Its been a crazy couple of weeks up here in RI. Its almost summer, only 26 days left of school. You would think that with the weather getting warmer, days longer and the prospect of the beach right around the corner everything would be fantastic and wonderful? WRONG! Okay, so life isn't awful, but it sure has been stressful. 6 months into the job its beginning to take a toll on me. I am exhausted, anxious and those three day weekends just aren't doing it for me anymore. Now I really see why this is only a year position. Not that I don't love my job (most of the time), because I do. I love the kids and the girls in the office, but its tough. Its tough working until at least 7 every night, even tougher having kids you care about taken from their home and put in placement. Sometimes I just want to curl up into a ball and hide from everything. But its like Patrick said during our "happy one year anniversary flip out" I have to appreciate the little things. I have to appreciate the fact that Emily's coming to town today. Or that I have great friends in RI. And of course that Patrick and I have been together for a whole year. I also need to remember how much I love my kids and even though its a hard job, its important.

That was enough of a pep talk, I know I feel better. Although I can't promise that I won't loose it at weigh in today if I gain weight. Its just been one of those weeks.

I have an obsession with blogs, I'll admit it. I love them. I love writing one (obviously) and reading them. Its kinda what I do at work. I peruse blogs when I'm sitting at my desk avoiding work. I have all different ones I read, celebrity gossip, weight watchers, cooking, feminist ones, friends' blogs and of course Sundry who we have been following closely since...oh maybe sophomore year of high school. Every day I have at least 6 that I must, no questions asked, check. Most of them I check more than once a day. I love looking for new blogs to read, usually about anything. While I should be reading the Times, or even CNN.com, I read the superficial and jezebel. But, there are a few good ones that I have tuned into as of late. My new favorite is elastic waist, which is a commentary on body image and weight in pop culture. In my never ending exploration of what I want to be when I grow up I sit at my computer reading blog after blog thinking...hmmm, weight..blogs...English/WS thesis? Junior year of college I took a course on third wave feminism that centered around the narrative. Aren't blogs the new narrative? Blogs say so much about our technology crazed society, both good and bad. I say all this and then think how could i ever compete with the girls at Feministing or Feministe (my two favorite feminist blogs). They have their WS MA from NYU, they went to great schools, they run non profits! I can't even get up the nerve to take my GRE and apply to grad school, if thats even what I want to do. I feel like at 23 I should really know what I want to be when I grow up instead of swinging back and forth between a couple of ideas.

I think my main reason for this new and exciting existential crisis is the fact that I'm starting to get a little burned out at the job. When I started I thought it was absurd that my position was only a year long. Now? Oh boy has my opinion changed. Don't get me wrong, I still love my job and my kids but holy crap do I need a break. Theres so much bad stuff going on it gets to be overwhelming. I'm constantly thinking about my clients and whats going on with their lives. Sometimes I feel like I don't have any room for my own life. It is especially challenging because of my crazy schedule. I'm rarely home before 7 any night (except every other friday and monday!) which leaves no down time. I walk in the door and start dinner. Its not even that I'm working 60+ hours a week, its just weird times. I don't have to go into work until 12 every other day, which is nice, but that gives me most of the morning to sit around the house watching tv. I'd rather (in an ideal world) go in at 9 and be home at a normal hour to do stuff, join a club or something.

I just had a traumatic experience and I am now in mourning. Last night I made lamb stew for dinner. It was a "good try carolyn" dinner, which means "eh, don't make this again without major alterations." Patrick isn't going to outright complain, but I get it. But back to my story, I had the leftover stew in the crock pot in the fridge. I opened the fridge to make lunch and BOOM the whole thing fell on the floor, spilled and broke. I made a mess, lost at least 2 meals worth of food AND broke my crock pot. I love my crock pot. Nona gave it to me when we moved up here and I use it all the friggin time. This is awful. I just bought a new toaster and now I need a new crock pot. Granted it will be nice to have a bigger one that is a little more...modern. To top it off I had to wash the floor.

