#5 Best Place to Work and Ugly Christmas Sweater Party

#5 Best Place to Work in the Federal Government
This week the United States Patent and Trademark Office received special recognition as one of the best places to work in the United States federal government. The Best Places to Work in the Federal Government® rankings draw on responses from nearly 700,000 civil servants to produce a detailed view of employee satisfaction and commitment across 362 federal agencies and subcomponents. With a score of 80.3, the USPTO ranked #5 out of 290 in the agency subcomponent category.

Ugly Christmas Sweater Party
Some of my coworkers and I attended an ugly sweater party at an apartment in Alexandria.  The theme of this party dictates everyone who comes must wear an ugly Christmas sweater.  Since I do not have any such sweaters because of the good taste of people who buy my clothes including myself, I went to Christ's House Thrift store in Alexandria.  They had the perfect sweater for the party.  It was red with houses, trails, trees, "For Sale" signs, and the best part keys for the buttons.  When I wore the sweater half-way unbuttoned with a tie, dress pants, and dress shoes, I looked just like a dad in the 1950's.  All I was missing was a pipe.  During the party, I won the award for the ugliest ugly Christmas sweater.  I was proud of all of the work (10 minutes asking people where to buy the sweater and 5 minutes actually buying the sweater) that was put into winning the award.

Example of an Ugly Christmas Sweater

Salvation Army Food Truck and Meal of the Week

Salvation Army Food Truck with Caroling

On Saturday, I joined other members of Bethany Lutheran Church to prepare a meal for the Salvation Army Food truck.  We made a hearty meat, vegetable, and noodle soup and packed brown bag sacks with a sandwich, banana, and cookies.  I have never made the previously mentioned type of soup, but I learned and it did not taste bad.  After cooking, we delivered the food to the Salvation Army food truck who dispersed the food to homeless of DC.  The group who made the food would follow the truck as it made its trip around DC stopping to serve the prepared food.  When the truck stopped to serve the food, we would get out of the car and sing Christmas carols.  It was a fun experience!  I am sorry, I forgot to take pictures of the people or the salvation army truck. :-(

Our Soup

Meal of the Week

Back from its 1 week break is the meal of the week!  This week I prepared a supreme lasagna in the crock pot.  It was not the best lasagna, but I did my best and now I have my meals for the next few days.

Coming Home and Volunteering

Coming Home
I am coming home to Davenport, Iowa for Christmas on Thursday, December 20th and returning to DC on Tuesday, December 25th.

Volunteering
This week I completed my first shift at the Christ House Food Pantry.  There were 8 other people who joined me to pack 40 lb boxes to be distributed throughout the entire area the Arlington Diocese covers in northern Virginia   The lead guy was Vince who leads the Knights of Columbus every 4th Saturday to work the food pantry.  First I was on making boxes, which included taping the bottom of the box with the cross and putting the Arlington Diocese's sticker on the side.  Next I put cans of vegetables in the box.  Then finally after we made all of the boxes we were scheduled to make, we resupplied the shelves for the next group to come in and box.  Below are a few pictures.

One of the Volunteers Boxing Veggies

Boxes for the Food

Law School Application

I met with an admissions consultant for law school to assist me through the law school admission's process including my personal statement.  The consultant is the same person as my LSAT instructor.  His insight into the process and what schools are looking for have seemed helpful so far.  The biggest impact so far was his advice of the topic for essay.  The topic will be able to tie together some of my experiences under an underlying theme that law schools want to see.

Christmas Time at the Townhouse

Boy Scout Wreath on our Front Door

My Room with Christmas Lights