Benefit

Life has been pretty busy out in Sacramento. I've been working 2 part time jobs, one with Clean and Sober and the other with El Hogar. El Hogar provides mental health services for individuals in Sacramento and I'm working as a service coordinator. I've been there for about 1 1/2 months and will be going full time in November. I'm staying with Clean & Sober through the annual benefit, where there is a silent auction and dinner. I'm excited about it this year because Kevin will be out for it. Kevin and Brian are both coming to visit this weekend, but Brian won't be here until Friday night. After the Benefit, it'll be nice to have some time to relax and hang out with Kevin and Brian. If only Stephanie could come out too!

Meghan's site

I'm putting in a plug for my old roommate's current endeavor. Meghan is a registered dietitian who I lived with my first year of volunteering in Sacramento. Her site is below and also with the links on the side. Check it out!

http://www.dietitianmeghan.com/

Yosemite

For Labor Day weekend, I went to Yosemite with my roommates and a guest from Friendship park at Loaves & Fishes. We went up Saturday and then Sunday went hiking. The guest from Friendship Park has a lot of experience rock climbing and is well known in the climbing world, even with his own website. He had lived in Yosemite for a while and knows all the ins-and-outs. The climbing world is interesting, almost like a whole different culture. We met some of his climbing friends and then hiked up to the base of El Capitan. We didn't do any real rock climbing but managed to get pretty high up on the mountain to see some beautiful views. The whole trip was pretty good. I was a little stressed because the trip wasn't very well planned and I usually like to have everything ready before I leave. It worked out well though and we all had a good time.

El Hogar

I have recently started a new job! I was hired part time at Clean & Sober as Program Assistant which was fortunate because I wasn't quite ready to leave yet. I just love the people too much. Because it is only part time, I was looking for another part time and got lucky! A friend of mine out here works at El Hogar and is returning to school in September so he is now working part time. I'm picking up the other 20 hours!

El Hogar is a mental health clinic where I will work as a Service Coordinator. I have a shared case load of ~80 people who I check in with, meet with and help out whenever necessary. I have been there two days so far, training under my friend. Monday will be the first day that I'm on my own which I'm excited for but I still have more training to do. It's a job through the county so there is more paperwork and general rules to follow so I'll be learning a lot over the next few weeks-months. As I learn more, I'll update more!

Tomato Plant

I came home the other day and checked my tomato plant on the way in. I was so excited to see two baby tomatoes, about the size of a small marble. When I move next week, the tomato plant will be coming and have more room to grow. When the tomatoes are large enough to be seen in a picture, I will post a picture.

Happy Birthday Stephanie!

It's not actually until tomorrow, for us but because she is in Hong Kong, it's Stephanie's Birthday today! Hope you're having a great time, Miss you!

Transition retreat

I've decided to announce that I will no longer commit myself to writing on this blog. Every time I say that I will be better, I'm not so I'm thinking that maybe by not making myself write, I'll start wanting to. So I'm not ending my blog, I'm just not promising that I will write often (not like I do now so it won't really be a big change).

I'm in Philadelphia for transition retreat. It's a little repetative, as I was here last year for the same thing but it's a nice break from Sacramento. Also, tomorrow after I'm done here, I go to Philly for the night to visit Rye, my long lost roommate from Villanova. I'm very excited to see her as it has been far too long. Then Tuesday I return back to Sacramento.

A brief update, a few weeks ago, I went home for Kevin's graduation from UMass. Congratulations Kevin, you did it! Things at Clean & Sober have been good but busy. We're doing a running club with some of our residents which is great. We meet two mornings a week and it's really inspiring to see some of our guys (and maybe girls in the next session) train for something and then complete it. We did a 5K at the end of May and everyone crossed the finish line.

That's about all for now, I'll write more on the job front when I return to Sacramento and hopefully figure things out a little more.