We're Famous!

Here is a link, from my church's website to see pictures of me and my family! They came to visit me in March! FABULOUS!! :-) I will write more about it sometime soon, and put up more links to pictures. Here is a picture that isn't on the website, but one from my mom's collection (us in the church together with my host mom and Zuzka). But for now, check us out on the church website:

http://www.ecavhybe.sk/index_soubory/Page34356.htm

(From 1 to 4)
Photo 1: Me, my brother Jake, and Johny and Zuzka Ziskova, good friends of mine from Hybe

Photo 2: Me and Sara (the pastor's daughter...she's so cute!)

Photo 3: Me with some members of the adult choir, at one of the rehersals (I sing with them, and sometimes help direct them or play piano for them), and my parents and brother in the background.

Photo 4: Dinner at the pastor's house! From left to right: My dad, Zuzka, me (looking really excited that my family's there!), my mom, and my brother.

Happy Thursday everybody! :)

March Newsletter

Greetings everybody! I can’t believe March is already finished and I’m writing a newsletter again. I thought that February went fast, but March literally lasted about a week and a half (in my mind). It was a pretty exciting month for me! It was really fun to be here in Hybe for Easter celebrations! This was my first major holiday spent engaged in a church community, and it was wonderful. We went to Maundy Thursday service (called “Zeleny Stvrtok,“ in Slovak, which translates to “Green Thursday“), as well as Good Friday morning and evening service (called “Velky Piatok“ in Slovak, which translates to “Great Friday“). Some of the younger kids in the congregation prepared a little skit for Friday evening’s service, and dressed up in costumes. I was happy to take communion with everyone at Friday’s service also. During Easter Sunday service (called “Velka Noc“ in Slovak), I sang with the adult choir, the two songs we’ve been practicing for many weeks, and they went really well! It’s been a joy to sing with the older folks of the congregation  I also attended Easter Monday service with my family, and I sang with a group of girls from Mladis, which is the older part of the youth group from our congregation. We sang a traditional Czech song, and Mat’a (one of the girls) played guitar to accompany us. Neither the adult choir or youth group sing in church on a regular basis, usually only special occasions, so I think everyone really appreciated the music during services!

In addition to the celebrating with the church congregation, I celebrated some with my host family as well. I spent the Thursday and Friday before Easter hanging out with my family at home, helping clean and getting in on all of the food preparation and baking. I’m not exactly a chef or baker (haha, I think many people would agree with this), so I watched on as my host mom made three different cakes. My host sister Katka made a chocolate layered cake, her first cake ever! She was very proud of it, and it tasted great! Starka prepared pork for Sunday dinner, as well as potato salad. The potato salad they make is very similar to ours, except they use tartar sauce, and they prepare it for both Christmas and Easter meals. On Friday, we’re not allowed to eat meat, so we had potatoes and fried cheese for dinner, which I was quite excited about. Fried cheese is one of my favorite meals here, (and a pretty common meal in Slovakia in general) and my host family knows that I enjoy it so they make it quite often. On Easter Sunday we went to visit my host mom’s sister, Hana, and her family for coffee and cakes. Baking cake is a tradition in Slovakia year-round, but during holidays it doubles! So many cakes, so many kinds, so good. In return, Hana’s family came to visit us on Easter Monday afternoon, to share even more cakes and treats.

One of the most unique and fun parts about my Easter in Slovakia was experiencing the tradition of being “watered.“ So it is a tradition here for the boys and men to “water“ the girls and women in their village, which means they soak them with water. Either they squirt water at them, or dump cups or pails of water on them, or they drag them to the bathroom and throw them into tubs full of water. I’m happy that I got watered, but glad it wasn’t an extreme case like the bathtub scenario. We were all sitting around in the kitchen, reading and relaxing on Monday afternoon (when the watering traditionally happens, the day after Easter) when two of the boys from the youth group came to the house. Jozo and Pet’o came and rang the door bell and everything, all formal and said “dobry den“ (good afternoon, in Slovak) as they came into the kitchen. I wasn’t really paying much attention because I was engaged in my book, and I wasn’t really expecting the watering to happen that day because I assumed that it would’ve happened on Easter Sunday, if it was going to happen at all. I didn’t realize that it traditionally took place the day after. I didn’t even realize that as soon as the boys came into the kitchen, my host sisters and mom left immediately to go upstairs and change into “bad clothes“ that could get wet from the water. Starka finally got my attention though, and I realized that the boys had grabbed coffee mugs from the shelf and filled them with water. They didn’t even tell me or wait for me to stand...they just one at a time came over to me and dumped a mug of water down my shirt, one down the front side and one down the back. It was pretty amusing, and they didn’t even care that I was sitting on the couch in the living room, and that dumping water all over me meant soaking the couch and cushions. Starka just laughed hysterically.

