These are a few of my favorite things…

One of the greatest things I have come to find about serving at Echo is the list of strange “favorites” you start accumulating in the back of your head. It’s inevitable, at some point in your two weeks serving at Echo this fate will come to you, you will begin your list of “favorite” things.  At first you may keep it to yourself, fearful of what others might think or say, but then it happens, you catch someone smelling and marveling at the sweet aroma of the Mint-O-Dis also.  You then realize, you are not alone, it’s a beautiful moment.  After much contemplation and internal debate, I have just finised my “Top 10” list of favorite things, groundbreaking,  I know.  So here we go (deep breath)….

Let’s start off with number 10 (I feel it is more suspenseful this way)…

10. Birds flying into windows after you have just cleaned them. (ok, so this isn’t by any means a “happy memory”, however, you must realize that our windows must have been amazingly clean for a bird to think it could fly through it….think about it.)

9. Slipping on the wet floor up at Ponderosa Lodge and spilling all the silverware. (Fun fact about  washing silverware: it has to go through the washer twice…not once, twice.)

8. Pearls of wisdom from Uncle Don. So good.

7. Singing Johnny Cash while cleaning the fieldhouse bathrooms (mopping + Windex + mint-o-dis+ Jackson = Magic)

6. Audry’s bread and Ivan’s brownies. (you have to taste these marvels to truly understand)

5. Learning how to stack plates that have just come out of the washer (that are still in the rack mind you) with one swoop of your hand.  I can’t even begin to describe the feeling you get when you do this right for the first time.

4. Cutting boxes and boxes of bell peppers and making “bell pepper villages” from the remnants.

3. Secret ice cream brakes on Wednesday and Friday in the Fieldhouse. (One of the many Pearls of Wisdom bestowed upon me from Uncle Don)

2. Phil blasting Kelly Clarkson every day in the Pondy kitchen. (I had the whole CD memorized by the end of session 1)

1. The smell of Mint-O-Dis in the morning. Glorious.

I hope this list will inspire and motivate you to join us this year and serve at Echo, for this list could easily become yours as well.  Or, maybe, just maybe, you will come up with a list of your own favorites, yes I  know…let that sit for a minute…you could have your very own list.

Brilliant.

-Tall Katie