Long Overdue Update

Greetings from Pennsylvania!

These past few months here at Camphill Soltane have been great. After living in one house for the first 3 months, we have moved to another house giving us a new perspective on life in this community. Our first house was on the residential side, as opposed to our current home on the college side. Here we live with 2 students, 1 resident (all three of whom have a developmental disability) , 1 other couple, their son who is a sailor but had to come home due to pneumonia, and an older woman who has lived in Camphill communities for many years. The atmosphere here makes us feel much more like we are living in a home than a house.

Tori is working in Soltane’s textile enterprise called “in good company” (Their store website is http://ingc.etsy.com). There are four residents that work there full time (two of whom we lived with at our first house) and four student interns that work there half days Monday through Friday. They research a theme called an “inspiration” (currently they are working on King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table). Then they design fabrics and different textile products to make with the fabrics. After that, they weave their own fabric, cut, and sew it into a unique product to sell at craft fairs, online, or for special orders. All of the weaving and creation of images is the work of the residents and students with disabilities. The coworkers support them and do much of the sewing. Tori enjoys the work and is proud of the products they make. The etsy shop is still just getting started, but we hope to have our bags and t-shirts listed soon!

Aaron is working in Soltane’s community services and with Soltane’s land work group. In community services, they do everything from collecting and sorting recycling from Soltane and the surrounding community to taking on odd jobs that people don’t have time for (cleaning up property lines, chopping firewood, shoveling snow & de-icing sidewalks, etc.). The land work group takes care of several things around campus from collecting and processing compost, raking leaves, trimming trees, and taking care of various fruit patches and orchards (raspberries, blackberries, apples, peaches, black walnuts, etc.). The land group even makes products with the community’s produce such as apple cider, apple butter, fruit leather, etc.

Working at Soltane has definitely been a growth experience for both of us. It is taxing at times both physically and emotionally, but also very rewarding. Soltane allows us to use our talents, learn new skills, and provides us with a sense of great satisfaction in that we are directly contributing to the growth of the students and residents we work with. We have also made new friends here that we are sure will be lifelong connections.

We hope all is well with you! Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love,

Aaron and Tori

P.S. I hope to upload MANY pictures and a few videos during our Christmas break which starts on the 20th.

All moved in

I have a few moments before Tori gets home and we go to her sister's for dinner (with another of her sisters and her family), so I thought I'd update everyone.

We're all moved out of our old place in Fort Worth, and are now house sitting for one of my professors for a month while they are out around the country. We're taking care of their new kittens (Ozzie, Kati, Chewy, and Vanessa) and also taking care of just general things around their house (the yard, fish, plants, etc.). For the next month we will be doing that and working as much as we can to save up for the trip to PA.

Things look pretty good here. I've finished my summer course with an A, and am officially done with my undergraduate degree. We're all settled and taking the opportunity to relax and not have classwork over our heads. That's about all we have to report right now! It will be a sad month, with lots of saying bye to friends, but we look forward to PA.

I'm a Bad Blogger

Sorry for not posting anything new in about....3 weeks. It's been crazy around here. I will eventually finish posting about our vacation I swear.

I really want to update everyone (or the 5 people that read this regularly) on how we're doing.

School:

We had a slight scare that Aaron wasn't going to be able to walk at his graduation. He found out about 4 weeks into the semester that he is missing a Psychology credit he needs for his degree. To make a VERY long story short: he took the CLEP exam, missed it by one point (according to TCU's standards, he was well above the college board standards), made an appeal, it was denied, he is now enrolled for a may-mester (3 week mini semester in May) course in general psych. He was told he could not walk at graduation, but appealed and is walking on May 10th with everyone else (if we can pay the summer tuition by the 1st of May).

Other than that school is going well for Aaron. He is very much enjoying his time as a crisis counselor at the high school and is by all accounts doing great there. He finished his honors project for the honors program and presented it on Monday and will present his departmental honors project today/thursday at their research symposium. He just needs to tweak his final paper and submit it by May 5th.

As for me, things are going well. I and a friend were selected by our department as Outstanding Undergraduate Students of the Year, which is pretty cool. We were presented with a certificate and what looks like two ashtrays (but is actually a trinket box/candy dish) at the UNT honors convocation. As a result of my award, I have decided to go ahead and walk at the UNT graduation on May 16th. I've got two big projects to finish before the end of the semester (one is due the 30th and the other during finals week). I feel good about them both and am so looking forward to graduation day(s).