Before the boys left they also sprayed us with strong perfume, which is another tradition. It’s tradition for the boys to spray something that smells strong or terrible at the girls. Around Easter time, in grocery stores in Slovakia, you can buy special green bottles with terrible smelling juice spray, specific for the tradition. As the boys left, family friends of the Turcanovas came to visit. My host mom called me into the living room right away and introduced me to them. As soon as she did, the men in the group squirted me in the chest with water from a water bottle, and then sprayed cologne into my hair. Pretty funny tradition, I think. Another part of the tradition is that the girls or women have to give the boys and men chocolate or money after they are watered and sprayed, so we gave them chocolate bunnies and eggs that my host mom had ready to hand out. There is another part to the whole tradition that the people of Hybe don’t do. It is tradition for the boys or men to hit the girls or women with sticks, in addition to the spraying and watering. Ha, I’m glad that tradition didn’t stick around in this area, although I’ve seen that many people have the sticks with ribbons tied to them and use them as decoration in their homes during Easter time.

A highlight for me this month was also the history book party event. A man who lives in Hybe just recently finished writing his second book, a history book about the village. In celebration of the book release, the town had a ceremony to celebrate. The celebration took place in a fairly small room (or at least too small for an event like this) in the city building of Hybe. I went to the celebration with my host family, and by the time we got there the whole room was filled with people, as well as the hallway leading into the room. The only place we could manage to squeeze into was the back corner on the right side, right next and literally IN two trees. It was quite funny. My host sister Katka and I giggled quite a bit as we swatted branches out of our faces, and tried to arrange them under and between our arms. Anyways, the ceremony was nice. My friend Vierka, who works as an assistant to the mayor of Hybe, opened the ceremony with a welcome message and poem (although I couldn’t understand much of it). Both an accordian player and violin player played a piece of traditional Slovak music, and Stanislav Ziska spoke a bit about the book and his process of writing it. At the end of the ceremony, we all stood in line to shake his hand and receive a free copy of the book! It was awesome! It’s a nice hard cover book with a lot of pictures (which is great, since I’m not able to read most of it). After the ceremony, everyone gathered in another small room (even smaller than the first) to have a reception, complete with cakes, fruit, alcohol and many other drinks and snacks. This is pretty typical of Slovak celebrations: everyone gathering in a small room around a giant table full of food and drinks, always standing instead of sitting because there isn’t enough room, and socializing and toasting to events. Anyways, the book is a really nice keepsake, and even more special because my host sister Janka had him sign it personally to me. Stanislav Ziska is also my host sister’s history teacher, so that’s pretty fun. She says he is a really great teacher and he is a big reason that she enjoys history so much.

Something new that happened this month was the start of my community English classes. The pastor and a woman from the church thought of the idea to open up a basic English class for whoever was interested in the community, so we held a meeting to see who was interested. It turns out that quite a few people were interested, so the one community class for beginners turned into three community classes (beginner, intermediate, and second intermediate). They have been an interesting challenge, because even though the classes are split up into different levels, there is still a broad mix of ability within the classes.There are mostly adults in my beginner class, and a mix of teenagers and young adults in my two upper level classes. It has been going pretty well and it’s been another great opportunity to meet more people in the community.

