House Cleaning and Tutoring

It's amazing how the time flies! It feels like I have so much more time on my hands without school, but somehow I always find ways to fill my days.  I've begun to use my mornings for reflective time, working out, and trying to complete odd jobs around the house! As a house, we've decided to do what we can to make improvements to the house.  It seems that in a lot of ways, people have just lived here as if they will only live here one year.  Things don't get cleaned out and general chores haven't gotten completed like they should.  I'm excited to try to live her like this is truly my own space and make it better for the people who live here after me.  As a house, we have already replaced some of the furniture in the living room and have also begun cleaning out some cabinets that are piled with "stuff".  This morning, I had some extra time to vacuum out the car that I use daily and give it a nice car wash.  The beautiful weather outside this week has been a huge motivator in trying to get things done outdoors!

Work has only gotten better and better for me.  Not only do I feel more comfortable with our clients (especially the youth), but I also feel like I'm really finding my niche within the project.  One area in particular that I feel especially comfortable in is tutoring.  Today I had the privilege of helping one our our 7th grade kids, Jaqui, with her science homework.  We got through most of the questions, but some even I couldn't be quite sure of! We made sure to star those so she could ask her teacher before school tomorrow.  We finished a bit early, so I was able to talk to her for a while.  We talked about her brother at college and her cousin who is finishing nursing school.  She was really curious about college and medical school in general.  I was excited that Jaqui was comfortable enough to ask me questions about these things.  It seems like her brother is really enjoying being at college, but appreciates being able to come home often.  She said that her cousin is already doing clinical work in hospitals and how challenging that is.  She talked about school and how it's really hard for her sometimes.  It seemed like she is already thinking about her future with school which is wonderful! I assured her that if she works as hard as she is currently, she'll have no problem in high school and college.  I'm also glad that she is willing to ask questions about school.  A major issue we've run across with some of our youth is a sort of embarrassment when they don't know something.  I encouraged Jaqui to keep asking questions to us at the project and to her teachers whenever she needs it.