I cannot believe this have been almost 10 years. That little girl would have been about 16. Anyway, check out the story. They made an arrest today.

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So this week has a been a pretty good and exciting week at work. The past 2 1/2 weeks I’ve been pretty stressed and overwhelmed at work since Armelle, our Case Manager, left us. I’ve been doing my normal job, working on some stuff to get together for a grant we’re applying for, trying to interview people and sort through the 40 resumes I received, on top of meeting with Armelle’s clients and do things for them. I’ve been going to work earlier and staying later than normal.

Monday though, I took a much needed afternoon off to go volunteer at the Youth Center, which I haven’t gotten to do in a great while. It was a lot of fun and a good stress reliever. We also (I think) reached a decision yesterday about who we’re going to hire. Let me tell you, it was hard. I had 3 final interviews with people who were just excellent. I would have hired any of the 3 on the spot had the other 2 not been a factor. As Major Tedd said, “it’s a ‘good’ problem to have.” I felt good knowing that most likely, there couldn’t be a “bad” decision. So anyway, I think we finally decided, but now I want to find some other organization that is hiring so I can send these 2 ladies there.

Anyway, that is pretty exciting. I’ve never “hired” anyone before. It’s cool. I actually get to make a decision in who I want to work with and what I want that position to look like. I get to do that today. I also had some discussions with my supervisors about the new project on our campus that we’re going to do, which is building a emergency shelter to replace what we use the rooms at the motel for. We got some fancy name for it, but emergency shelter will suffice for now. The plan is to get that done as soon as we can, and we can start working on it anytime after October 1st. Along with that, I talked to them about moving our offices to that campus, so that was accepted well and can probably happen in 2-3 months.

Finally, my non-work related, but still Savlation Army related, is that I threw out the idea for a program I wanted to do as a volunteer, geared more toward youth and stuff, and it sounds like it may work out.

So yeah, I’ve had a pretty encouraging week at work. I’m excited about my job and i’m really enjoying what I’m doing right now. It’s great to work for a place and have supervisors who really encourage your ideas and are willing to support you in the decisions you make, so long as it makes sense to do so, and trust me, I’m sure I’ve came up with a few lame-brained ideas that they were just like…eh, no. It’s okay though cause at least they listen to them and then tell me why they won’t work.

So, a funny thing happened to me at church yesterday. Well, not really funny, more amusing than anything. It would have been funny if I hadn’t realized something beforehand. As it is, its just mildly amusing, but funny thinking about how I could have embarrassed myself.

Anyway, I was at church yesterday morning. We were back in the newly renovated chapel which was exciting. Anyway, I’m just standing there, people are coming in, etc…. This guy walks into the chapel. Probably my age, a little older. No one is with him. I’ve never seen the guy, assume he’s never been there, so I’m waiting on the regulars to go talk to him (Jessica, Major Tedd, Franny). No one does. Now, I’m not one to be the first person to talk to new people, but here’s the deal. I see this young man, who is seemingly single since he is sans woman with him. I admit it. Anytime a single, young male walks through the doors of our church, it peaks my interest. Not to say I was like “oooh, check out that guy.” It was nothing like it. It was just like, “oh, single guy, in our church? I should definitely talk to him.”

So, as I’m about to take a step that way, all of a sudden I have a flashback of a conversation I had with Sara Wilson about a week ago. It went something like this:

Sara: “Hey, I saw (name of a girl I know) at the beach the other day.”
Melissa: “Oh yeah, did you talk to her or just see her?”
Sara: “Yeah, we talked to her. She was with some guy named (guy name). Is that her boyfriend?”
Melissa: “I have no clue. I haven’t heard if she’s dating anyone or not, but maybe. What did he look like?”
Sara: “(describes guy)”
Melissa: “Yeah, doesn’t sound like anyone I’ve ever met. Could be I guess.”

So, I’m taking a step toward this guy, interest peaked, and suddenly realize it’s probably the same guy from the conversation. I literally stumbled over my feet for a second. Not that I couldn’t have went to say “Hi, I’m Melissa,” or that I was even going over to flirt or anything with him, but lets just say my approach would have been a little different. Rather than, “Hi, I’m Melissa. What’s your name? Where are you from? What do you do? (all the while being nice and interested in what he’s saying)”, it would have went more like, “Hi, I’m Melissa. Nice to meet you.” (Which is what it ended up being anyway after I sat down and he introduced himself to me). Yeah, just a little amusing. If I had talked to him without that knowledge I’d have looked like an idiot, not to mention a really bad person who could be flirting with someone’s boyfriend—right in front of her! Apparently he’s been to our church before, a couple Sundays ago when I was in Seattle. Apparently everyone already knew him.

