Party!
Mood:  silly



Today I did lots of things. First, I got my hair cut super short. All the Sisters said that they liked it. I even got a compliment from the provincial. Then I spent two hours at the Heights with the sister who is in charge of the archives. I love learning about the history of the Sisters of Notre Dame. It's very interesting. After that, I came back home and Sr Suz and Sr BC went out for a party...we were celebrating Sr R's birthday. A few of the other Sisters were there...including the Sisters from ND Academy and Sr M, our provincial. Srs D and S were goofing off and I was joining them a little in that, until the provicial said that they were teaching me bad manners... LOL! It was great fun though! I had a blast. Sr R was celebrating her 90th birthday. The place where we ate had steaks and you had to cook your own on an open grill over a charcoal fire. That was the first time I'd ever cooked my own steak before. Sr M congratulated me and announced it to the whole group... LOL.
Then we came home and Sr Suz and I played dominoes until about 11:00 pm. She won.

Don't Fly
Mood:  a-ok
I hate airplane flights that are delayed beyond recognition and then cancelled. I flew to Philadelphia to visit my friend Sister Carol, and my flight there AND back were both delayed and then cancelled. Sheesh... I must have a bad luck streak in flights. Or at least in picking days to fly. At least tonight when I left PA they were able to actually get off the runway for a change. The flight I got on on Friday didn't even leave the runway...had to reschedule it to Sunday. So, I lost some of the travel time that I could have spent with Sister Carol, and gained a headache. Then I almost wasn't able to leave today to come home.
It's midnight....so I'm going to bed... I'll write more about my adventures in Philly later.

Airport Blues
Mood:  blue
I was supposed to be in Philadelphia this past Friday, but there was some sort of blackout at one of the crew towers that was supposed to direct traffic...therefore I didn't leave the airport. They told everyone that it was weather related...and therefore we can't get any compensation for the lost days... I'm a little peeved.

Here's the letter that I wrote the airlines and the company that booked my flight:

I was supposed to travel to Philadelphia on Friday, but due to the fact that one of the travel towers lost power, all flights into Philadelphia were rescheduled to Sunday. Therefore, I lost two days. Additionally, I now have to pay for airport parking because there is no one to drop me off at the airport. If I would have flown out on Friday, as I was scheduled to do, I wouldn't have the need to pay to park.
My airplane ticket was nearly 500 dollars. Now I have to pay an additional amount of money just to park my car.
I would appreciate some sort of compensation for the 2 travel days that I lost so that I can cover the money to pay for airport parking.


Do I have the right to ask for this? I mean, I would have never had to bring my car the second time around if I had left on Friday....

Anyways, I'm going to see if I can go today...one more try.

What's on the SND Kentucky Website
Mood:  celebratory
Here's what the Sisters posted on their site about me:

New Sisters of Notre Dame Candidate
Alyson Utterback was welcomed as a Candidate with the Sisters of Notre Dame in a simple ceremony on Sunday, May 27, in the Provincial House chapel. She is pictured with Sister Marla Monahan, Provincial (left) and Sister Jean Marie Hoffman, Vocation Director (right). As a Candidate, Alyson will enter into deeper discernment with the community regarding her vocation. Alyson has "lived in" with three Sisters of Notre Dame at St. John's convent in Covington, Kentucky for the past several months. She will continue her residence there during her time of candidacy. Alyson is currently working at Holy Trinity Child Development Center in Newport, Kentucky, which is administered by the Sisters of Notre Dame.


I'll post more later!

Walk the Bridge for Life
Mood:  a-ok
Today I went with Sr MN and we drove down to pick up Sr MR and went down to Newport to Walk the Bridge for Life. There were at least a hundred or more people gathered there and we all walked from Newport across the Purple People bridge (a pedestrian bridge that spans over the Ohio River that connects Newport with Cincinnati) and back. It was really fun. It rained and we got soaked to the core...but did I mention that it was great fun? We met a few families there and helped them with their kids as they walked.

It was all for a good cause...the end to abortion.
Here's the URL if you want to take a look at what the event was about. http://www.walkthebridge.com/

After the event, we went back to Sr MR's house and had some cookies and Sun Chips. That was the most interesting "lunch" that I've had for awhile.

At the end of the week, I'll be flying to Philly for the weekend. I'm going to see my friend Sr Carol. I'm sooo excited to go and visit her at her house finally! She moved there in 2001 and I haven't been there to see her at all. I'm really looking forward to it. It does mean, however, that I'll miss this month's province days. Bummer. But I'm excited!

The class that I work with in the childcare center is growing sunflowers. We need to get them replanted so that they have more space to grow. I'm hoping we can do that before they all die. I got to bring two sunflowers home to try to grow. I'm really excited about that because I've never grown sunflowers before and I just LOVE the flower. As Saint Julie Billiart said...we should follow God as a sunflower follows the sun.