Before I started at the job I didn't really know how I would handle twenty something "at risk" teenagers. My experience consisted of working with kids from upper middle/high class high schools and at risk fifth graders, both worlds away from the population I work with now. I must say I got into my groove pretty quick and I do my job well, fantastic in fact. I'm good, but I'm also firm and strict. There are some things that are constantly coming out of my mouth when I have kids in the car with me. "No" is the first. Somewhere down the line nobody learned that asking once and being told no doesn't really mean no, it means to ask the same question 438920 more times. This is a daily issue. There are also the many versions of "Thats inappropriate" If I had a nickel for every time I had to get onto someone for being inappropriate I would be halfway to Maui by now. Along with "thats inappropriate" is "I don't want to see it/hear it" Don't come into my office and start talking about weed, please. But there are two things that have caught me off guard. Things that never would have occurred to me to say to kids before. "You got your period, woohoo!!" is the first. Seriously? I mean these kids shouldn't be having sex in the first place. Then there is, "Keep it in English please." If you think logically about a couple of middle school boys sitting in my car speaking in Spanish, chances are they are not talking about something I would want to hear. Second, I find it rude. Purposefully excluding one or two people in the car from conversation is rude. They still haven't caught onto that one. Everyone is getting better about being inappropriate, well, most of them just change it over into Spanish. Oh kids, they are wonderful!

It is one of those tuesday mornings after my long weekend where I just DO NOT want to get out of bed, get my stuff together and get to the gym. Every excuse in the book is running through my head, but (asides the one deal breaker, not finding my flip flops) I will persevere and work out for an hour. Even if I go to work in a not so chipper mood, I'm always happy about tracking by 6. Okay, maybe 6:30, it gives me time to warmed up.

On Friday I spent most of the day in court for two of my clients. It is a world of difference from mock trial, that is for darn sure. First of all nobody dresses up, even the attorneys, one was wearing red patten leather platform shoes. I almost had a heart attack. The clients were even worse. A sweat suit to court???? Its also just downright scary in there. My first client got yelled at and almost taken away. I had to wait hours upon hours for the second one to get seen. Thank goodness I brought snacks and a book or else I would have been crawling up the walls. I saw someone have their kids taken away too, that was sad. Overall it made me thankful for a couple of things, one that I Never got into trouble in high school and two, that I didn't go to law school. I'm much happier working "in the trenches" doing hands on work, trying to keep these kids away from lawyers.

That evening Patrick and I decided to go on a date. Being that we are the absolute cheap skates that we are, we went to Blaze on Thayer because we had gift cards. This is the second time we went and I was completely unimpressed with it the first time around. The service was awful and the food was...ehhh. This time? the service was awful and the fajitas, I could have made better at home. But we had a nice date night and at least it is finally warm enough to walk down to Thayer instead of drive.

Sunday I went up to Boston to help Michelle move some stuff out of her dorm for the summer. She's going to be done with classes in a couple of weeks! Its absurd how early she gets out for the year. I finally got my Wooly Monster back. She has had it since at least October because I brought it up to her one day when she was sick. It might be too warm to really need it, but its nice to have it back. I love it and I don't care what anybody says about it. I'm going to keep it forever.

There is a very good chance my life may be complete by this summer. Why? New Kids on the Block of course! They are doing a "homecoming" tour in Boston. Oh, I'll be there. Hangin' Tough of course!

Things are starting to pick and and be less blah, mostly because the weather is getting warmer. There are things to do, parks to play in and patios to drink on. Brown's spring fling is even this weekend! I can't wait until its warm enough to take a blanket and the football to the park and spend my sunday afternoon. I know this weekend I am hitting up the flea market, that is if its not raining. RI in the spring/summer is going to be a wonderful thing. There is tons of stuff to do and I absolutely can't wait! Tiff and I were talking about getting roller blades. Hmm, roller blading around the park down the street sounds fun. Roller blading around Prov? Not so fun. I might go get some in the next couple of weeks. There are enough parks and safe-ish places that I could hopefully not kill myself.

I am at the point where I am so sick and tired of everything that I just want to say "s crew it" to everyone and just stay in bed all day. I'm tried, I'm stressed, Patrick broke the coffee maker this morning and my toaster crapped out. This overtime I am doing isn't that many hours, but it is definitely taking its toll on me. Right now I'd much rather be doing some part time catering instead. It would probably be more money. But instead of moping around the house until i have to go to work, I'm going to the gym to get a good hour and a half work out in! Then I'm going to be smiley and happy at work today. Well, we'll see how weight in goes today. I'm not sure how the losing weight thing has been going this week. I can never tell.

Its kind of depressing how boring and uneventful life is these days. I guess life in the real world isn't always as exciting as I thought it would be. I work, sleep, cook and thats about it. We need to start doing fun and exciting things or else I will even bore myself to death with this thing, and that'd be impressive. Things would be a lot more amusing if i could tell stories about my clients, because I ALWAYS have good ones, but thats kinda against the rules. What can i do to inject some excitement into my life? I'm open for suggestions! Because, seriously, this is ridiculous.

