VISTA Sundae

Building our KaBoom Playground!

BANANA Costumes at the Fair!
Halloween

It’s three nineteen p.m. on a sunny seventy-seven degree Sunday afternoon and I’m lounging in the Navy Yard’s River Front Park attempting to write a long overdue blog entry. Jealous? Not really? Oh did I mention that it’s also November and this beautiful weather ain’t no rarity? Well it’s true and this is why I’m starting to appreciate living in the south. A lot has happened since my last entry any the infamous Kathy Griffin show (which was AWESOME) and over the past month so let me catch you up…

As you know, my year of service here is dedicated to working with the Community Wellness Initiative (CWI) to promote active living and healthy eating in an effort to reduce obesity and obesity related diseases in North Charleston. CWI is a brand new initiative that has still needs a lot of structure and tweaking. Still a sore subject to me, I have indirectly realized that I was recruited into this position based on a large grant that never fell through. It seems that my supervisors got ahead of themselves and assumed they were a shoe-in for the grant money but soon found out that other than lint and crumpled old gum wrappers there was no money to be found in their CWI pockets. You know what they say about ASSuming. As a result they have an eager VISTA seeking work and productivity but no money to assist in this search. This, I have realized, is the sole reason for my lack of guidance and assignment description. I’ve now decided that if anyone’s going to make this a good experience for me it has to be me. I’m going to have to take matters in my own hands, grab the bull by its horns, insert additional analogies here, etc. Stay tuned.

I can’t get over how much has happened/changed here since my last chat with “ya’ll.” Let’s see…I had an interesting and fun Halloween (as a zombie 40s “Desperate” housewife) that ended at a 24-hour IHOP where I scared all of its customers with my cuts and zombie-esque features and tried convincing our waitress that she looked like Mena Suvari. I was on a Charleston morning radio show where I spoke about Diabetes Awareness month and healthy eating (still waiting on a copy to share). I BUILT A PLAYGROUND! BY HAND aaand as a bonus developed arthritis from it! I went to the Coastal Carolina Fair, judged a Sugar-Free Halloween costume contest at MUSC, gained another roommate named Mary, and became a “Lunch Buddy” mentor at a local elementary school. I recently went to an improv show and decided to take classes starting in January with VISTA Celia! Funny stories are sure to come! Most importantly I had a wonderful 26^th birthday thanks to all my friends’ and family’s birthday wishes. I was lucky enough to have Christian here for the festivities and to share such a special day with me! Thanksgiving was a Manley Ave. blast. All of the VISTAs who did not make it home for the holiday joined in on a potluck dinner! The following day a group of us took a day trip to Savannah, toured around while sipping on Bloody Marys, saw baby alligators while eating at the infamous Crab Shack, and on our way home "dropped in" to play some slots on a casino boat which turned out to be an unexpected 6 hour casino boat cruise! Christian ended up staying past his original departure date and decided to hitchhike home. It SEEMED like a exciting idea at the time but after his 26 hour journey back to MD I think his answer would be “no” if you ever asked him to do it again. Ahh life is full of lessons. The cherry on the top of my 2 month blog hiatus sundae is…drum roll please…Shmiane was fired! Our concerns were voiced which must have been the last straw for the Noisette Company Camel’s back. I can’t say that things here are perfect now but I can, however, say that the big Shmiane weight has been lifted. Cheers to weight loss!