Preparing for a New Year of Retreatants in San Rafael

After returning to my home congregation in San Rafael, California, I have had the opportunity to help at our lovely retreat house Santa Sabina Center. It is a brief walk through the Dominican University campus past old Victorians, and I have been going several days a week since I got back. The Center itself is gorgeous with a mixture of Gothic and Mission architecture surrounded by cottage gardens, so it is always a treat to be able to visit, even to work hard!

The first project was a several thousand piece mailing that needed to be sorted, put into envelopes, addressed, and stamped with multiple pieces of information. We spread out all over the dining area, which used to be where the novices ate before Santa Sabina became a retreat center. It felt right somehow to be there as a novice myself, and I couldn't help thinking of all the women who had come before me through that hall as I folded and stamped the papers.

The second project I have been working on is going through the bookstore area. There is a new identity font for Santa Sabina, and the taxes had changed, so we needed to go through all the books and replace the tags.

Step one was creating an inventory of the books we already had, then creating every label. The biggest step was cutting all those little pieces and alphabetizing them! I then went through the books, replaced their tags, and found their stands.

You can see in the photo how the left side is done, and the right side books are not upright yet. That was my code for what had been completed.

It was quite the project, but it was great to see the bookstore go from empty shelves and piles everywhere to looking neat and organized again. The retreatants of 2013 have a great shop to look forward to!

—Alexa