Summer:

After graduation, it's going to be pretty hectic while we pack up/sell our things in preparation to move out of our apartment. We're going to move our stuff to Aaron's grandmother's house. She agreed to let us store our stuff if we clean out the garage and make room (such an awesome deal!). We also need to go to the doctor and dentist to get checkups and have them fill out medical/dental histories for us to present to Camphill so we can get on their insurance. For the month of June we will be working and house sitting in the Fort Worth area.

We're going to a family reunion on July 4th and then on the 6th we're headed to Colorado to visit some friends we haven't seen in a of couple years. After that we'll visit my mom in Oklahoma, a short stop back in Fort Worth, Del Rio to see my dad and Phyllis, Houston to see Aaron's parents, then a stop back in Louisiana for our one year anniversary (we're staying at the Oak Alley Plantation B&B), then Alabama to visit my sisters and their families. After that a very long drive up to SW New York to visit my grandmother, then finally to Pennsylvania where we'll stay with Aaron's best friend's family for a couple of days before starting at Camphill Soltane.

It's going to be a very busy and wonderful summer, I can tell. Lots of time with family and friends. I'm very excited to see my grandmother. I haven't seen her since I graduated from high school and this will be the first time she and Aaron will meet. I'm also excited to visit Salamanca again (where I lived from age 3-13); from what I saw on google maps street view it hasn't changed much.

We've got a lot going on right now, but I'll do my best to keep this thing up to date. I'll get to the vacation stuff eventually (hopefully before I forget what all we did) :)

The Scoop on Camphill...Finale

It's been a while since the last post. Sorry, but we've been pretty busy around here. We just got back from Spring Break (post on that to come later) and before that we had midterms.

Here it is, the third and final installment of our blogs on Camphill

I'll just go ahead and do the last one because Aaron has been a bit busy/stressed out lately (more on that later t00).

So, onto the final few questions:

"What about grad school?!"
Well, we're obviously not going right now. I hope to eventually get my Master's degree in Speech Language Pathology. I will have to take a few prerequisite undergraduate courses (4 or 5) prior to enrolling in a graduate program so it might take a little while. As for Aaron, he hasn't really decided what he's going to do next. He has really enjoyed working at the high school so far this semester and maybe will someday work as a crisis counselor. That's completely up to him. Our plans for the near future (other than Camphill) are a little bit up in the air at the moment. We've decided to keep our stay at Camphill open-ended. If we love it and they love us, we might stay for a second year (you can qualify for the Americorps grant twice so if we do decide to stay a second year we'll get the same grant again).


"Why aren't you getting a 'real job'?"
Prior to getting married I decided that I wanted to give back in some way. I applied for and was accepted to go on a summer-long mission trip to India last summer. However, I ended up staying due to my financial situation. I had a really nice-paying job that was helping me to also pay for school, and they definitely wouldn't hold my position for me over the summer. So I stayed and we moved the wedding up. We had discussed it and Aaron also wanted to serve others in some capacity, although he definitely had a desire to serve more locally. He's the home-body type and holds to the idea that we should serve here in our own country.

So when we weren't really sure what we were going to do after graduation and felt sick at the idea of starting more school up right away, we began searching for service opportunities. We found Americorps, but didn't see anything in their listings that caught our eye. Then I found www.idealist.org which is basically an awesome search engine for service opportunities and news. We found the Camphill Soltane listing and it sounded perfect for us. We immediately loved the philosophy they have and decided to apply. It may not pay like a "real job" but it most definitely will be an amazing experience that cannot be duplicated in any other sort of setting. It's a way for us to serve others and grow (and it doesn't look bad on a resume by any means). There's plenty of time for "real" jobs in the future anyway.


"Will you be able to come back for _______?"
Honestly, unless it will somehow miraculously take place in Pennsylvania or during one of our holiday breaks, probably not. It's not that we don't care or that we want to miss out on things like graduations, weddings, birthdays, holidays, etc but we have made a committment to work 6 days a week, every week. We do recieve time off for holidays but even then it's not cheap to travel from Pennsylvania to Oklahoma and Texas. We'll definitely do what we can to visit, but it will most likely be on a long break and only a short visit with each part of the family. You're more than welcome to come visit us though! According to what I've read Camphill loves visitors, but be warned: if you plan on staying more than a day or two they'll put you to work :)

"What are you going to do after Camphill?"
Good question! That means we're not really sure yet. We're going to use our time at Camphill to figure that out for ourselves. Don't worry though, we'll let you know once we know.

