"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...

*
*
*
*
:-)
*
*
*
*

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!

practicing my purpose once again

Oh hey friends!

I really need to get the new blog out there. I've been thinking about it. I think I'm ready to make the switch over. I just need to plan the party. Buy the ribbon, etc. Ya'll get excited - because I throw a damn good online ribbon cutting ceremony. Maybe this week or next week. Watch for your invite!

Also, speaking of 'your,' I've been really messing up the 'your,' and 'you're' lately and it's driving me CRAZY. Like, I have NO IDEA why I'm suddenly doing this. I've NEVER done it before. And all of a sudden - it's like I have no control over what I'm typing.

I guess that was kind of a disclaimer.

Anyways - I wanted to tell you about some exciting things that have happened recently!!


FIRST AND FOREMOST!!!!!!

I got an iPhone! YEP. Yep! Finally. After a loonngggg time of waiting - it happened. I kept checking all the stores and nobody had ANY. Like, NOBODY had ANY. And then, one random night at Wal-Mart we were in the electronics and I just randomly asked the guy working there and he just happened to have the exact one I was looking for!! Weird - because just two days earlier, I had been in Wal-Mart and asked and they said, "nope, we don't have any and we have absolutely no idea when we're getting more." So - lucky me!!

Also LUCKY ME - because it was Tom who helped me out. And he was awesome and totally a cool guy.

He even posed for a picture with me after we had spent like 45 minutes bonding while he set up the new phone/transferred over the info from the old phone.




YEP!! Great guy. Tom. And Jesse also helped us out. Thanks, Tom and Jesse at Wal-Mart!! You guys RULE! (Tom wanted to pose with the price check gun, or whatever it was.. haha)

Awesome! So, I'm totally obsessed with the iPhone!! I didn't even have a smartphone before!!

One day last week, Kara and I had just hiked this mountain with my dad (pictures below), and we got to the top of the mountain and Kara was like,

KARA: Ok, I just checked-in at the top of this mountain, tagged you both, then I uploaded a photo to Facebook and posted it as my status. All from my phone!
JULIE: Well, I just checked the time with my phone...

It was PRETTY LAME. (Not PRETTY COOL, as if it were the Miley Cyrus talk show.)

But, it's PRETTY COOL now. Maybe even SUPER COOL. Yeah, definitely super cool. It's a white one. OOHHHH I LOVE IT.

And - it has a pretty sweet camera. I can take pictures wherever I go! But, who did I start taking pictures of first??






RUBY TUESDAY!!!! The cutest most sweetest thing on the planet!!!! She's the best!!


SO - like I just mentioned - my dad, Kara and I hiked up a mountain the other day!!! When my dad was visiting!!! He came in late Saturday night! And stayed until earrllyyyy Friday morning. It was so great!!!

And, one of the things we wanted to do was explore this mountain in North Berwick!! It's crazy! There's a mountain there! Like, a real one. And we explored this whole section on North Berwick that I never even knew existed!! It's like, you drive up a hill and all of a sudden it's these beautiful homes and beautiful views! There was this one "estate-like" house we passed and I said,

JULIE: WOW - that house is like a giant estate!!
DAD: OCCUPY!!

:) Love my dad.

So, here are the pictures from the hike! It was a great day.









WE MADE IT TO THE TOP!!




SISTERS!



The (handsome) Old Man in the Mountain! :)






SELF-TIMER PIC!!

Yay! What a great hike on a beautiful day!!!


ALSO EXCITING:: bridal showers!

Kara's best friend Renee is getting married in June and her bridal shower was this past weekend! And since I love taking pictures with my new phone, I will show you the pictures from the shower.

First - the favors. Kara made them. CAKE POPS. Vanilla cake mixed with vanilla frosting, rolled into a ball and dipped in purple colored chocolate. Tied with a ribbon and stuck in a flower pot. DELISH.





They were the centerpieces on the tables!!! How PRETTY do they look?!?! Her colors are purple and mint green!





