This week I have been feeling incredibly grateful for the people I work with. There were several moments throughout the week where I felt entirely overwhelmed. In these moments I was showered with validation, words of encouragement, reminders to breathe and take breaks.
One day this week I was really struggling in my task to organize transportation for COVID positive guests to the quarantine hotel. The families were frustrated and did not want to isolate.
I have made it all this way just to test positive and have to wait 5 more day to see my family? I don't think so. And I don't have COVID anyway, I received four vaccines! Let me take another test!
Through language barriers and different understandings of how a vaccine works, it took some time to come to an understanding of what needed to be done. Although this is not an uncommon conversation, the intensity of one particular mom was enough to derail my composure for a bit and I was thankful for my coworkers who stepped in to help translate and communicate beyond the boundaries of my Spanish vocabulary.
Also this week Grace and I made a wonderful display of the size options for underwear so people have a better understanding of what we have available. I took the second image while playing on a basketball court with some kids one morning.
Outside of work...
Some pumpkin adventures and a delicious burrito with an unfortunately cold tortilla.
Staying cozy in the socks Andrea's Mom sent us.
Jessie, I could spend all my time associatiing with octogenarians and nonagenerians, or analyzing the merits of the vast variety of walkers or the different battery-powered "scooters" I see daily all around me. But I choose to also be stimulated by reading your blog and following some of the Instagram and Facebook posts of my younger relatives and friends--perhaps the current digital version of "rubbering." I've had an awesome life, considering my primitative childhood, and I continue to be challenged and stimulated by sharing in the experiences of you "youngsters". No hablo espanol! but I'm fluent in Pfältzisch dialect. Cheers!😎
Thanks for being willing to share joys as well as challenges Jessie. That can definitely be hard to express sometimes but you always share those experiences with some type of take-home message about what you learned or now understand better, and that is a helpful framework for me to think about challenges too! Also, Janet totally came through for you all here, that's a pretty rocking arrangement of socks haha!