Spring is in the air which means one thing...BASEBALL SEASON. Since I've moved up here I've been so much more into the Red Sox and I am so freakin excited for the season to start. Baseball season means Red Sox and Red Sox means....



Manny and Jacoby, my two loves. I can't wait to go to a game. AND, michelle got a job at a place right next to Fenway. So even if I can't go to the games I can go hang out there every once in a while and watch. Baseball season rocks!

Since its warm enough, our friendly neighbor, or the guy who owns the neighboring property, decided he needed to make our lives miserable. Our current parking situation is annoying enough, we have to work out three cars with three different schedules getting in and out of the driveway. It was only three because crazy downstairs neighbor went in and out the back because he has an SUV. Well now dude is putting up a wall so he can't get in and out through the way he has been. What does that mean for us? Well, we have 4 cars in three houses with 4 different schedules trying to use one driveway. It doesn't help that we avoid talking to crazy downstairs neighbor at all costs. Currently he's unemployed (again), but his "line of work" is pretending to manage bars and restaurants. Ugh, don't even get me started. On the weeknights Patrick and I pull our cars in no later than 11. We have are the only ones who have something like a normal 9-5 schedule. I have no idea what we're going to do and it is totally stressing me out.

Easter has come and mostly gone without anything terribly exciting. Honestly, we probably should have gone up to see what Nona was up to today, but alas. Michelle came down last night (finally!) and spent the night. I was stoked to have her see the place and providence. Unfortunately there wasn't a whole lot to do considering it was the night before easter. And today? We went to Borders. Actually, it wasn't sooo boring. We made a nice breakfast and hung out for a while. She got to meet a couple of my friends, including Dave. And in my never ending attempts to be cute and homey, the easter bunny came! Being the easter bunny (and santa of course) is freakin expensive, let me tell you that. But we got the first season of How I Met Your Mother on DVD and (most importantly) scrabble. Patrick and I played a game this evening, i won. It was a pretty low keyed visit, I wish we could have gone to the mall or seen more stuff down town. But I at least got to spend some time with her, and thats the important thing.

Right now I'm contemplating just how early I can get away with going to bed this evening. I am currently dreading waking up in the morning and doing my 9-9 shift. One day off just isn't enough. The only thing that is keeping me going is waiting for my tax return so we can get paid off on everything and *maybe, just maybe* have a little left over, though I'm not holding my breath. I want to have a little more wiggle room than we do right now. As soon as I get paid for my extra hours we can start to save up for other fun things, like a computer we desperately need. Dear god we need a new computer! Hopefully this one will last us another couple of months until we can afford it. The real world sucks

I thought spring was supposed to be warm and sunny...?

Oh how was I wrong!! There was snow yesterday. And rain. And more rain. And wind, cold. WHEN is the weather going to be nice again???

Getting your hair cut at a new salon is always a gamble and today, well...I lost. I lost about 5 inches of hair and $80. Being Monday, the place that I wanted to go wasn't open, so I went to this place on Thayer. I figured I could go in, get the haircut I wanted and get my eyebrows done all at the same time. I at least got my eyebrows done even if I didn't get the haircut I wanted. The concept is pretty simple, especially because it is the "in" haircut. I wanted to get what Mindy gave me last time she did my hair. Unfortunately I didn't expect a smelly (seriously, I had to hold my nose while he was washing my hair) man who didn't really understand the words "inverted" and "layers." I want a bob, I want it layered. SIMPLE. He had to go back and fix it twice and I'm still not happy. I'm going to let some friends see it and figure out if i want to go back and pitch a fit or not. He also doubled the price I was told just because he blow dried it. Didn't style, just blow dried. I could have done that at home and walked my ass back down for him to finish cutting it. Now I feel bad because I don't want to go in there and get someone else to fix it if I decide thats what needs to be done. If I do go back, it will probably be on Wednesday and I'll ask for the manager. We'll see what the friends have to say about it. Ugh, I am very very upset right now.

I have some wonderfully exciting news, Emily is moving back up to Providence in June! I'm so excited about having a best friend here. Its been 6 years since we've lived in the same state. Having her around is going to be amazing. I am in dire need of a good girlfriend. I don't think I've seen any "friends" in 2 weeks, besides dave. Things are frustrating and a little bit lonely these days.

