The adventures continue - moving into a new Convent home

A new missioning assignment finds me moving to E. San Xavier Drive in Casa Grande, Arizona from W. San Xavier Road, Tucson, Arizona. Just a little aside -- my last "small mission" (before Silver Lake College) was at Xavier High School in my home town of Appleton, Wisconsin, So a devotion to St. Francis Xavier has been a part of my life for a long time.

But back to the new adventure. Casa Grande is a new location for our Community. There are three of us setting up a new convent home, Sr. Carol Seidl, new principal of St. Anthony's School, Sr. Mary Karen Oudeans with a new position with the diocese of Tucson Education Office, and myself, retired but still working at Santa Cruz School in Tucson.

The three of us 

I'm in the modern world of telecommuting on most days, but I do enjoy the at least once a week drive to Tucson and getting my "little kid fix." I always manage to get there for the weekly school Mass and I continue my habit of eating lunch with the pre-K teachers and kids -- always great fun!

St. Anthony Parish is renting a small, but lovely, house for us. Like many houses in Arizona it comes with a small swimming pool. As Franciscans we gladly take whatever lodging we are given, be it "ever so humble" or, on occasion, be it with some nice perks. We have some lovely donated furnishings and the St. Vincent de Paul Store freely gives us anything they have in the store that we need. We won't have any trouble deciding what to do with the furnishings whenever we leave this location! Back to St. Vincent De Paul they will go.

Sr. Carol, as principal, had to start here in beginning of July. She is a "real time" blogger; so you can see some information about her new job and the school and the town on her blog: "Franciscan Sands." Sr. Mary Karen and I were able to stay in Manitowoc for a little longer. We are fortunate to have a car from the Motherhouse to drive down - and keep. I hope the Wisconsin license plate on our car

moved Arizona drivers to excuse us at the times we were poking along trying to find addresses in this new location!

I'll share some of the adventures/experiences Sr. Mary Karen and I had on our road trip on my next post: The Adventures Continue -- parallel to Route 66.