"Nora is insane and acts like a squirrel so she can earn cash money."

SO MANY FUN THINGS HAVE BEEN HAPPENING LATELY!!! Let's make a list so I don't forget. Because sometimes I get really excited and then forget.

1. brunch with A & A
2. Mark
3. RCE
4. sleepover @ Jems
5. MR in RI
6. date


WHOAAAAA I'm getting excited just thinking about telling you about all this. Ok. I don't think I'm going to go in order. Ready? Ok. Let's go.


4. sleepover @ Jems

I took a spontaneous adventure up to Weare, NH (Where, NH) to visit my long-time friend, Jenn. Jenn is Tammy's older sister. We all grew up across the street from each other. More like family than friends. And I had never been to her apartment and we both seemed to be going through times of semi-crisis in our lives, so I decided that I needed to go visit her. So, I did!

And it was great! It was about an hour and a half-ish drive up there. I took good ol' I-89, which I hadn't been on for almost a year. Weird. I can't believe it's been OVER a year since I worked at Hannah House.

We went to the Boondocks Tavern and Country Grill for dinner, which was great. They were having a trivia night, so there were a lot of locals there. It's also like, the only restaurant in the town, so everyone is a "local." But, it was super fun.

We basically just hung around. Talked all night. Watched Daria and ate key lime pie. DELISH. It was great.

Then, I came home the next day and had a...


6. date


Yes, I had a date. Had to drive up to Portland, ME for the date, which I wasn't super excited about to begin with. We went out for thai food, then we walked around the Old Port, and then we went to this place called, Bull Feeney's, for a drink and then to watch this 90's cover band. THEY HAD BULMERS!!!!! The drink we drank all throughout Ireland!!!!! THEY HAD IT. SO I GOT IT. And it was delicious. And the band was good. All in all - it was a good date, but I wasn't really feeling into the whole thing... so that will be the only date. Nice guy, though.

I guess I've kind of been "dating" people. Well, not people. Just this guy and one other. The other one, though. Great. It was great. But, it's also over. And, I'm still a little sad. Maybe a lot sad.

Maybe just all around feeling like I'm not good enough for anything........ yep.

The other night I was really bored so I took this "what kind of dating style are you?!" quiz. It said I was a "window shopper." Which, I don't really understand how that relates to anything in the description.... but it was a totally accurate description of myself. How do I know this? Well because I read it and immediately started crying my eyes out.

This is the part that got me: "...of all female types, you are the most prone to sudden, ferocious crushes. Your results indicate that you’re especially capable of obsessing over a guy you just met. Obviously, passion like this makes for an intense existence. It can also make for soul-destroying letdowns."

SOUL DESTROYING LETDOWNS. That line, right there - THEME OF MY LIFE.

And I KNOW, I KNOW, that there is nothing wrong with me. And I KNOW I KNOW that I am good enough for lots of things. Why? Because I'm totally awesome and super hott! But even though I know there's NOTHING wrong with me, it just feels right now that EVERYTHING is wrong with me.

And that's all I'll say about that.


1. brunch with A & A!

Andrew and Alicia!!!! Remember my friends who I met THROUGH THIS BLOG?!?!?! And I went over to their apartment over the summer and we had pizza and wine and it was a great time?!?! Yep! Them! We got together again and had brunch! At Kara's bakery! It was a super fun time. They are great, great, awesome people and I'm really happy to be friends with them.

:-)


2. mark!

Guess what?! I have a friend, Mark, (well, I actually have TWO friends AND a cousin named Mark! Here I'm just talking about one of them, even though they are ALL awesome.) and he is a painter! And he works part-time with me in retail! But more importantly, he is a painter. And he has a lovely studio in the mill buildings in Rollinsford, NH, and a few weekends ago they had this big "studio open house," where all the artists opened up their studios and invited the public in to view! And I went with my mom! It was all sooooo great. Five floors and studio after studio of beautiful art.

YOU ALL should check out Mark's website!!!! He's such an amazing painter! I was like, "holy crap - I KNOW that guy!!!" It was great. Check it out - definitely. You can go, right now. I'll give you some extra time...

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there!


3. RCE!

By now, you all should know that whenever I write "RCE" it stands for RIVER CITY EXTENSION. If you don't know that... well, then... we have a minor problem.

River City Extension is the best. That is a fact. Why? Because it's written in this blog and everything that's written in this blog is fact.

I hadn't seen them since FEBRUARY, but last week, they were playing in the great city of Hamden in the great state of Connecticut at the great venue that is The Space - SO I WENT! At first I thought that Jo was going to come with me, but it turned out she had a prior engagement and couldn't make it :( So, I drove down by myself. I didn't know how much I needed a River City Extension show until I was there.

First of all - I get there JUST in time for them to go on. Well, maybe like, 20 minutes to spare. But, it's packed! Almost immediately I find The Great Ben Silver, who is a great human being. He has brought with him a large crowd of friends. I also meet them all. Although, I don't remember their names. Wait - JP, JH, Tom, Max, Jacob... there were more of them, I think. That's not too bad.

