A state of currentness

I feel like I've been sprinting the last few days and I am finally at a walking pace. I spoke at Northwestern University last Wednesday evening. I was one of the five panelists and easily the youngest person on stage. No biggie. The panel was organized by students for students... as it turned out. I didn't see any faculty members in the audience which seemed a little odd given that we had a lot of academic and community support when Brad and I were in college. Though we did meet in the architecture department at a small institution. Hmmm. I guess NU just rolls a different way. {I did get paid- sweet!} The panel looked at the relationship of religion to the environment. I've been actively pondering the notion of {community development/ sustainability} consulting work and I've been testing the waters a bit... so to speak.

The very next morning, after I dropped my kiddos off at school, I made a mad dash to catch the train downtown. And then hopped on a bus to the Cathedral District of Chicago. I sat in on a 3-hour Diocesan Sustainability Task Force meeting... and then made the reverse trip. After our usual homework routine, I took my nanny kiddos' back to school for this International Students Festival. I zoned out in the hot, stuffy classroom as they "learned" Korean, listened to Arabic music and had multicultural snacks. Wwaayy too much running around. Friday was intentionally much more relaxing. On Saturday, Brad helped his brother teardown his garage.
I went to a baby shower for an old college roommate. It seems like we went through a ~wave~ of weddings... and now everyone is having babies. :)
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Sunday. The Chicago Green Festival. I had a free ticket and Brad stayed home to do some fine art painting in our sun room/ studio. It was a beautiful day in Chicago! What better way to spend the day then take a subway ride, TWO bus rides {1 being a Sunday weekend shuttle. what?} and walking around Navy Pier for 2-3 hours?!! To Brad: good choice- ha!
I kid, I kid (sorta). The festival was HUGE. Isn't it ironic that the hippie-dippy types spent hours indoors? I walked briskly, grabbed some literature, free sustainable swag... and called it a day. I relaxed on the {touristy} pier and watched the boats. I have mixed reviews on the festival- overall I thought it was just okay. It seemed more marketplace ($$) than workshops.

As soon as you entered the massive room, you saw those artsy folks in the collage above. They reminded me of actors from the Redmoon Theater company in Chicago.