Yesterday, a couple of my friends came down from Dayton to visit me. We went to the mall and ended up riding the merry-go-round that was there. It was really fun, but we got off dizzy. Then we got to buy some shirts from the Disney Store...Thanks so much to my friend for the gift of the T-Shirt! I really like it. It has a sunflower on it with Tinkerbell standing right next to the sunflower.

Well, gonna go for now.
Peace!

It's Official!
Mood:  celebratory
Well, I officially made it through the ceremony to become a candidate. I'm really excited for what the future has in store for me with this community. They seem to genuinely want me there, and I really do feel like I really belong there too! I declined to give some sort of speech a couple of times because I was nervous. Perhaps I'll learn how to do that when the next time comes around.

The Sisters that I live with surprized me. One of them thought she wasn't going to be able to make it, but she came back early from where she'd been. I am glad that she was able to join us. Also the formation teams from all over the USA were there and get to see the ceremony. I was very happy to see some of those Sisters there as well.

I forgot to take the thing that I wanted to give the vocation director with me today, but I'll give it to her the next time I see her. I wanted her to have something special for walking with me for as long as she has.

Pray for me. Peace and God bless!

Tomorrow!
Mood:  on fire
Tomorrow, tomorrow...I love ya, tomorrow...You're only a day away...

My ceremony is tomorrow, less than 24 hours away. I'm really peaceful and happy right now. And I feel so thankful for all of the encouragement and such that I've been shown over the past few years. The vocation director has been very helpful and I'm sure will continue to be so. I don't think I'll work with another director until I'm a postulant, I think. I'm not positive though.

I think I want to take her one of the drawings of Our Lady that I did awhile back for a gift of thanksgiving. I don't know. I'm still thinking on that. But I wish she knew how thankful I really am for her guidance. I'll hopefully be able to tell her tomorrow or sometime soon.

Another step! I didn't feel like I'd ever get there, but here I am! I feel soooo blessed! Thankyou everyone for all of your prayers. I wouldn't be here without them.

Right now I'm staying at my parents' house because my mom is out of town and I need to help my dad. He's in a wheelchair because he has Multiple Sclerosis...he's had it since before I was born, but he didn't start to need a cane/walker/ or wheelchair until I was in college. Please pray for him.

Almost There!
Mood:  special
Well, only a few more days until the prayer service when I'll be accepted as a candidate. I'l super excited. I was a little nervous, but that seems to be melting away. I'm sooo glad.

Anyways, I'm driving to my parents' house after work today to be with my dad. My mom is out of town and my dad needs a little help. I've got what I'm wearing on Sunday packed up and it's in my car. I'm just soooooooo excited!

I hope to be able to take a trip to Philadelphia to visit a friend of mine who is a Dominican Sister. She belongs to the community of St Catherine De'Ricci that is merging with some of the other Dominican communities down there. She's on their leadership team so I have to wait for her to get back with me before I buy a plane ticket.

My ceremony (if you could call it that) will be on Sunday. It's not a province wide event, so that means that there will be less people there. That's probably a good thing!

Anyways... I'll close for now, almost time to get to work!

Peace!

Update
Mood:  happy
Well, as of this coming Sunday (the 27th), I'll be a candidate with the Sisters of Notre Dame. Please pray for me as I'm very excited, nervous, anxious, scared, and very very happy all at the same time.

I'm tired...got a headache. So, I think I'm going to go to bed. I'll post more later.

Duck Sitting and Odds and Ends
Mood:  a-ok
Well, I did go play Dominoes after all last night. Not very many Sisters were there, though...but enough to play a game. I won!!!

Anyways... I'm currently duck-sitting for Sr MN while she's in Lexington for today. The ducks are soo cute. I get to feed them and take them out of the box to play for a little while. I did that this morning for a little while and will go again this evening after mass. They are getting soo big.

I went to mass this morning to St Augustine's and saw the other vocation director there. That church is really nice. There are lots of different paintings in that church to look at. There are also alot of statues. I really liked the painting that they had of Mary and Joseph's wedding (though, I'm sure it wasn't called a wedding back then). Both are kneeling for a blessing and holding hands. Mary is dressed all in white.

There were lots of paintings and statues of Mary there. I especially like the Pieta...the Sorrowful Mother. She's my favorite. I also liked the painting of Jesus and the children.

Well, I'm still waiting to see when the Sisters that I live with are going to discuss their evaluations of me with me. Then we can proceed. I'm a mix of scared and excited, happy and nervous...all in one. I've decided that I'm going to try not to worry about it because this is all in God's hands.