Cinderelly! Cinderelly!

Since Monday, we have been cleaning our community from top to bottom. Each day we tackle a new room or floor and it is slow work but you can definitely see progress. I have dedicated the following poem to my last few days of work.

Once upon a time
In a land far away
There lived a beautiful maiden
Who slaved day after day

For her brothers
And her fellow volunteers too.
She never heard the end
Of them telling her to do

Cleaning, laundry
Chores and more
Make us breakfast
Sweep the floor.

Darn our socks
And underwear.
Take the garbage
Over there.

Mari! Mari!
Life is truly grand
Having you at hand.
Mari! Mari!
You must do as we command.

Ok so I am totally joking, but like I said we have spent a long time working on the house. It looks really great now and there are many clean guest rooms waiting for any of you to visit. It has actually been really fun working with Leo and Bud (two of the brothers) and Denis (the other volunteer). We have had a good time joking around with each other while we are cleaning and deciding where to move the furniture. I dare any of you to take a gloved hand to this house and find dust. Here are some pics of our cleaning adventures. Just click on the picture and it will take you to my web album.

Cleaning

I have also recently had my life changed. Paul, one of the volunteers from the previous year who is getting ready to move out, showed me new ways to fly and save tons of money. Myself and the other two volunteers were looking for round trip flights to Chicago in the beginning of October for the Chicago Marathon. The cheapest flights we were able to find were $240. Yikes!!! We did not want to spend that much money so we had pretty much decided to drive...even worse but well we would have saved a ton of money between the three of us. Also, driving would have taken us 12 1/2 hours one way. Basically a full day with the round trip...a lot of time wasted but real fun to be had en route in the car. I really love road trips but sometimes they aren't worth it. Enter Paul.

Paul cooked up this scheme with me. We bought $100 United Airlines certificates on ebay for $20. We then purchased two one way flights. One from Philly to Chicago and the other from Chicago to Philly. Each of these one way flights cost about $120 each, but with our certificates they only cost $20. Basically we bought round trip tickets for about $80.

Here's how it breaks down:
-Cost of certificate on eBay: $20
-Actual value of certificate: $100
-Real savings of airline ticket: $80
-Example of one-way ticket to Chicago from Philly: $120.
-Reduce that by $80 (real value of certificate less cost of purchase): $40
-So if you buy two one-way tickets for race weekend from Philly to Chicago and back it is $80...yes, a ROUND TRIP to Chicago for $80!...not the $240 United really wants you to pay!
-However, if you just buy a round trip ticket, the savings are less ($240-80=$160).

Get it? Paul really changed how I fly. I would encourage you to also look into saving money this way. It really works. We ended buying three round trip tickets for us for the total cost of what originally one trip was listed at. Great deal. Because Paul had such a quick impact on my life I decided to include his picture.



He thought he kind of looked like a techy nerd in the photo...I disagree. Paul is actually leaving for Paris to study there for one semester with Temple University in a MBA program. He will be missed in our community.

I also visited West Catholic today which is the school I will be volunteering at. I met the principal and president along with many other administrators. I had a great time there and I am really excited to get to know the students. I am hoping to take more pictures next week when I spend more time there. Here is a pic of me en route to the school. No mom I did not take it while driving...



Finally, mom also was a large contributer to my well being this week. She sent my three most cherised possessions from home to Philly...can you guess what she sent...cmon..anyone got a guess. Yes that's correct...two pillows for my head and my body pillow. Some might think that is excessive but I am finally sleeping well. It has been a rough couple of nights without my pillows but now I am feeling great. In tribute to my mother...the following pic...



Ok that was a lot of information. If you got this far into the blog, I am impressed. I hope you enjoyed the pics and my stories. Don't worry there will be more coming. As a test to see who made it through this whole post, I will pose a question and see who actually responds to me. What has been your favorite part of reading my blogs thus far? Please comment. Also is there anything else you would like to see me write about? I am interested in your feedback.