doing the warsh

The lock-in went smashingly, in my estimation...despite the sickitude and everything. Pittsburgh FINALLY got a decent snowfall in the middle of the night (actually really dangerous with the hills and all, but fun for us...) and so we had a snowball fight at 3:00am. I wish I could have taken pictures, but you know what they say: "Live for the memory, not for the photograph." Well...that and "I forgot the camera inside." I think the kids had a really good time, and they did a great job of keeping the cell phones out of use all night so that they could get to know each other. And even though midnight Mass was, well, at midnight, it seemed like the they didn't hate it...they even sang along with the music, which was AWESOME since I had almost lost my voice by that time! And Fr. Bob was great--I was pleasantly surprised when I asked him about the lock-in about a month ago and he agreed to say midnight Mass for us. He joked in his homily that it was just practice for this upcoming week (Christmas Eve).

And did I mention that the youth room looks SWEET?!?! I'm hoping to start having Open House Hours starting at the new semester--basically, a few hours after school a few days a week when kids can come and hang out in the youth room, do homework, play games, chat, etc. The folks I've talked to seemed really excited about it, so that's a good sign so far.

Last night at our first annual Ugly Sweater Christmas Party, we came up with a new name for the youth group, to replace St. Teresa's Youth Ministry starting in January. So now we are called The 412--not just because it's the Pittsburgh area code, but also in reference to 1 Timothy 4:12, which reads: "Let no one have contempt for your youth, but set an example for those who believe, in speech, conduct, love, faith, and purity." BOMB!

So after 25 hours awake with a cold, I went home at 8:30am on Saturday and crashed for about ten hours before getting up around 6:30pm...then I wasted time for seven-ish hours and went back to sleep from 2:00am until 9:30am on Sunday. And from then on, my body was like, "Okay, I guess I will sleep at normal times."

So it's about a MILLION ZILLION degrees in my apartment right now...and here's why:


Keep in mind that I'm getting on a plane to Minnesota tomorrow, so of course I left all my laundry until now, which led me to turning the heat up and using my Hello Kitty hair dryer (so the process will go faster). And that was just the first load!

That said, I hope you have a wonderful Christmas, and I'll catch you on the flip side...most likely next week when I get back to the Burgh!