This morning I was sitting at my computer when I realised the cats had knocked my books over.

Bummer, I thought, casually passing along the annoyance of our cats.

And then my brain connected that my jar of sandy California beach water and shells was used as a bookend for that shelf.
And it was gone.

My eyes traced it’s path to the floor where I first spotted the rectangular jar on it’s side.

And sure enough, California had run dry.
Low tide.
Monica’s ocean was gone.

Now what do you do when California runs dry?

Find pleasure in the dry sand.

As promised to Robin this morning, I am posting here from my internship. (Yes, I really have that much to do here.) I am pleased, on the other hand, that it is almost 1pm and I have yet to think about poking out my eyes from boredom. This is huge improvement over other internship days.

So something sort of unexpected happened today. I attended the Foster Care Staff Meeting (oh how I hate those, but it was better than sitting at my desk and staring at the cubicle wall) and discovered that a social worker from my internship was laid off. She was at the meeting (apparently her last day wasn’t today). This got me thinking about the world of the social work profession in child welfare-type agencies. And it also made me question where I wanted to work when I graduated. For the first time ever, I thought about not working in the social work field.

Let me explain. In the child welfare field you can either work as a county worker (booo, hisss) and be a number or be a social worker for a nonprofit agency. Due to a serious foster care violation case (a young boy was left in a closet for all wrapped up for a weekend and died) there have been new laws passed. With these new laws, all the non-profit, small agencies are seriously hit with new requirements and new expenses. Due to this, a lot of them are hurting. Therefore, job availablility? um… not so great. Furthermore, ability to hold your job if you’re working at a non-profit? Well, using my internship as an example, one lady quit and another was laid off. That makes 2 gone out of 5. Not so hot!

I also thought about the five year idea. The five year idea states that Monica would like to be a housewife and raise 6 children [HECK YES!]. Therefore, in raising six children, Monica would not be working. Furthermore, Monica needs to work until Matt and Monica are on their feet enough for Monica to stop working. That will be accomplished once Matt gets a full-time ministry job. In turn, that will happen after Matt is finished with his seminary degree. [FYI, this isn’t just Monica’s idea, it’s Matt’s too.] Will it work? By God’s grace it will work. And the idea is that I won’t be working much longer than five years max.

With this new piece of information, I wonder if it’d be better for me to get an office job somewhere or some job outside of the social work profession that pays a bit better than a risky non-profit job. This is only a thought… not a conclusion.

Just a thought.

Not a conclusion.

So, my friends and fellow readers… today is the third day at my internship that my supervisor has not been here for some reason. AKA… I’m lost… hence the blogging.

You know? It’s funny but sometimes you come to the realization that you just want to be alone. Oh, no there was nothing anyone said or did. But sometimes the draining of unfamiliar crowds or large crowds (even if it’s only 6) can wear you down. And it’s in the hiding away that you get the chance to listen to the silence…
breath in life…

one breath at a time.

I am really thankful for those times. Where I can just be. Yours.

Silently Yours.