Hey, I'm Back!

No, I haven't abandoned my blog. I've just been too busy to blog lately! So I think it's time for a quick recap of what's been going on around here the past few months.

The least pleasant part of this time was that I caught a cold the week before Thanksgiving, and I've been trying to get rid of it ever since. A week after Turkey Day the cold turned into laryngitis, but the worst laryngitis I've ever had. I do have a tendency to get laryngitis with colds, but usually that just means one day or so of no voice and another two or three days of hoarseness. This one is quite unusual: I've had laryngitis now for about four weeks! When my cold turned into laryngitis I went to the doctor and she prescribed antibiotics, and now I'm wondering just how long I should wait before making a return trip. In the meantime, I sound like Alvin and the Chipmunks much of the time, which of course makes me the highly amusing one around the house. Brigid and Ron have been having loads of fun at my expense.

We had Ron's parents here for Thanksgiving, and Brigid had volunteered to help prepare the big meal. Turned out to be a lot more "help" than she'd bargained for, though. My cold was at its worst on Thanksgiving, and I didn't think I should be handling the food very much. So Brigid ended up doing nearly all the work: preparing, marshmallowing (okay, that wasn't so hard), and baking the sweet potatoes; peeling, cooking, and mashing the potatoes; trimming and cooking the green beans; preparing and roasting the turkey. This was the first time she'd ever had to handle raw poultry, and she definitely was not happy about that. But she screwed up her courage and dug right in. The meal was a great success, but when the time came around to make Christmas dinner, she declined to help. Gee, I wonder why.

I've been doing some volunteer work two afternoons a week the past few months. I spend one afternoon at our local food pantry updating client files in the computer, and another afternoon as a telephone specialist at our local 211/information and referral service (www.211.org). The data entry work at the food pantry is pretty easy but necessary, and the other people I work with are fun to be around. The telephone work at the 211 call center is more challenging and more frustrating sometimes but also more rewarding. I take calls from people wanting information about a range of stuff, everything from local support groups to volunteer opportunities to government information to financial assistance programs. Most of the calls are from people who need financial assistance of some sort, though. The frustrating part comes in when a caller needs help with something that our community has no resources for or when the caller has already exhausted those resources; it's hard to tell someone that no help is available for the problem. But most of the time I'm able to point the callers in the right direction for the help they need, and it's especially gratifying to uncover solutions the caller didn't know existed.

I've finished several crochet projects. I'll write about them and take some pictures as soon as I get new batteries for the camera.