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.