Shower! Derek is in the blue and Renee is sitting next to him! GREAT couple! So fun!


And, here's another adorable picture of Ruby Tuesday! You're welcome:





And here's an adorable picture of me and Brittany when we went out dancing the other night!



YAYYYYY friends again!!!! (Also:: note my lime green nailpolish::) Hotties!



SO - the week was full of some great times. OBVI.

Other than that - not too much going on. Feeling weird about something. Been listening to some great music which I will post for you at some point soon.

And - I will get on the new blog ribbon cutting. Are evening times better for everyone? Generally? You can let me know. If you really, really want to come to the ribbon cutting, but you have a certain time of a certain day that doesn't work - let me know! For serious!

OK! I hope everyone has a great night! We'll talk again soon! Have a great start to your weekend!!! I mean, week!!! Have a great start to the new week!!


lovelove!

after all that you've been to me

Remember back in the summer when I had strep throat??

WELL, GUESS WHAT?!!?

I have strep throat AGAIN. It's crazy. Like, I think IT IS CRAZY.

Never in my whole life of 25 years do I get strep throat - and then I get it twice in 6 months??!?! Weird, right?!

And this is especially weird because when Kara was little she used to get strep throat alllll the freaking time. Like, at least once a year. And, I NEVER got it. And now, twice. In 6 months. Bam. Strep.

And of course it's during the first year of my life when I don't have health insurance. I've had health insurance for 25 years and then the one time I don't, I need medical attention.

GO FIGURE!

But, what can ya do?

So I got a prescription for amoxicillin. Got it filled at Targs. While I was waiting for it, I did some shopping around. Checked with the cell phone people to see if there were any iPhones just waiting for me to buy them. Nope. Then I started looking at clothes.... and wound up with THESE:::



Yep. That's a pair of neon orange socks, right there. And, I don't know if you can see - but they cost me $.75. Yep. I probably should have bought 7 pairs, because I'm totally wearing these everyday.

I love neon things. And if I see a neon something, there is a good chance I will buy it.

You have full permission to be jealous of those socks. I will probably point them out to you if I am ever wearing them and you are around. Just so ya know..


SO LAST NIGHT was a big night. I saw a scary movie in theaters! To be more specific, I saw Paranormal Activity 3 with Greg. AAAHHHHHH. It was scary. We were jumping all over the place. Everybody was! Over the past three weeks, Greg and I have watched the first two Paranormal Activity movies, knowing that we would then see the third on in theaters. AAAAHHHHHH. Scary!

But - it was totally fun seeing it in a big theater with everyone else who was scared and jumping all over the place. Like - it was definitely the most scary, but also the most funny. Lots o' laughs.


So.. I just woke up from a nap. It was a good nap. Ruby Tuesday napped with me. As soon as I got into bed, she crawled under the covers and stayed there with me for the next two hours. :) It was happy.

I'm feeling happy this week. I've been out every single night of the week with friends. That never happens. But, it's exciting.

So, I took my first dose of amoxicillin this afternoon. The recovery begins! Hopefully!

I also had a fever this morning! I forgot to tell you that! YEP - FEVER.

AND - they were unable to take my blood pressure. They tried like, a hundred times using the machine and not using the machine...trying it in different places on my arm. NOPE. No luck.

Weird, because the last time I had my blood pressure taken in a doctor's office, which was maybe like, a month ago....it took them six tries and two different people to be able to take my blood pressure. Weird, right?

Everyone has been like, "Ok, sooo....we know that you're alive...so why can't we take your blood pressure?" MYSTERY. But, just strange that it's never happened before in my life and now it's happened twice.

Which is the exact same story as the strep. It's crazy, I tell ya.

But, the last time, when they were finally able to get a blood pressure, they were like, "WOW, THAT'S GREAT!!!!" It was kinda perfect.

Anyways, that's the story. Apparently maybe I'm falling apart. Stay tuned.

IN WAYYY BETTER NEWS: My dad is coming to visit tomorrow!!!!! (saturday!) We haven't seen him in the beginning of February, so it's veryyy exciting! And he's staying for a week! I'm super excited!!! YAY!