In my never ending effort to keep my checking account balance over zero I've signed up for some extra shifts at work. Tides is forming a bunch of new programs and I'm doing "modified tracking" on my off nights. 2 or 3 nights a week I'm tracking 5 kids in Providence. I did 2 intakes today. Providence kids are a little bit different from my Woonsocket ones, must be the city living. Right now its a mess of confusion and nobody knows whats going on. The other day I went out and bought myself a day planner with hourly slots. In college those things stressed me out, but now with 5 extra kids and all that is involved with that I have to have it. We're running into some serious problems, like not having a work phone for it. It would be almost impossible to have one considering that I'm not passing a phone back and forth between myself and a kid in Pawtucket. Rhode Island maybe be small, but not that small. And gas is friggin expensive. Once I get started, which will be next week, I'm going to be getting about $400 extra a month, which isn't too bad considering I'm just extending my work day from 5 to 7ish. It sucks because that cuts into dinner time and all that, but Patrick and I can just move dinner back a little. I'm going to have to be more creative in preparing food that doesn't take an hour. Nobody likes eating at 9 pm.

The in laws were up this week from South Florida. Patrick's mother and youngest brother came up for spring break. It was a nice trip, especially because she kind of went grocery shopping. We have tons of eggs and milk now at least. That and a chicken carcass I need to boil down. mmm, carcasses! We went up to Boston on Sunday. They decided to do a trolly tour. Unfortunately we weren't on it for very long, but I enjoyed it while we drove around Boston. I learned a couple new things about the city I didn't know. A molasses flood? who knew? We also went to the USS constitution. That is one touristy thing I hadn't done before this past weekend. I surprisingly enjoyed it, even though it was absolutely freezing outside. They also went up to Salem to do some touristy stuff. I couldn't go because it was my Monday on. Everyone sounded like they had a fun time. I hope his mother enjoyed herself and doesn't think I'm too much of a heathen and awful girlfriend for her son.

I am currently cooking lasagna and chocolate muffins along with trying to clean the house. Patrick's mother and brother are coming in tomorrow for a couple of days and I'm trying to do my best to pretend I am all homey and jazz...HA. I figure make a lasagna, have some chocolate muffins and his mother might overlook some of the lesser aspects of the house. The fact that we don't really have any curtains or the dustiness we just can't get rid of. Its not that I'm nervous, I'm just worried she won't be impressed, or something. They're going to be up here until Wednesday so we have a good couple of days of family time. There's enough of my family around, its good his is coming up. I know we're going to Boston on Sunday, but other than that we have nothing planned. Providence, and RI in general, isn't the most inviting place in the winter. All the good stuff doesn't get started for another month or so. I am going to take half a day on Tuesday to hang out with them and I am at a complete loss of what to do. Movies? Mall? RISD museum? In order not to worry I am going out with Alexis to see Keller Williams tonight(!!!)

I feel kind of strange announcing to the world my weight watchers status, so as of next week just remember I'm on it. From time to time I might update those who don't see me, but thats only if its really good. This week, not really good. Then again, it wasn't really bad either. Nothing, absolutely nothing. I didn't gain or loose. Its partly frustrating, but then again I didn't gain. I will say that I adore our leader and she always has good ideas and recipes.

Making the lifestyle changes required to succeed at WW is tough. The whole counting thing isn't a big deal at all, its changing how I think about food. While I've always *tried* (kinda, sorta, sometimes) to eat relatively healthy, I've made some huge overhauls in my eating habits. Its a constant source of amusement and awe. Grocery shopping is definitely not the same anymore. Unfortunately grocery shopping in Prov is a pain in the ass in and of itself. Adding on being broke AND being on WW its a mammoth undertaking. There are three places to shop in the city (well, pretty much) and it is a distinct hierarchy. Whole Foods, Stop and Shop and Save-A-Lot. I can't afford Whole Foods, Stop and Shop has horrible produce and Save-A-Lot, well...its Save-A-Lot. Never, ever go the first Saturday of the month, its a headache and a half. Instead of dealing with the Stop and Shop I don't like I've taken it upon myself to shop in Woonsocket. Its a little out of my way, but Shaws and Price Rite are totally worth it.