Here are some other random highlights for this month: I got my first Slovak Bible! It’s a children’s Bible, so hopefully I will be able to read and understand all of it by the time I leave in August. That is one of my goals. My host sisters and I bought matching kiddy toothbrushes! We were pretty exciting. I love how my family enjoys buying matching things. It’s hilarious, and it really makes me feel like part of the family. I have a green rabbit toothbrush, Janka has a blue puppy toothbrush, and Katka has a purple elephant toothbrush. Good times! I was interviewed for two papers, and for the church magazine (that’s usually published 4-5 times per year). The magazine for our church is called, “Zvon,“ which literally means “bell“ in Slovak. The newest printed edition came out on Easter Sunday, including my interview and picture! Wow, I felt sort of famous! The interview is also published on the church’s website, in both Slovak and English. You can find the interview on the church website (link provided on my blog), as well as on my blog itself, under the posting title “My Interview.“ And, this month I took my first trip “out back“ to see the Turcanova’s animals! I asked my host sisters, sometime in early February, if we could go visit their animals (they live in a little barn that is connected to their garage, right behind the house). They thought I was a little strange, but said yes. And so we finally went in March! They have two rabbits (which they eventually butcher and eat), a cow (which they maybe butcher and eat?? I’m not sure), twelve chickens (or so...they say they don’t actually know), three sheep, and two pigs. One big pig (who they will butcher in a few weeks, to restock their freezer’s meat supply for the upcoming months), and a little pig (who will be butchered next year sometime). I thought it was nice to go back there, just to see how many animals the Turcanovas had, and just because I think it’s fun that the barn is attached to the house (and they live right in town by one of the grocery shops). But from my excitement and interest, they made the assumption that I’ve never seen or been around farm animals before. I tried to explain to them the area in which I live, but I think they still think I’m a bit crazy. But we got to go visit the barn anyway, so I was a happy camper! I also have become a regular at a community aerobics class, held at the school gym on Monday nights. This has been a really nice way to get involved in activity without the language barrier being a roadblock, and it’s been a nice way to work off the steady Slovak diet of meat, potatoes, and chocolate cake.

One more really fun event for the month was the youth choir recording a cd! The younger kids and teenagers are all grouped together to make the youth choir, and they have been practicing these 18 songs for months and months. They finally recorded a cd a few weeks ago, recording all 18 of the songs, complete with flute and recorder additions and solos from the Pastor and some of the kids. And, from me! When I arrived in Hybe back in January, the kids in the youth choir learned a song in English to sing for me in church. Well, we sang this same song for the cd recording, but instead of letting the tape recording sing the main part for them, I sang it and the kids filled in the rest of the song and joined in at the chorus. It was pretty fun, and I hope it sounded ok. We are all anxious to see how the songs turn out! Will keep you posted, and hopefully you’ll get a chance to listen to us sing in the future.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for all of your support! This month I’ve been updating my blog more often, and fixing it up, so please check it out when you have a chance! Ok, hope you all had a fantastic March, and a blessed Easter!

God Bless,
Ashley

the Misconceptions of Americans. Part 1

*NOTE* I've added a picture to the past blog "Sara" that was taken during my family's visit to Slovakia a few weeks ago. It's a nice picture, scroll down and check it out! :) Ok, back to my current blog...

So I’ve collected ideas, comments, misconceptions that my students at Ilava Obchodna Akademia (my first placement) had of Americans. I’ve also included general misconceptions from people I’ve met along the way, from either Koseca, Hybe, or both. (Also, some added misconceptions about America itself.)

“All AMERICANS ARE FAT”. I can’t tell you how many times people have told me, “Wow, you don’t look American. You’re too thin to be American” since I came to Slovakia in August. “You look Slovak.” Just because I’m thin? That’s not fair, because there are overweight people here too (although I’m aware that America’s weight problem definitely exceeds any other country’s). They’re a bit shocked that I like healthier foods, and that I don’t really desire to eat cakes every day. And to go along with that…

“ALL AMERICANS EAT MCDONALDS. A LOT.” Of course many of us eat McDonalds from time to time, but not always a lot. And I know many people who would sooner die than stick a Big Mac in their mouth. Myself? I go a few times a year, and that’s more than enough. I understand why they would think this though, since McDonalds did COME from America. And have you all seen “Supersize Me?” Yikes.

“ALL AMERICANS ARE BUDDIES WITH CELEBRITIES.” No, I’m sorry, I don’t know Brad Pitt, or Julia Roberts, or Renee Zellwegger. One kid at Ilava even came up to me and said, “Hey, when you go back home…can you tell Weezer (music group) that I say hello, and that I really like them? Next time you see them?” Um, sure. I will do that. WHEN I meet Weezer….

“ALL AMERICANS LIKE GEORGE W. BUSH, BECAUSE THEY ELECTED HIM….TWICE.” I’ve had to very carefully handle this one a few times. This is a pretty rough assumption, I would say. Many Americans would be quite irritated with this. I’ll just leave it at that.

