life is a maze and love is a riddle

hi friends!!!!

wow, what a great day i had!!!! i can't wait to tell you about it.

SO. i went to bed at 3:30am. when i finally felt tired. i could not sleep. finally fell asleep at 4am. which, i guess isn't that too long after.

woke up at 7am. hit snooze once. woke up again at 7:10am. got up. put on the coffee. fed kitty. got dressed. made waffles.

had to be downstairs at 7:45am. played with a baby for a little while until he and his mom left at 8am to go home for the weekend.

hung out in the office for a while. ate my waffles. drank my coffee. this was when i updated with my work post.

then, our one resident came downstairs a little after 8:30. she ate some cherries. we chatted in the office. came up with a plan for the day. we would go rent movies and then have an adventure in vermont. but, we had to wait until after Diane arrived to work so that she would be there to answer phones. the morning was super quiet. there were only three phone calls between 8am and 10:30am.

i started my sewing project. i'm making Kara, Maria and myself t-shirts for the harry potter midnight showing next week. YEAH, BE JEALOUS. so, i had to practice sewing lightning bolts. and i brought down an old t-shirt with part of the front cut out to practice on. what happened was, i wanted to save the design of the t-shirt, so i cut out the front. the rest of it was still a t-shirt, though.

so, i got lots of practice lightning bolts done. and they look so effing awesome.

then, Diane came in at around 10:30. i took out some money from the safe. and we were off!

first stop, Hollywood Video. we got two movies.
1. Hocus Pocus
2. Epic Movie
our resident was very excited about these. that's good. then, we talked about our adventure. i asked, "do you want to explore highway vermont, or back road vermont?" she chose back road. so, we drove down route 4.

it's not really a "back road," but it's better and more rural than 91. so, we drove west along route 4.

i asked her if she wanted to stop at The Quechee Gorge. she did! so, i parked the van and we got out, walked along both sides of the bridge, browsed in the Gorge gift shop and had a lovely time. she loved it. it was fun looking in the gift shop with her.

then we were off for more exploring!!! we continued west. this was the route that kara and i explored very in-depth during our Sister Adventure Week 2009. we drove through Woodstock, Vermont, which i just love. i want to stop sometime and browse. and i want to buy that old, falling down house and restore it. and i want to find that disappearing bakery, which i still couldn't find.

we continued to drive west. along the river. through the woods and the mountains. it's really a beautiful drive. we got in some good conversation. rocked out to Avril Lavigne. Sk8r Boi, to be more specific.

after about 30 miles of driving, we turned around and headed back. we were pretty far! we talked about making an ice cream stop and decided on the place near Home Depot in West Lebanon, because that place has the best bubblegum ice cream, our resident says, and that's her favorite. fine with me.

so, we stopped and got ice cream. i had coffee/black raspberry twist with chocolate dip. in a dish. she had bubblegum on a cone. delish! we saw a really cute baby playing with a straw. we also heard people singing 'happy birthday' from the Home Depot parking lot. we both remarked at what a lame birthday that was, going to Home Depot.

then we headed home. were back around 2pm, i think. it was a nice, long day out.

got back and there was a party in the staff office. Diane, Kristin and Sue had all ordered mexican food for lunch and were sitting, lounging, eating, chatting. we joined the party, which lasted for about another hour before everyone got back to work. it was really great. there were lots of laughs. i really love my coworkers. and our resident.

so then, it was time for people to get back to work. so, i got back to my sewing and our resident looked up music videos on YouTube. hard work was happening.

so then, she sees the work i've been doing on the lightning bolt shirt and she says,

RESIDENT: That's a really cute shirt.
JULIE: Really?
RESIDENT: Yeah, I like it.
JULIE: You can have it if you want...
RESIDENT: Really??
JULIE: Yeah!! Sure!!! Do you want anything else on it?
RESIDENT: Umm..like, what?
JULIE: Hmm....I could sew on your name if you want...
RESIDENT: YEAH!

so, i took a pen, wrote her name in a pre-discussed spot on the shirt, and started sewing!

OMG. the shirt came out AWESOME. i am so proud of it. she looooves it. even though there's a huge hole cut out of the front. she wore it with a tank top underneath, but i'm going to sew in a white tank top permenantely so it won't look as weird.

she was so excited about it and that made me feel really excited and really good. now she has her own homemade, personalized shirt!!!! wow!

then Courtney came in at 3:30 for her shift. the three of us lounged in the office for a realllly long time. we discussed doing fun things together and decided that next thursday we would plan a trip to Portsmouth, NH to see Grease at Prescott Park. i hope it doesn't rain because that would be really fun. Courtney was really excited to hear the plan.

and, then Diane came into the office on her way out, and ended up staying for like, an hour. we were all just sitting around, talking. it was great.

i didn't get back upstairs until about 6:15. yikes!!! that's a long day of work. but, it was a really fun day. i'm really glad we went on our vermont adventure. she said on our way home,

RESIDENT: I don't know why everyone always thinks you need to spend money to have fun. I have so much fun just driving around looking at new things.

she's really sweet. i'm taking her to a doctor's appointment tomorrow. or, today. friday. whenever. and me and Courtney are her labor coaches for when she gives birth in October. i'm excited about that.

so! wow! what a good day. today was one of those days when i thought, "wow, what a great job i have!" i thought that last week too, when i was taking two of the girls out to run errands.

it's like, my job is to be a positive part of these girl's lives. and to have fun with them. and today i got free ice cream out of it! what a great deal!

then i came home, made a sandwich, watched an ep of heroes, took a nap. great night. (i'm not going to go on and on, but i'm on season 3 now, which is called "villians" and i can still remember the commercials on tv and they would whisper, "who is a hero....and who is a .....villian.....?" it was pretty dramatic. and so far, the third season is waaaay better than the second. ok! enough!)

now for the exciting stuff!!!!!

SO! many of you probably read my entry Dear Dave and Renee, which i posted earlier today. Dave and Renee are two of my great friends living in Colorado. Dave is older brother to Maria, who is the best friend ever. she's my best friend ever.

SO, to back track a bit, in high school, Dave and his friend Sam had this amazing band called Compost Shark. it was truly awesome. Maria and i even did some collabing on a song called Homeless in Hawaii. we are the ones hysterically, uncontrollably laughing in the background.

and! Dave and Renee have a blog which i just recently learned about. and it's totes cool. and just today they posted an entry about a Compost Shark reunion concert which took place in Colorado this past monday!!! i was very excited to read about it, and even MORE excited to see they had posted a video of one of my favorite Compost Shark songs, Kathleen.

i would very strongly insist that you click on the link and watch the vid. if i had Matt Parkman mind controlling powers, i would mind-control you into clicking on the link. Kathleen is a great song. Compost Shark is a great band. and! Dave commented in this very blog saying that there will be a new Compost Shark CD being released hopefully by the end of the summer!!

Kathleen is a song that i listen to frequently. which then prompts me to listen to Gulden's Mustard. another classic. about a great trip to a Portland Sea Dogs baseball game with Maria, Dave and Sam. good times. i think that was when Sam ate the pepto bismol. and i caught a fly away ball, but then threw it back onto the field. the kid behind me wasn't happy.

anyways!! great times with great friends. enjoy Compost Shark!!!!

and with that, i am leaving you. leave on a high note, i always say. have a great friday!! i have to clean my apartment. something which i have been putting off every other day this week. tomorrow is the last day, so i have to do it.

take care, friends.


with love.

<3