I hope that this has answered most if not all of your questions. If you have any others or just want to know more about it, give us a call or shoot us an email.

The Scoop on Camphill Soltane...coming soon

Over the next few days/weeks (however often I can find some spare time to write) I am going to post the most common questions (with answers) that we get about Camphill Soltane, our positions there next year, plans in between then and now, and plans for afterward. Hopefully it will help us all in that you will get the information you crave and we won't have to relay all of this information over and over again.

Right now I need to leave for work so the first post will have to wait until later. Here's a picture of a couple of the buildings at Camphill (courtesy of their website)

From the new couch!

Hey everyone, Happy MLKJDAY!

I'm writing this from our new couch-bed! Our Aerobed was showing signs of busting it's internal seams again (for the third and would-be final time before we took out our frustrations on it by cutting it into tiny tiny pieces and drawing little angry faces on each piece with a sharpie), so we decided to deflate it, put it to the side, and take advantage of a sale at Ikea (It's where Santa shops!)

My (Aaron) first week was pretty good. I started my semester as a crisis counselor and it looks like it will be a lot of fun. I've always preferred on-the-job training anyway. More on that as it develops.

Tori begins her first week of classes tomorrow. She'll be working with two kids this semester, and seems to be excited about that, less so about having to be in Denton every day.

That's all that is going on here at the Evans household. Hope all is well with everyone!

It's beginning to look a lot like.... new year's?

Hope everyone had a merry Christmas. We did, though it didn't turn out the way we had planned. We didn't end up spending that time at the resort we mentioned in the previous post. Apparently somebody thought it would be cool to not inform us that we needed to have a combined income of at least $50,000 a year in order to take advantage of this specific promotion. I didn't even know it was a promotion, I thought it was just a stay that we had been given. Well, the resort failed to mention that aspect in the many months I had been talking with them about it, and so the morning before we were going to leave they called and let us know. At least we didn't drive out there for nothing.

The rest of the holiday trip went well though. We headed up to my grandmother's house a bit earlier than expected and picked up my aunt Tracy along the way. We had a wonderful family dinner. Tori is happy with her Christmas gift: a fashionable watch; I am happy with my gift: Guitar Hero III. She has been wearing it pretty much all the time, and I have been playing it pretty much... ok not all the time, but at least once a day.

So it's back to work for us both. Now we are just preparing for next semester and enjoying the break from class work.

Happy New Year!

October

Hi everyone! October has come and gone, and so we thought we would give an update about how things are going. We switched our blog to aarontori.blogspot.com so people can comment. Also we like the layout better.

We've gotten into the swing of things with school and work. Tori is now working with a kid in Keller who has autism, and not only gets class credit and experience in a field she enjoys, but also gets paid! She is also still babysitting for some friends of ours. I'm still working at Texas Steam, and the job is going well.

We've got everything in our home the way we like it, with the exception of our bed (more on that later), as I think the last that we reported was the desk being finished (in more ways than one!). Currently we are occupied with school, work, and planning for the future.

Our bed: Last week we noticed that our bed (an inflatable Aerobed) was bulging at the bottom. Last time it did this, an internal seam burst, and this time it did the same thing. As a matter of fact, it was the same seam. We slept on it for one more night after reporting it to Aerobed and requesting our second replacement in a year, and that night an external seam burst. Tori woke me up at 2 am asking if I heard a sound of air rushing out of the bed, and I sat up. Apparantly I had my pillow resting on top of the external seam that burst, because when I sat up air started wooshing out. Our friends have lent us a mattress until our new bed gets here. Thanks friends :-)

That's about all for October at least. We'll be heading to Del Rio to visit Tori's brother, stepmom, dad, and grandmother for Thanksgiving. We hope everything is going well with you all!

Another Update (Tori)

Hello all! An update on things here in Fort Worth:

It rained pretty much the entire first three days of this week. It was rather dreary and annoying. It didn't help that I have been fighting a cold since Saturday night. I thought it was just allergies (a lot of wind around here has made them pretty bad for everyone) but then it moved to my chest. I'm doing much better, but Sunday and Monday were tough. I've still got some chest congestion and a pretty nasty-sounding cough, but feel MUCH better.