Wow, I really am a middle aged house wife. A post about GROCERY SHOPPING?? I have food on my brain, its really all we do in the office. That and I play scrabulous on Facebook. Tracking is always exciting. It is, sometimes. I've spent the past 3 mornings I've worked running around like a chicken with my head cut off dealing with 5 different schools and making sure all 22 kids aren't in trouble. Its an undertaking to say the least.

But now I have to check my chocolate (and pumpkin) muffins and make the lasagna. Keller Williams calls!

Patrick and I hit a new milestone in our relationship last night. We got a pet!!! Its name is Wick and....its a FISH. Last night we went for drink to the Wickeden Pub (over 100 varieties of beer!) and I, well dave, won the raffle. Dave's tickets came up twice and I got his second one, a blue fish inside a Crown bottle. Not that it matters because I am even more resolved that I am NOT having kids any time soon. I have heard way too many things about pregnancy and childbirth in the past few weeks. A client told me "I'm still leaking" yesterday in response to me asking if her water broke. Leaking? ewww. I couldn't even bring myself to touch her tummy to feel the baby. No thanks.

Someone once told me that before you have children you must first: adopt a shrub outside for a year, if it lives then get a fake plant. If that lives then get a cactus, if that lives get a plant. Then after that MAYBE a fish. We don't have any shrubs outside our house and the fake plant on the living room table is doing fantastic. So we now have a fish.

Yesterday a did my first weight in at Weight Watchers, 3.6 lbs! I'm pretty excited. I really do like Weight Watchers and the meetings are great. I need to go get a journal so I can write things down that the lady says, along with the recipes. Right now I just need to up my dedication a little bit and make sure I'm not slacking off anywhere, which I know I do.

I'm back from Bama and my computer is finally working well enough for me to sit down and recap what all happened at home. Overall it was a great trip. The wedding was lovely, hanging out with my family was fantastic. I didn't see as many friends as I wanted to, which is totally my fault. But it was Alabama, home sweet home.

A lot of stuff has changed in the past few months since I moved. Mom has done fantastic things with the house. Breanne moved into the big bedroom upstairs and Mom redid the two little rooms. The front room is an office and Breanne's old room is a guest bedroom, which is lovely. I guess now that Mom is down to one kid instead of 3 she's able to do nicer things like that. In Hoover, a lot of the stuff is still the same. At the high school (yes I went to go say hi) everyone is still there going strong. Construction is STILL ongoing on 150, which I really don't think will ever end. There can't be much progress since I left, what a pain in the ass! Tuscaloosa on the other hand, that has changed a little bit. First of all the Houndstooth is gone!!! I know they are rebuilding, but its awful sad. Thats where Patrick and I met 9 long months ago! We spent the night in Ttown trying to see some old friends. Well, I knew better than to hold my breath for anyone I knew down at school and I was right to. I saw Jen because I went to the bar to see her. Meagan never called me, which really hurt my feelings. Still haven't talked to her. But we drank, hung out with a few of Patrick's friends at the new bar The Red Shed, where I saw a bunch of old friends. The next morning we ate lunch at City Cafe, which was fantastic and packed as ever. I had hamburger steak, creamed corn, okra and something else that I can't remember. And sweet tea, oh how wonderful that was. Its almost impossible to get fresh brewed tea around here. I almost forgot what it tasted like. We also stopped by Mugshots for dinner and BWW to see if anyone was there. I didn't really k now anyone at either of the restaurants. A lot of turn over since I've been gone.

Of course the real reason we went home was for Shayne and Stephanie's wedding. It was...dry. Besides being dry it was pretty and fun, even if we didn't really know anyone. Honestly, we were out of the church within 2 hours and at Ross Bridge (the new nice hotel by my house) in 3. The hotel was gorgeous and there was alcohol, which was the important thing. We drank, hung out and everyone toasted the bride and groom. Asides from a momentary freak out about the tab, we had a great time.

Now its all over and I'm back in Prov where there's 4 inches of snow and at least an inch of ice on the ground. I will admit that I missed work like crazy. Those little buggers get under your skin. I resisted calling the office every day, but I did talk about the kids non stop. What can you say, absence makes the heart grow fonder. I had a snow day yesterday and there's a possibility of having another one today. Yesterday I was in the house ALL DAY and it was absolutely boring. I was about to go stark raving mad. Today I'm not sure what's going on. I very well might have another snow day. Its also freezing so theres a little chance I'm going to walk anywhere and smaller chance that I'm going to drive. I have nothing to read and there's never anything on TV on saturdays. Lets hope for work!

