St. Patrick's Day!!!

St. Patrick’s Day!

St. Patrick’s Day is one of my favorite holidays of the year. It cloaks the world in a veil of green (my favorite color) and soaks the surroundings in a puddle of Guinness and Whiskey (my favorite drinks). This year St. Patrick’s Day has a special significance to the JVs in Yakima. During every major holiday of the year, one of the regional JV houses will host an annual party- and St. Patrick’s Day is ours!
This party is planned for this coming Saturday, but the preparations began long before. We have been hyping up the event for months, convincing houses to drive the 3, 4, or 5 hours each way to attend, but hit a major roadblock after our house was robbed and many of our support people believed we should locate the party elsewhere. The JVs have hosted this party for our coworkers, friends, and other JVs at OUR HOUSE for decades, so after long consideration and heated discussions, we decided to keep the party after-all.
Preparations began this weekend as our furniture was rearranged, our dance was choreographed, our floors were scrubbed, t-shirts were decorated, and groceries were bought – all set to a peaceful soundtrack comprised mostly of Dropkick Murphy’s and the Pogues. The preparations will continue on through the weekend, and while the conversations and the cleaning are a bit tedious at times, I think this party came at a perfect time for our community.
During the weeks following the robbing and the subsequent SWAT team arrests the community, myself included, began to check out. Allison, Grace, Chris, and I were off visiting schools around the country, Patrick and Sam were training full-time for the full/half marathon, Jaime was spending more time with her boyfriend, and Sophie spent a lot of time house-sitting. Even when we were all home, we rarely cooked and ate house meals together anymore, and we spent more time reading, doing puzzles, at the gym, etc. than communicating with each other. Many of us were too busy looking towards August to notice how quickly January and February passed us by.
This party has given us something to rally around. As a community. At first it brought us together for forced, stressful, tense conversations, but recently it has been the source of excitement, laughter, camaraderie, and teamwork. It is coming at a perfect time.
On a separate note…News from my life: 1) I was accepted 2 weeks ago to a post-bac program at the University of Pennsylvania. I accepted their offer right away, and will be back in school in Philly by the beginning of September! 2) My dad and I are still training for the half marathon on May 2nd . I can’t wait for Mom, Dad, and the Truxaws to come out to visit and run with my housemates and I. 3) Timmy is coming out to visit me soon! I can’t wait! 4) I am missing Kiirsten's birthday this year :( HAPPY BIRTHDAY REN!