Aaron finished our desk on Monday morning! The sanding and first coat of finish was done Sunday and then he put the second coat on Monday morning and it was in the living room waiting for me when I got home from babysitting! It looks pretty good if I do say so myself. I'll take some pictures this weekend and put them up. It hasn't gotten completely organized yet because we've both been busy and I've been asleep a lot.

Aaron got a computer game called Spore that he's been wanting for a while now. He got it yesterday and spent a few hours last night playing. It seems like a pretty cool game, the basic premise is that you create your own species and evolve and work your way up from a single-celled organism. I'm not sure where it ends (if you work until you reach "higher intelligence" or not), but I guess we'll see.

Aaron went to a crisis counseling orientation session yesterday at the high school he'll be working at next semester. He got to meet the staff and others that he'll be working with and received his name tag and parking permit. So now he's official. I think he'll be going back a few more times this semester to meet with his field adviser and work on gathering data for his honor's project and another research project he's doing for a class this semester. His research sounds pretty interesting and involves the worth the wait abstinence program.

Last Friday, I went to the team meeting for the boy that I'm going to be working with. We call him Chiquito for confidentiality purposes and so that's what I'll call him here as well. I got to meet Chiquito, his other therapists, his mom, and little brother. I observed while one of the other therapists ran through a session with him while the team leader (my supervisor) took data and made notes on what changes needed to be made to his program and set goals to work on for the next week. It was really interesting and a good learning experience for me. Then on Saturday I went back and had what we call a rapport session with Chiquito. I just went to play and get acquainted with him and allow him to become more familiar with me. I brought a toy with me just in case and we ended up needing it. He usually has Saturday and Sunday off from therapy and so my presence on a Saturday wasn't very welcome. We let him know I wasn't there to work, just to play and I presented my toy (a loud squeaking stuffed penguin). He then warmed up to me and we spent the next two hours playing outside in the yard. Poor kid doesn't know yet that starting next week I'm actually going to start working him on Saturdays too. I didn't go on Monday due to the fact that I wasn't feeling well enough to keep up with two full hours of playing. Yesterday, I went and met with my supervisor and she trained me on all of his programs. It was a fairly good session (especially considering that I'm new and unfamiliar to him). I observed all of the programs and was able to work on a few of them with him myself. All in all it was a great experience and I'm very excited about being able to work with him.

Tuesday was the 9th, our first month anniversary. Time has certainly been flying by! I need to ask Jason how the pictures are coming. I promise we'll get them out to everyone as soon as they're ready.

Well, that's enough for now. Next time I'll have to make sure Aaron writes the update so that you all can hear from him too!

Newlywed Life (by Tori)

Hello all! It's been almost four weeks now since we got married. We have both started back to school and are settling into our routines.

Aaron has a full class load as well as being president of NASW-TCU (National Association of Social Workers-TCU chapter) and a job. He's working at a company called Texas Steam. They have contracts with trucking companies and go there to pressure wash their trucks each week. It's hard work, but pays well and the boss is a really great guy (thanks again Kathy for telling Aaron about it).

I also have a full load of classes, am babysitting for a couple families, and just recently got a position working as a behavior therapist with a young boy that has Autism here in the Fort Worth area. I'm very excited about getting some experience as well as having the opportunity to work with a very well-known professional in the field.

We travelled up to Oklahoma over Labor Day weekend for a short visit with my mom. It was a nice visit and we managed to drive up and back in between storms, so the drive was nice and easy.

We have been working on our place, mostly trying to get everything organized and consolidate our things. We've gotten it almost finished. We lost our closet to a new washer/dryer and shelving and so had been hanging clothes on a portable rack. We purchased a wardrobe when we were in Oklahoma so now we not only have a place to hide our clothes away, but some more storage space too! We found a nice desk for free and are working on refinishing it. It's close to being finished and once that is done the house will be done. I'll be sure to post some pictures of it when everything is finished.

We received our pictures from the photographer on a disk last week. We have given them to our friend Jason to edit, so once he is finished we will be posting them on here and making DVDs for those that want to print their own pictures. We do have full printing rights to them so it won't be a problem for you to print them anywhere you like.

That's all for now, we'll keep you updated on things!