a long weekend

It's been hard to find time to write, but there are a few minutes now because tonight's volunteer group is serving dinner. Thursday was our big volunteer day at Betances Elementary School- about a hundred Home Depot employees from different stores in the Hartford area painted all of the hallways and a lot of the classrooms, put up lots of new bulletin boards in the hallways, put closet shelving and bookshelves in the classrooms, put benches and a patio area outside near the playground, and planted new flowers and shrubs. They also did a kids workshop where some classes came to the gym and each child got their own little orange Team Depot apron and we helped them each make their own little wooden toolboxes. Some people we worried about doing the work during a school day, but the kids were so happy and excited to see all of the volunteers and made banners and thank you cards. It was a long, long day of moving bookshelves from building to building and assembling shelves and wiping up paint drips, etc. etc., but it was really nice to see all of the details that Tom and Evan and I had planned in the past month come together and the work went smoothly- and it was so cool to see the hallways painted in the colors I had picked out!

Rachel and I took Friday off and so Thursday night we drove to NJ and Friday morning we went into the city. It was Rachel's first ever visit to New York City and it was so fun to show her some of my favorite places. Then Friday we met up with Rachel's friend Kate and Patience (and later Paul and some of his friends) and we had a really good time- my dad had a leftover night at a super fancy midtown hotel and we spent the night there. Saturday and Sunday we spent some time in NJ and then last night we drove back through Bridgeport and saw the Bob Dylan and Elvis Costello concert. It was so good! Especially Elvis Costello, he sounds exactly like he does on his albums and I don't think that happens very often when you see people play live.

Then this morning Rachel and I went to a Catholic high school in West Hartford and gave five consecutive presentations to groups of sophmores about volunteer opportunities at Hands on Hartford. High schoolers look so tiny! But not as tiny as the elementary school kids did on Thursday. I came back to work for lunchtime and then went to Foodshare again with Lance and Caroline. The drive there is so pretty and today was the first day that I really thought it felt like autumn. I love the leaves and the weather!