“SO, THE WEATHER IS PRETTY WARM IN AMERICA, YES?” Whoa. They don’t really have a concept of how BIG the United States is, and how many different climates, and temperatures exist. They also were surprised that we didn’t have a train system running from state to state (like they do, running country to country) as well. This is why everybody in America owns a car. Also, when I told them about how common it is for students to move all around the country for colleges and jobs, they weren’t that surprised at first. They sometimes do this too, but the other side of the country is reachable in one afternoon. Not so much our case, eh?

“AMERICAN ENGLISH AND BRITISH ENGLISH ARE THE SAME.” Well, I myself thought they were really similar until I came here, and tried to teach English out of British English books. I knew there was a lot of British English slang, but I didn’t realize how much British English is its own language. They are of course both English, but a LOT more different than I realized. The teachers in Ilava used to get REALLY frustrated with me, especially.

“Can you explain block of flats to the students, please?”
“Um. Sure.” I silently walked over to the teachers and whispered quietly, “What exactly is a block of flats?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“But it’s English. You speak English! You’re a native speaker!”
“Well yes, but I have no idea what a block of flats is.”

I also didn’t understand “trainers,” “standing in queue,” “getting on,” or “in a row.” Anyways, they’re definitely different. (A block of flats is an apartment building, “trainers” are tennis shoes, “standing in queue” means to stand in line, “getting on” means to get along with someone well, and “in a row” means to get into an argument.) We speak the same language, but we do NOT speak the same language.

“LIFE IN AMERICA IS A DREAM!” This has been an interesting one. Living in America, in the economic powerhouse of the world, has its advantages to say the least. And many Slovak people end up traveling there (or more often to somewhere in the United Kingdom, because it’s closer) to improve their English and to earn money. However, living in America also has definite disadvantages, especially in comparison to Slovakia. They have no idea about our problems with money, with health care (they are required to leave work for weeks at a time when they’re ill, and are paid for it), with maternity leave (we have a few months, they have 4 years, and they’re paid basic living expenses during that time and are guaranteed their job back), with retirement, and that it costs THOUSANDS upon THOUSANDS of dollars for higher education (their universities/colleges are government funded, and practically free). I’m glad I was able to inform them of the realities of living in the U.S., and to inform them that people work REALLY hard, and things are still difficult.

“AMERICA IS JUST LIKE EVERYTHING WE SEE IN THE MOVIES.” And how scary is this! I’ve gotten many questions like, “Is it true that in American schools, all of the girls like guys who play sports?” (Slovakia has NO organized sports, music programs, or any kind of groups or organizations as part of school) and “Is it true that you guys have REALLY BIG parties where people hang out of houses, and have really loud music, and puke on front yards?” Haha! Um, well of course there is some truth to most of the things they see in movies, but of course it’s not the “do and say all” of American ways. And how do we defend those stereotypes when they keep popping up OVER and OVER in movies? And our movie industry is THEIR movie industry. They watch mostly American movies here, because Slovakia has almost NO money to create their own industries for film, music, television, etc.

People have said, “Oh yeah, HALLOWEEN! Where you dress up in costumes! I saw that in the movies!” and (while looking at pictures of our house in Westbrook) “Your house looks exactly like a typical American house in the movies!” I think it’s scary how many assumptions opinions they have formed/can form about our country, because of movies and SO much more. The U.S. gets the most attention in the world, as far as the entertainment business goes, and political news, amongst other things.

*I will continue with the second part of this, sometime in the future!
Until next time... :-)

Car Wash Capades

“So after school today, I need to run a few errands. And then we need to go to the car wash, because this car is disgusting.”

Usually once a week I help my friend Zuzka teach English classes in the neighboring village, Liptovsky Hradok. She is an amazing teacher, and tackling around 25 English classes a week, for the Electronic Engineering School (550 boys and 30 girls). Her English is amazing, she’s so sharp, and she is the perfect person to teach in an almost all boy high school. She has a great sense of humor, is patient, and isn’t afraid to sass them and whip them into shape (not to mention whack them in the back of the head when they joke around too much. Love it! And the boys do too).

Anyways, one Friday after classes we went into town and ran some errands, stopped at the ATM, went to the Christian bookstore, went to the grocery shop. Our last stop was the gas station out by the school, so we could go through the car wash.

