Whew, what a week...

Well the events of this past week have really left me exhausted. On Friday I attended my neighbors funeral, on Saturday I turned 43 yrs old and I also went to the local homeless shelter and worked for 3 hours.

While I was working at the shelter, I ran across a former young Airman who I used to work with. He was involuntarily separated from the Air Force a couple of years ago for alcohol abuse. He stayed in Wichita Falls and tried to make a go at it and just went down due to his addictions. The kid is now living at the shelter and is going through their "Genesis" program. From the little I know about the program, is that it is a year long program where the students learn how to get re-introduced into society as productive members. It is a faith based program that gives the student the "tools" needed to deal with life on life's terms.

I spent about 3 hours working in the receiving room sorting clothes. There were literally piles of bags of clothes that have been stacked up. The shelter has a clothing store that is staffed by two ladies during the week, but for some reason the ladies haven't been able to keep up with the influx of donated clothes. Since it is winter here, my job was to sort through all the clothes and only keep winter type clothing. Everything else was bagged up to be sent to Dallas to be sold for rags.

I made a pretty good dent in the receiving room, but I was supposed to go back today to finish...but I didn't make it because my wife and I had to finish our Christmas shopping. I plan to go back this Friday and Saturday to work.

Although the past week has been stressful, I now have had a chance to take it all in and I have a renewed appreciation for my life.