OMG. Maybe one of the greatest shows ever. It was so packed with people - and they were all fans of River City Extension. They were all singing along! CRAZY. I was reminded of the time that Ryan and I saw Crash Kings in Philadelphia and it was the first time where we weren't the only ones who knew all the words. CRAZY. It's a bittersweet moment, because you know that they're not "your" band anymore, but they're also gaining more exposure and more people are realizing that they are totally and completely amazing.

Anyways - great show. I rocked out so hard. I don't even have any pictures or videos to show from it. TRUE STORY! You'll just have to take my word that I was actually there.

Not only was it a great performance - but it was full of emotion. Like, one of the most emotional shows ever. There was so much energy radiating off the stage and circulating throughout the room, it was incredible. There were two moments where I actually thought I was going to cry. No joke! (I've just been crying all over the place lately...)

The first time was during 'South for the Winter.' Now, this is usually my go-to song when I'm having a bad period in my life. The lines,

sometimes all i want is a job and a god and a wife
oh, lately i've been thinking some stability would probably be nice.
another moment and i don't know what to say,
i'm not in love, i'm not inspired by today,
if i go down you bet your ass i'm gonna get my way.

OHHHHHH those lines. They make me so angry and so happy.

The second time I thought I was going to cry was during, 'If I Still Own a Bible,' which is a song that had never really hit me until last week. The verse was,

And I wonder, do I still own a bible?
Do my parents, do they really believe?
Cause they know I've been hurt
And if there's one thing I've learned
Don't put your trust in anyone or anything

YEP. Joe, man, he just gets everything so right. It's brilliant. I feel like the only people who can write lyrics that I totally relate to are him and Taylor Swift.

It was a great show. And, Holden was there, too!!!! So nice to see him!! I wish I lived closer to The Space, because I would totally hang out there all the time. It's so cool. And cool people go there.

So, after the show I went to the diner with Ben Silver, Tom, Max and Jacob. It was pretty awesome. I had never met the other three guys before, but they were super nice and funny and we had a great time. And, I got chicken salad, which is my favorite food ever.

And then I had a horrible drive home!!! It was DOWNPOURING the whole time!!! Which is apparently turning into a theme with my drives back from Hamden, because the last time I did that I thought I was going to die in the snowstorm! Lame! But - I made it safely. So - success.

OHHH I LOVE RCE.


5. MR in RI!

Yes - you read that right. I'm CURRENTLY in Rhode Island with MARIA RICHARDSON!!!!! And in case you don't know, she is my best friend forever. We hung out last Friday night and I said, "I wish I could drive you back to school and then sleep over." AND THAT'S WHAT TOTALLY HAPPENED! It worked out that I had two days off which was exactly when she needed to be back! So - I drove her back down to RI last night after I got out of work, slept over, had a bunch of adventures today:



So, I dropped Maria off at work this morning and then said, "hm, instead of taking a left to go back to her house, i think i'll take a right to see where that goes." And it turned out to be a dead-end road that had a little park with ocean views!!! GREAT ADVENTURE!!!!



So pretty!!! And unexpected! I'm a pretty good explorer.




This is the view from Maria's work! She works at the Oceanography library at the Narragansett Bay Campus Library. Awesome, right?!

And what's exciting about that particular library?!?!?! UMMMMMM Bob Ballard also works there!!!!!! 'Who is that,' you ask? UMMMMMMM he discovered the TITANIC. Yep, THAT Titanic.



And those are all the tapes from his Ocean dives when he went down with all the robot cameras!!!!!!! Along with other stuff mixed in.... but mainly the robot camera tapes.

It was A LITTLE BIT AWESOME. Ok, it was a lot awesome.




And then we ended up in a mall with Christmas decorations all over the place and it just seemed like a great photo op!!!! And it was!!!!!! Look how adorable we are! Pretty great.

So, I was going to only stay one night, but then decided pretty early on that I wanted to stay two nights. So, I'm staying tonight, too.

Tomorrow I have another adventure planned!!! We're going here: Kinney Azalea Garden! It's a giant beautiful garden right down the street from Maria's apartment! And she drives by it every day and has never been!! And today I was stuck in traffic in front of it and saw that it was a garden that was open to the public and so I made an executive decision that we are going there. It looks pretty awesome. I'm actually really excited. Even though it's not peak azalea season, according to the website.

It's a great getaway trip. Sometimes you need a cheap getaway trip. This is one of those times.

♡FRIENDS♡


WELL. It seems we've come to the end of our list!!!!! I'm pretty happy with the way everything turned out here. I think you all got a pretty good entry. Some great pictures, some great links, some great stories. Pretty much all you could ask for!

I hope you all are having some equally great times. Feel free to tell me any and all of your exciting adventure stories. I'd love love love to hear them!

UNTIL THEN, I hope you all have a great rest of the week! Enjoy enjoy enjoy it all, and I will try and do the same.

I am stopping in Providence on my way home tomorrow for some East Side Pockets, which is very exciting. I'm a little nervous about parking on Thayer Street.... but it's gonna happen. Because I need some good falafel.

Alright! Have a great evening!!!!!! Maria and I will continue to have an excellent time! You can follow all our minute-to-minute updates on Facebook! If we're not Facebook friends - you can friend me. I know how important it is to know where I am at all times. And now that I am able to "check-in" places, that's pretty much all I do. Why? So YOU (and the government) knows exactly where I am at all times!!!!!!!

LOVE YOU ALL!

Be well!