“Ok, I’ll be back. I’m going to go pay for this, and hopefully he’ll give me directions on what to do.” And then she made the “yikes” face (the one we make together, you know Mom what I’m talking about…). I then realized that she’d never done this before, and was a bit uneasy about the whole process. (She later told me that car washes were a pretty new thing in Slovakia, and that they’d only been around for 5 or 6 years.) I was a bit surprised it was her first time, because of the casualness in her voice before, “Oh yeah, we’re just going to run through the car wash, ok?”

She came back out, looking a bit nervous. We crept up to the big door and it opened its white SLOVNAFT door slowly.

“Ok. Ok. Do you think I can go??”
“Yeah I think so. The door’s all the way open. Go ahead.” Plus, the clerk guy was standing there, staring at us blankly.

We parked in the middle and the door growled loudly behind us as it sealed against the concrete. Silence.
“Ok, what now?”
I just chuckled a bit. And then suddenly we were in business! The wash started to go, rinsing us off first. And then….THEN…the giant blue sweeper brushes swallowed our car. And everything went dark. And Zuzka freaked out.

“AAH!!!” She let out a shriek and grabbed my arm. She continued to shriek/laugh for almost a minute after that. I couldn’t stop laughing. It was so fun and childlike, and it made my day. I’m pretty glad I able to be there with her to share her first car wash experience. Thinking about it now still makes me smile. Again, it's all about the small things.

“Do you think your boys would like this?” I asked. Her two sons, Marek and Radko, are 7 and 4.
Her eyes got popped open at the thought, and she started to giggle mischievously.

So, will I get to be there for Marek and Radko’s first car wash experiences? I hope so! :-) Stay tuned.

Death to the "TO DO" Lists

I recently finished reading “A Simple Path” by Mother Teresa, and found these quotes that I’d like to share with you.

“In the West we have a tendency to be profit-oriented, where everything is measured according to the results and we get caught up in being more and more active to generate results.”

“There is value to it. Being with someone, listening without a clock and without anticipation of results, teaches us about love.”

“The more we can remove this priority for results the more we can learn about the contemplative element of love. “

-The following are words from Brother Geoff, General Servant of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers

This section definitely jumped out at me as I read through it. So true, I kept thinking to myself. I have been struggling with this quite a bit during my time in Slovakia. This all goes back to the basic idea of mission work that we focused on in orientation: accompaniment. My time here has been all about accompaniment, experiencing a different lifestyle WITH others, being in the church community, being part of a family here in Hybe. Just being. Jumping from my college life to this experience has been challenging in quite a few ways, one being this transition from constantly producing “results” to just being.

My time in Hybe has been quite busy, and exceptionally busier than my time in Koseca, as far as being involved with different aspects of the community. But still, I feel this restlessness. I miss college, and I’m having a difficult time adjusting. And I can’t help it. Besides the obvious aspects (like being around people that speak and understand the same language as I do), I miss having deadlines. I miss being REQUIRED to finish papers and exams. I miss the feeling I had after finishing a new piece of writing for one of my writing workshops, and getting responses for them. And grades. And professor critiques. I miss it all. And I wish it were easier for me to simply be satisfied with just “being,” but the truth is that it’s not. It’s hard, but I’m trying every day. It’s so difficult, because I tried for four years to get my act together, to use my time efficiently, to make money for tuition, to PRODUCE results in almost every aspect of my life. And in the midst of amazing experiences here in Slovakia, amongst fantastic people, at times I still feel very unproductive. It’s not that I don’t see the value in the time spent just “being,” I absolutely do. But I still have this discontentment sometimes. This is pretty frustrating. Admittedly, this unproductive feeling that eats at me sometimes is one of the driving forces behind my blog writing. (Although definitely not the ONLY reason. I thank God for the ambition/ability to write.)

At many different points during my time in Hybe, I admit I’ve made “To Do” lists (yes, I’m one of those people…yet I don’t always accomplish the things on the list. It just feels good to make them). These lists contain things that are usually completely pointless, in comparison to the importance of just spending time with my host family, sitting in a church service with the youth group, etc. I’ve found myself writing small tasks on the list, just for the purpose of being able to cross something off my list, because MAN, does it feel good to cross things off the list sometimes. My need to cross things off the list is currently very frustrating. I don’t know if I’m really a person that NEEDS to produce “results” (I hope to not be like this), or if it’s just part of my transition from college to reality.

