Friends make the world go round....

Possibly my favorite thing this past week was visitors.  I LOVE when folks stop in here.   And this past weekend I was feeling kinda grim and stressed and crabby, at least until some friends rolled in around lunchtime on Saturday.    We threw down some dominos and the world was right again.    I love it.  I NEEDED it.  Wasn't feeling lonely- was feeling irrelevant.  And that's stupid.  And hard.  And I'm over it and I'm glad.

I'm in high gear getting prepped for the first teams to roll in, which means that:

a) I'm hiding all kinds of stuff in my room trying to "save" it for the teams.  When I say all kinds of stuff I am SO glad that none of you can see the floor of my closet, or my desk drawers, or my med storage bin...or the shelves over my shoes.
b)  I'm hoping to sleep NOW since it won't happen until the teams are gone.
c)  I'm trying to make sure that I know where the stuff in the clinic is and communicate to incoming teams our Needs List.   This seems to change on an hourly basis.  Literally.
d)  I'm trying to keep up on the running front since I'm afraid I won't get to in the midst of team madness.
e)  I'm looking forward to seeing some folks that I know arrive SOOOOONNNNNNN.
f)  I made one last trip to Cercado to visit kids in the Child Nutrition Program since I probably won't get to do that again for a month or so.   Sweet little 11 pound baby girl (14 months old!) ate a cracker in front of me and I almost cried.  She's not vomiting anymore with her formula- YAY for progress!  YAYYYYYYYY!   She looked like a dear little bunny rabbit nibbling away.  Wish I would have taken pictures.....
g)  I did some mad crazy computer work for the Solid Rock Schools since...again...that probably won't happen again until the end of Nov/beginning of December.
h)  I gathered 200 toothbrushes for a possible Child Nutrition Program Christmas party in December (again...these are hiding in my closet!  It's almost a Medical Goodwill store by now!) in an attempt to plan ahead.
i)  I ate very nearly every single M&M in this vicinity hoping that some kind team will bring more.   Yes, I am aware that this is disgraceful on my part.
j)  I am working in the scary room (UGH!) trying to rearrange a few last things.  Did I say rearrange?  I meant RELOCATE (probably to the dump!).    It would help if I understood exactly what these lapy toys are.   But they LOOK cool and I think that might be the most important thing.  Some of them are like 2 foot long staplers.  Awesome.   Until you see that they were sterilized/expired the year that I was  born.  Ay hombre.  Oh man.
k)  I am soaking up the baseball playoffs.  YES I am DEVASTATED that my team didn't make it.  But that doesn't make Nelson Cruz or Albert Pujols any less cool.  Geez- it's awesome!   Dominican Winter League starts on the 14th and I am planning on hunting down some of my fav jugadors (of course that will be AFTER the teams...of course!)- part of the perks of living in one of the most awesome baseball-focused locales in the whole world.

There's lots more to say but I should be in the Scary Room this very moment hunting rats and "relocating" things.  In a nutshell, God is GOOD, even though I'm not...and He's walking me through this prep time step by step and I'm getting EXCITED for the coming days.

(This is the road outside of Jorgillo...where Angel and I visited some kids in the Nutrition Program...absolutely stunning.   Every single one of the kids that day was clothed and wearing shoes.  Major success stories.   What a great feeling.)