The housewife inside of me is very very excited, i bought a shark today! Okay, so nobody knows what that is. Its a motorized hokey. Or a very small and rather inexpensive vacuum cleaner that I can use on all the floors in the house. Its kind of awesome, we had them at one of my restaurants.

So the superbowl has come and gone and alas, the Patriots did not get their undefeated season. It was a very upsetting time had by all the fans. Even if we didn't win and Patrick did many a happy dances (he's a HUGE giants fan), my food went over well and was all WW friendly! We went to our friend Chris's house for it last night and it was fun. I cuddled on the couch with Diane and read my book until the game got interested. I will admit it, I have a short attention span when it comes to televised sports. This weekend was pretty much a bum-tastic weekend. I hung out by myself all friday night and it was glorious. It was one of those nights when I just enjoyed my own company. Well, myself and guitar hero which i played for a good 2 hours. But after today I will be good and ready to get back to work. Three days off just gets boring at about 3 on Monday.

Over the past few month's I've realized I'm turning into a Rhode Islander. Not that I'm willing to loose my accent or other little southern habits, but there I have tons of things I do now like.....
-Driving : Passing to the right is perfectly acceptable, even encouraged.
Anything farther than 10 minutes is a trek and is avoided at all costs
- I've gotten my eyebrows threaded, its fantastic!
- I can pronounce the weird RI town names...Woonsocket, Pawtucket
- I've eaten a weiner (in Woonsocket, which is supposed to be the best too!) with meat sauce and celery salt
- I have said "Nosuh!" in conversation, embarrassingly enough
- I will still order iced coffee even if its freezing outside
- Ocean State Job Lot is my FAVORITE store
- I don't go to Starbucks, I go to Dunkin Donuts
- And even I really like Buddy and hope he runs again

In the past month I've been trying to mildly alter the way I live my overall life. I'm making some improvements that are long overdue. Either that or I'm on a diet. But its not really a diet because diets don't work, weight watchers does. Who hasn't seen those commercials? Unfortunately because (surprise) I have a lack of disposable income, I'm doing it kind of weight watchers light. I am counting points and all that, just not going to the meetings, or paying for it. The whole point of weight watchers is the community and you loose more when you have support and all that jazz. For right now I have enough support in the office. Its a group effort and we're in it together, some doing better than others. Overall its an easy thing to live by. Its portion control and watching what you eat. I've already noticed a little bit of a difference in my body. I'm fitting into some things I haven't been able to in the past 6 or so months, woohoo! I'm also going to the gym three or so times a week. I was supposed to go this morning but its dreary and rainy outside and I am definitely not that dedicated yet. But I have to go early Friday morning for a personal training session to figure out what I need to be doing to start really loosing weight. This all goes back to my New Years resolution, "Do what you say you're going to do." I'm working on my eating habits and going to the gym.

While there is nothing but love in the office, outside the office I want to bang my head against the wall. And by outside I mean the kids. Somebody really dropped the ball when teaching most of these kids the idea of respect towards anyone, not just authority figures. I'm not used to being called a fucking bitch to my face, nor being called fat by a 15 year old boy. That was my day yesterday. I got called fat twice (it was a general comment towards everyone in the room, but still. Seriously, that kind of talk is unacceptable and will NOT be tolerated (thats pretty much what I say to them). My thing is, even if a kid in the south would talk to me like that they'd still turn around and say ma'am afterwards. Its just a different way of thinking down there. Don't get me wrong, I love my kids. Its just that things can be trying every once in a while. They've lived tough lives and breaking down the barriers is a long and arduous process. But I'm off to do it all over again until late tonight. *sigh* Somedays I wish I just was waiting tables. At least you could be mean back to the people!

Another birthday has come and gone. People wonder why I have serious anxiety when trying to do something with lots of people like my birthday or a party. Its because things like last night happen. While it wasn't a repeat of graduation night or anything, I am still not happy with some of my friends. We had made plans and at the last minute they decided they wanted to go somewhere else, so they did. I still had Patrick and three other friends. We had a bunch of fun at the place we went to. It was fantastically horrible, but still a blast. Then we went and played scatagories, which isn't a great idea after drinking. Well, its all over and done with now. Not much I can do about anything.

Now I'm just counting down the days until I get to go back to Birmingham for a long weekend. Not that I have high hopes of seeing anyone while in Tuscaloosa, because honestly, my track record for friends down there is less than perfect. Everyone knows I'll be there and I said I'd try to call people but I'm not going to hold my breath. I just want to go hang out with my family and at least see tuscaloosa. Even if it is just me and Patrick out down there it will be okay.