I guess my purpose for writing this blog entry (besides my need to communicate this to all of you, and to get my feelings out on “paper”) is to ask a prayer request of you. I ask that you please pray for my patience and contentment with just “being,” so that I can get rid of the “To Do” lists, because I’m driving myself a bit crazy with them.

Thank you, as always, for your support!!! For reading my thoughts, for your prayers, for everything. I am incredibly grateful. Words can’t express.

Until next time…

Slimacik Babetko

As I mentioned in a previous newsletter, my host sister Katka loves fish and had 9 of them in a tank in the kitchen. She added four new fish to the tank during my first week here and was so proud of them! She also had a snail, which she so graciously let me name. Within another week, she got another snail to add to the tank, and let me name that as well! SO, I chose to name them Fred (formally Fred Flinstone, but was soon after changed to Fred Murtz) and Lucy Ball (both after the tv show I Love Lucy). So we had this big happy fish tank family! But then....

One of them died. And then another one died. And another. And another. (I felt pretty bad for Katka, she was quite sad. And they had to die ONE at time so she was sad about it for like 6 different days within 2 weeks or so). So, the four new fish and the five old fish that she'd had for months before, everyone dead. EXCEPT the snails! Of course, the small little lumps of brown that don't do anything are left to man the entire tank by themselves. So I guess they were feeling lonely and wanted some company to fill the void that "Rachel, Jacob and crew" left. So one day I came back home from the shop and Katka and Janka both were like, "Look! Come look!"

They brought me into the kitchen.
"See all those black spots?"
"Yes." (I assumed the tank was just dirty, they hadn't cleaned it out in awhile.)
"Those are snail babies!" (slimacik babetko)

Eww. Fred and Lucy had babies!! LOTS of babies! After we laughed and discussed it for awhile, I learned that snails are hermaphrodites. I didn't know this before (maybe I didn't pay attention in science classes, maybe I knew and then forgot, maybe I just never really gave the reproductive habits of snails much thought...) So not only did Lucy have snail babies, but Fred did too. Quite funny, everyone laughed a lot. But I was a bit grossed out. And even further disgusted that they just left the tank as is, (and that was almost about three weeks ago) and the snails are probably still reproducing as we speak. Gross.

Anyways, on a much less disgusting note.....

HAPPY EASTER!!!!!!!!! :)
I hope you all have a blessed Easter!! May it be filled with peace and love! And hopefully less snail reproduction than mine :) Hehe. I'll post again soon about my Slovak Easter celebration!

Peace,
Ashley

Sara

So there’s this little girl in my life named Sara. She is wonderful. I don’t even know if there are words to express how much I enjoy her, how much she brightens my days.

I think she is my angel. Whenever I’m mixed in a crazy church activity with teenagers who are worried about chemistry tests, or with adults who are too nervous to try to talk to me because they can’t speak English, or with parents who are chasing their toddlers around, she swoops in. There have been many difficult times where I’ve felt so overwhelmed by the language barrier or a situation, and I’ve just quietly pulled myself out of the situation. And she notices, when everybody else is wrapped up in the craziness of the situation. She sees me, and comes to me and smiles. I feel such a special connection to her. God reaches out to me through this amazing 4 year old. And she’s so smart! She’ll just start rambling in Slovak, and sometimes I understand, but more often I don’t. As soon as she sees “the look” of confusion on my face, she stops and says, “you don’t understand?” And I just shake my head no and smile. She smiles back with a “nevermind” and we move on. She understands that I’m a foreigner and that I speak a different language, yet it doesn’t discourage her at all from wanting to communicate with me.

I’ve met people of all kinds and ages since I came to Slovakia, but the easiest to connect to have been kids. They are usually so happy and bright, fresh and curious. They accept me without question. They aren’t held back because of nervousness with the language barrier, and they have no preconceived notions of what a foreigner is or how they should react to someone different from them. They simply like me just because I like them. Just a little smile builds a bond so quickly. They constantly remind me to keep things simple and to keep up a Godly attitude of acceptance. SO refreshing. I am so grateful for them, and thank them. And especially Sara, because she makes me smile so much every time I see her.