Legs 2, 3, 4, 5, .....

Ahhh, home again. It's kind of funny how many times I have used the word "home" in the last week and a half to mean so many different places. I went home to the Motherhouse, home to my parents, home to St. Paul. It is an awesome feeling to have.

To continue from the last posting...

From Georgia I was able to go to Moblie, AL to be with a good sister friend for a couple of days. She has the picture of us with Oreo crushed in our teeth on her camera, but I have a few good ones. We talked (prayed) together, walked the beach, ate ice cream. All those good things. I love her family and have had the opportunity to be with them a few times now, so Mobile could almost be home also. As my novice director says, "We made up in intensity what we lacked in duration."

From Mobile, I got on a Greyhound and headed to St. Louis. LONG TRIP! I sat for most of the day with a lovely woman here in the U.S. from China. We chatted some, she asked lots of cultural questions, went walking during our layovers. It's funny with my work here at Sarah's how some of that information and experience keeps coming into play elsewhere. I was really hoping for the overnight leg of the journey to have two seats to myself so I could spread out and sleep. No such luck! Every bus was packed and there were actually people who had tickets left behind for lack of room. I sat next to a very nice, young man from Mexico on that trip. Close sleeping quarters, I tell you. I was very glad to make it to St. Louis eventually. The motherhouse was relatively quiet Wednesday which was nice since I could mostly catch up on sleep from the busride and trip thus far.

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Wednesday night I had leftover Thanksgiving dinner with my local communtiy at the motherhouse. That is the way to go! We had all of the Thanksgiving goodies and I had to do none of the cooking. Actually, I like to cook but that night I was so grateful the work had already been done. We decided to do a Sharing of the Heart for our prayer that night which was just wonderful. Being "home" at the Motherhouse is obviously different after being "home" in St. Paul for the last few months, but the Motherhouse will always be home no matter where I'm living.

I spent the actual Thanksgiving day with my mom's side of the family for a Thanksgiving/Christmas combination. I have just over 20 cousins on that side of the family, so with aunts, uncles, boy/girlfriends, all of whom only continue to grow up, it was quite a full house. Present opening, wrapping paper throwing, wedding anniversary celebrations, ... ... WOW! Lots of fun--long day.

Friday I stayed "home" at my parents. I went to my brother's new house and painted closets. Since we didn't have the full Thanksgiving dinner the night before, we prepared one on Friday. After dinner and pie, we then went back to my brother's for a bonfire and s'mores. My little cousins loved s'mores. I'm not sure how many they ate, but I am sure glad they were going back to my grandparents to sleep that night.

Saturday I had brunch with some of my college friends before heading to my cousin's wedding. The wedding was beautiful. My little sisters were in the wedding and looked so lovely. The reception was tons of fun. They had to hire the DJ for an extra hour as it was obvious none of us were finished when they had anticipated. Quite an event.

Sunday it was off to the airport to make it through security for the Thanksgiving rush of people home. My flight was about ten minutes late boarding, which still would have left plenty of time to make my connecting flight, until we were all asked to de-plane for some mechanical problems, which they did resolve four hours later. Needless to say, I didn't make my connection but, luckily I made another flight and made it back here to St. Paul just a little late for dinner.

WHEW! This introvert took a couple of hours and went in late to work this morning to recover. Glad to be home for a few weeks before the next part of the adventure.

--Sarah