Oh the Busy Month of February

February started off with my 25th birthday... a quarter of a century! Now that just makes me sound old! My birthday was full of surprises as I thought and know that birthdays are not celebrated as much as feast days. But the day before I went to Amarillo for class with Sr. Mary Ana and she had me go there a little earlier. She then tricked me into going to the school with her and she brought me into the Montessori (3-5 year olds) where they surprised me with the Birthday Walk which is a Montessori tradition. We then went back to Sr. Mary Ana; classroom and I helped her with coaching music memory for PSIA (an academic contest.) We then went back to the convent, had a special supper and she surprised me with cupcakes! Yummy! It was great being with the St. Joseph Sisters. We usually only see them when they come home every other weekend. The next day was my birthday and Sr. Jean Marie made it very special as well. It was really a great day!

All through February I was helping Sr. Mary Ana with PSIA and spending time in the Montessori classroom. It was great being "in a classroom" again. In between that, I went to the Dalhurt mission and helped Sr. Mary Katherine get ready for a presentation and she let me teach her 3rd graders the metric system. How nice it was to teach again. I feel right back into it. :)

All while this is going on PSIA coaching continues as we battle weather issues- little snowfalls (3-5in) and freezing road conditions. The Thursday before PSIA I started getting sick and it was snowishy so no going to Amarillo so I rested and began updating the Community Scrapbook with Sr. Mary Michael. I felt better, or so I thought, on Friday, and was sent on errands and a mission to find religious scrapbook stickers- uff da! Very hard task! Saturday was PSIAwas a blast and the kids did well! Sunday was a normal day, I began to pack for my next trip with Sr. Mary Michael to Chicago. I was a little more tired but I figured it was because of the busy day the day before with PSIA and then Pampa's Fundraiser. But low and behold that nasty sickness came back full force on Monday about 2am. For 8 hours there was no movement that didn't make me feel icky. Sr. Mary Michael came and checked on me when I did not show up for morning prayer and said that if I get to feeling better to make sure I have my snow boots on... I thought I was better by 10am so I get ready and got my snow boots on with snow pants and my coat. Holy Cow! Major blizzard outside. Snow drifts 5ft high. At that point I should have turned around and just got back into bed and stayed put but I made my way through. When one is sick, you suddenly have like 5 mothers in the convent. Needless to say, I was well taken care of because it came back at 3ish... see I should have just stayed in bed.

Overall we got 19in of snow with 50mph winds which created 6ft tall snowdrifts. Thank goodness our community friends who dug us out with their tractors! Schools were closed both Monday and Tuesday.

On Wednesday, Sr. Mary Michael and I were once again on an airplane to Chicago where the same snow storm that hit just hit them the day before but with a lot less snow. We headed to the "Here I am Lord" Conference in St. Charles, Illinois but that is for another blog post.