with me. He is almost 80 years old and even though he has lived in the United States almost his entire life, he still has not mastered the English language. He ambles around the Inn, spreading his joy wherever he goes. He runs a scrap metal business out of the Inn, and has guys who collect random metal, which he then sells to the scrap yard, repaying the guys and buying tokens with the proceeds. He distributes tokens like some people drop crumbs. Every time you turn around, someone is at the door looking for him. He never complains, only laughs. This afternoon, I am working in the office, answering the phone and the door, checking mail for people, and letting people in to use the phone.

This coming weekend I will be going back up to Siena to recruit for FVM at the annual post-college service fair. I will be speaking at Masses on Sunday and at teh fair on Monday night. I will be back to work Tuesday afternoon. As much as I am loving my life and as happy as I am here, I am eager for a little break from the action.

Marathon training continues. I did a 3-mile run last week and was so thrilled. I am planning to do the Broad Street Run in May, which I thought was a 5K but, as it turns out, is actually a 10-miler. Needless to say, I have a lot more work to do, but I can't wait!! Bad weather this week has prevented much work, making it hard to run outside and hard to make it out to the gym since the roads are so icy. We finally got some snow last night! but then it turned to ice and now slush, so the city has basically shut down. Schools closed, the mailman didn't show, and our entire breakfast crew bailed. Last night, we were supposed to have 2 high school groups work the meal but neither showed up. The team got to cover the entire dining room, and it sounded like they had a lot of fun. I was outside playing in the ice and slush. I had high hopes for making a snow angel, but they were quickly dashed. We are staying warm, though, and trying not to slip and slide over the glare ice.

I have been thinking a lot about the future but, unfortunately, have not had a lot of time to take action. The next step is to contact people to talk about options and pros and cons about the things I'm considering. It seems daunting right now, but once I start I know it won't seem so bad.

We are looking forward to a nice, quiet Valentine's Day; Katelyn and I are trying to get Maureen and Ryan to go do something romantic so that we can celebrate single-girl style (chocolate cake, broken-heart cookies from Annie, loud non-sappy music).