Today was a very happy day in our little household. Six months after being "moved in" we finally got our bed frame. Yes, now our bed is off the cold floor and our room looks less like a cell and more like, yanno, a bedroom. I am terribly excited and now I might actually make an effort to decorate it. That is if I ever have enough money. But thats a whole 'nother story. I want to run to home goods and all those good stores and buy up all the brown and gold stuff I can find. Maybe tomorrow, after all it is MY BIRTHDAY!

Right now my birthday plans consist of hanging out with Patrick tomorrow night, Mike on Friday and then everyone else on Saturday for the real shindig. We're going to gussy up and head out to Prov, which is a local club. I've never been there but its past time to diversify our drinking locations, seriously. I don't think we've been to a new bar since...October I believe. We are in a serious alcohol rut. All will be well come Saturday night. I'm excited about the festivities, I'm even thinking about trying to do a VIP thing if it doesn't cost too much money. I am going to call tomorrow night.

Its strange, I'm constantly thinking about things to post about, writing them in my head and whatnot, then as soon as I get around to sitting at the computer my mind goes completely blank. What else is going on in Caro-world? I am slowly but surely turning into a middle aged housewife. This past weekend I added knitting onto my list of old lady activities. Okay, so cooking and watching Medium in and of themselves, not so bad. When you mix in some knitting? Well, lets just say I need to get out more. Even if it is just to a friend's house to ...knit. I bought a book about knitting so I can do more than complete the "scarf" that I'm working on. We'll see if it turns out into something more than a yard of knitted ickiness soon. I plan on going to the knitting store down the street from me this week to see if there are any classes. According to my grandmother I have a marginable amount of talent and I enjoy it. I figure why the hell not? Speaking of being a housewife, I have 2 great new websites for shopping that I've stumbled across (one I found in Real Simple magazine, my new favorite next to cooking light) www.thecompanystore.com and www.uncommongoods.com. They're awesome.

The job has been job like. There's not too much I can talk about here, considering confidentiality and all that. It might be the most trying thing I've ever done. These kids are TOUGH. They're all awesome, but sometimes I can't wait until my 3 day weekend without the phone. Drama and stuff going on is never ending. I am beginning to understand why this position is only a year. And they definitely don't pay us nearly enough. But this is a great job to do while I make those big decisions about my life, like what I'm going to be when I grow up. At the current moment I'm leaning back towards teaching high school english. Maybe thats what I'm really meant to do. I'm beginning to think so.

One last thing, I have new phone and for some reason all my numbers weren't saved on my SIM card. I need pretty much everyone's number. Yeah, I suck.

Right now it is a positively warm 59 degrees outside at 10 in the morning. in january. I am officially loving this weather and plan on enjoying it for the next few days. This means there will be no bundling up, i can wear shoes other than my 2 pairs of boots and short sleeve shirts!! Absolutely fantastic. Of course this lovely weather is going to end with rain and then more snow. Such is life in New England I guess.

This weekend we didn't do much to enjoy the weather. Luckily I was off but the only thing I really did was help patrick out and work the raffle at brown. Basically I'm the best girlfriend in the world, and I made $15. On Sunday we had a much more active day. I made a whole turkey dinner and we had friends over. I cooked everything from scratch, including the gravy. Things turned out fantastically and I am so proud of myself. We also broke out the board games along with watching the premiere of American Gladiators. I love the fact that we can get together with friends and play Scrabble and Scatagories and (most) everyone is happy. The premiere of American Gladiators was pretty awesome too. There was a lot of screaming, yelling and cheering. Overall the show gets thumbs up, at least until we get sick of it. The day was nice, kind of like being a kid again. What is more iconic than our childhood than American Gladiators? The show changed a bit from the original, but it was totally worth it.

Right now we have a lot of things in the working for this upcoming month. It amazes me how busy we get! We're trying to plan a bowling night, roller skating night along with all the normal weekend stuff we try to get in. On top of that Patrick and I are going to see Spamalot in Boston AND we'll be having company for a few days. And of course my birthday! Being a grown up kind of rocks, especially when I have such wonderful friends. Of course, being a grown up is calling me right now, I have to leave for work. Going back after the 3 day weekend is always hard. Especially because I don't have to be there until noon. But my children need me and I have to go to the gym this evening after work.