Needless to say, the most amusing part is the “would have been” part of me going to mildly flirt with this guy who is very definitely the boyfriend of above referenced girl that I know. Not flirt because I was checking him out, but like I said, if a single guy walks into our church, I take notice!

So, thats my embarrassing story for the day.

So I dyed my hair over the weekend. I’m not sure why. I had to walk through the hair color isle at the store to get somewhere, so it was an impulse buy. At any rate, my hair was kind of a blondish-brown color. Depending on who you asked, they may already tell you my hair was brown, with some blond, or blond with some brown. I’ve always considered myself a blond, but in more recent years, a dark blond.

So, the transformation wasn’t nearly as noticeable as I hoped. I wasn’t going for drastic, just enough that people were like, “oh, your hair is brown.” It is definately darker, but not all that noticeable to me. It just seems to be evened out. It’s about as dark as parts of my hair already was. Don’t get me wrong, people did notice my hair seemed darker, but still not enough to comment on it. At this point, not a lot of people have seen it though. If I end up liking it, perhaps I’ll go a little darker next time.

I have to take a picture of myself in a new t-shirt I won (from ebible.com), so I’ll post it up and you all can let me know if the hair looks any different (if you aren’t fortunate enough to get to see me on a regular basis).

I’ve got to slow myself down. I realized tonight, as I’m coming up with more and more ideas of new projects I want to take on that I am seriously close to being overloaded. Sure, I may feel like SuperGirl right now, but its gonna stop soon.

I do this though. I feel like a kid on crack, or at least ADHD. I’m just going to have to force myself to chill out for a while until I finish some things before trying to start anything new.

As good as all that may sound (energy and overall happiness), its probably not completely good. But at least I realize it. Yes, Crystal, its one of those times, so be prepared for me, say about, mid-September

Two interesting things happened today. Well, perhaps more than that, but two I’m talking about here. They were kinda different statements made to me by different people, but they both seemed to have the same outcome in my head.

Yeah, I don’t feel like getting into it. If you want to know, you can just ask me

Its funny how certain things always seem to happen at the same
time. Not sure why. It’s funny actually. See, I had this
distraction yesterday. A good distraction I think on some levels,
because there was something I definately needed to be distracted
from. But still, perhaps not the best distraction. And now, I have
another one to go along with that. One I definately don’t need, but
perhaps its a distraction from my distraction? Maybe Distraction B
came along to keep me from getting too distracted by Distraction
A….all the while distracting me from the Orginal problem without
the fear of Distraction B becoming too much of a problem. For you
visual folks, its like this: "http://www.crumplednotebook.com/img/distractions.jpg"> "http://www.crumplednotebook.com/img/distractrions_sm.jpg" />

Yeah, I’m bored, so I’ll do this little survey… FOUR THINGS
you may not have known about me….. A) Four jobs I have had in my
life: 1. Correctional Officer 2. Lumber sorter/stacker 3. Loan
agent/Bill collector 4. Newspaper Reporter (so yeah, i left out the
normal ones B) Four movies I would watch over and over: 1. The
Whole Nine Yards 2. Home Alone 3. The Sound of Music 4. Office
Space C) 4 places I have lived…. 1. Monticello, KY 2. Bowling
Green, KY 3. Lexington, KY 4. Marina, CA D) Four TV shows I love to
watch: 1. Rescue Me 2. Law & Order (SVU or Original) 3. Friends
4. My Name is Earl E) Four places I have been on vacation: 1.
Florida (all over) 2. Seattle, WA 3. Myrtle Beach, SC 4. Las Vegas
F) Four websites I visit daily: 1. Gmail 2. Digg.com 3. MySpace 4.
Unsite.org G) Four of my favorite foods: 1. Burritos 2. Peanut
Butter 3. mac and tomatoe juice 4. Pizza H) Four places I would
rather be right now: 1. KY (not for toooo long though) 2. Hawaii 3.
Big Sur camping 4. basically anywhere but Monterey Four things I
could NOT live without: 1. God 2. Internet 3. Knowledge 4.
Family/Friends

If I lived in Las Vegas, I would have broken the law today….

