I am sitting at my kitchen table looking out into the backyard through our one foggy window where the seal is broken hearing the sounds of fans humming and our cats moving, doing whatever it is that cats do during the day. My mind keeps wandering back to last week, my last week as an intern at St. Jude Children's Research Hospital and the wonderful people I had the opportunity of knowing there.
There's the whole crew at the 1920s-themed annual Volunteer Appreciation Event we hosted at the beginning of May. We (the interns) got to see a whole new side of our co-workers as we danced the night away!
Looking ahead, I know I have a few challenges I'll be up against this summer: Finishing my masters project and graduating, painting the wood paneling in our living room, fighting the stir-crazy, and worst of all-- cleaning the house. Working toward my masters degree has been the most challenging task I have ever put my mind to, and it is the one I am most determined to accomplish.
My list of to-do's this summer are in large part house-related. My second name could be the Queen of Clutter. I have a knack for making stacks of various pieces of paper, notebooks, books, etc. on all flat surfaces everywhere around the house.
So, goal number 1 for this summer: clean the house and remove the clutter.
I love our house. I love the quiet neighborhood and the backyard that's just big enough to make Ryan and I sigh whenever yard work needs to be done. I love that this is where we brought our cats home when we first adopted them.
This is Custard (top 2 and bottom left) and Pumpkin (bottom right 3). Custard is the boy and DOES NOT like being given pets anywhere that is not his head. Pumpkin is the girl and she loves being affectionate at the most inconvenient times. They are brother and sister and were found by two lovely people outside a Baskin Robbins ice cream shop as babies. We adopted them at 9-months-old and have loved them ever since. They're frustrating, funny, curious, playful and smart little cats.
For now, I'll keep petting my cats while I work on my masters project, which makes my head feel dizzy just thinking about all the work I have left to do. But when I look back up at the photo of my St. Jude family it reminds me to keep pushing past this one moment in time.
This hardship won't last forever; it has an expiration date in August 2018. For the time being, I'll continue to put my head down and do the work. I'll finish the race ahead of me because I am no quitter. The challenges and push-backs and obstacles I've faced during these tough two years have made the goal so prominent in my mind that it is all I can see.
I can see the finish line. It's close and nothing can stop me.
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