I just read an article, or three about “the Las Vegas City Council voted unanimously this week to pass an ordinance making it illegal to give food to homeless people in city parks.” Heck, even the Brits are reporting it.

Apparently they are the first major city in the US to make helping people a crime, with a fine of up to $1000 and six month in the slammer!

Now, I’m sure they claim they don’t want to create a cycle, let people depend on it so they’ll never go out and do for themselves. If that was the case, they could come up with a better plan. Sadly, I’m pretty sure the city council in Las Vegas, and the complaining residents for that matter, are probably about as ignorant as the wonderful little of city of Monterey right here. Basically, Monterey doesn’t have homeless people (if you believe that, I got some land for you to buy too). I’m sure this is the same reasoning behind this Las Vegas thing. I mean, it’s Las Vegas. The land of hopes and dreams, shiney lights and tall buildings. Who wants homeless people entering that dream of fame and fortune? Apparently not the city.

According to the LA times article, apparently their homeless population has doubled in the past decade. With that, they have a lack of services provided, so volunteers go to parks and feed people. Seems to me the problem isn’t the volunteers feeding, but the fact that in a city with so much money, they apparently can’t provide some more services to help needy people.

My question is this. What does this say to people who actually have the desire to help people? I mean, I took my Teen Sunday School class out to the beach today with some sack lunches and we passed them out to the homeless that hang out around there. The kids were excited. They “felt good about doing it.” So what message are we sending to people like them? People who want to serve others? Sure, you can accept the consequences, pay the fines, spend the time in jail, but then soon enough, at $1000 a pop, you’re going to be homeless out there with them.

This seriously makes me want to barf. I also worry about the trend that it could set. I mean, here on the Peninsula, we already have to walk the line with the city about when and where we take the truck out to feed. Thank goodness for the Navy School allowing us to set up there.

I seriously don’t think I can ever go back to Las Vegas. Screw them.

So, jumping off the previous post, I also had some realizations about how I’m different personally, not just career-wise.

When I left Kentucky, I had spent just over 2 years in Lexington. I was a pretty unhappy person. I was unhappy at work and I was unhappy at home. Let me clarify something about my job though. I loved my job. I loved what I got to do, I just hated the environment and the restrictions. Working with the kids was great. Working at a jail sucked. When I left, it was my job that drove me away. It was hard to leave my family and friends, but I knew it had to be done. I had plenty of reasons to stay, and only one reason to go (unless you want to psychoanalyze the fact that it was probably just as much or more about running away from life). On the surface level, I could have left my crappy job, and not left the state. But hey, I was young and I wanted an adventure.

So fast forward to right now. Right now, I find that my job and my purpose here is what makes me stay here. Not that I’m eager to run off, but as I’ve mentioned before, initially, when I decided to stay an extra VISTA year, it was about the people and my life here. At some point, it became less about the people and more about the job or more so, the purpose. My purpose. It’s not to say that the people here are any less important, but on some levels I’ve changed. I don’t seem to need people as much. I think that is part of the consequence of being away from most of my family and friends for over 2 years. Let me tell you, it gets really hard to keep in touch with people. I was really good at it when I got here, but I suck at it now. I think part of it is that I’ve concluded that my life is here now. This is my home, not Kentucky. It’s easier to maintain relationships when you know that you’re going to be back with those people again at some point in the future. Now, I have friends that I don’t know if I’ll ever see them again.

Bad thing about Monterey is that a lot of people move away. I make relationships and then people leave. Either due to the military, marriage or just the plain fact that its an expensive place to live. I just feel like I have very few people attachments here, if any. Sure, I love my friends here, I’ve become much less of an attachment person. I don’t know if that is good or bad. Anyway, it’s just funny that I left one place because of my job primarily, and I stay in another (an expensive as heck place for that matter) for the same reason.

I think attachments are good in general, but my theory is that right now, it’s good for me not to feel attached. I think I could be being prepared for something that may need me to not have anything holding me back from doing what I need to do. I don’t think its anytime in the near future, but it could be lingering out there.