OK. Gonna go eat something soft. Talk to you all later! Have a GREAT weekend!!


lovelove!

school of hard rocks

Wanna watch me make brownies?!?!?! I thought you did!! That's why I photodocumented the whole process (ok, most of the process) yesterday when I was making brownies for my date last night with Brittany!!!

Now - I don't know if you know this about me - but I am not the baker in my family. And, I am constantly reminded of this. So, IF I am baking, I like to do it alone, or else I'll have everybody all up in my grill the whole time I'm in the kitchen. (Yep, I just really said that.)

It's a good thing that nobody else was home, because it took me like, 45 minutes to finally get all the ingredients mixed, I DIDN'T use the Kitchen Aid mixer (horrible, horrible SIN), and I made a pretty big mess.

Let's enjoy:


JULIE (AND RUBY) MAKES BROWNIES!!!




Ingredients? Check! (there were more than that, obvi, but those were the only ones I took a picture of.)




Helper? Check!




This was literally the scene after STEP ONE. I was like, "oh, I'll measure out the cocoa first because that'll be easy..."

And then this happened.






Ingredients mixed with the vanilla bean paste!!!




Two sticks of unsalted butter!




Melty butter!!! The best kind!





Then I had to mix the butter with the sugar and put it back in the microwave until it looked like melty lemonade concentrate. (Mmm lemonade...)




Eggies! 4 of them! Now, I'm the worst egg cracker ever. Like, seriously probably ever. It's one thing that I've gotten worse at over time. But - no egg shells in this batter. :)




Mix it! By hand!! I'm pretty hardcore.


NOW - then Aliya called me!!! And I couldn't bake brownies, talk on the phone and photodocument at the same time. So, I skipped a few steps photodocumenting.

Basically, I took out the pan, sprayed it with nonsticky stuff, and poured the mix in!!





This was the scene after I finished. Stuff was just everywhere. The bag fell on the floor. Note the cocoa on the floor as well as on the table. Pretty gruesome.




BUT THE BROWNIES CAME OUT PERFECTLY!!!! FOR SERIOUS!!!! Like, they taste amazing. Apparently, I make a damn good brownie.


And I brought them over Brittany's house last night and this is what we turned them into:




That's right. Brownie, pumpkin ice cream, hot fudge, and whipped cream. OMG. No, like, OMG. It was kinda amazing.

And we watched Glee and New Girl!! New Girl is back on TV!!! They were off the air for a little while....

(this was last week)
KARA: Is New Girl on tonight?
JULIE: Not until November 1st... apparently there's some baseball thing on...
KARA: ..You mean like, the World Series?
JULIE: .....Oh yeah....

That's what it was! The World Series.

Anyways! So, lots of fun times were had with Brittany. And her sister Gemma stopped by for a brownie sundae, too!!! SO AWESOME. I'm SO GLAD that Britt and I are hanging out again! So much fun!

Speaking of baseball - I saw the movie, Moneyball! It was great. Co-written by Aaron Sorkin, so, there you have it. It was just really wild to see all the baseball politics like, right in your face. I couldn't believe it, actually. Like, the players really have no say on which team they are playing for. That's so weird. And, they can be traded at ANY POINT. Also, weird. Like, they were trading these PEOPLE just like they were TRADING CARDS. The scene with Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill in the office making all the phone calls was fantastic - but eye opening. I couldn't believe how they were treating these people.

I also really loved the sound in the movie. The volume would randomly fade in and out. Well, not randomly. Around major moments in the plot, mainly. But, it reminded me of when you're watching a baseball game, right after the guy hits the ball, and everyone is kind of silent, watching the ball in the air, trying to figure out where it's gonna land.... and then everyone gets loud again. YEP. That's what it reminded me of.

Great movie! I recommend it! Highly! And the scene at the end between Brad Pitt and the Red Sox owner is great.

Anyways! Great movie. Great night last night. Great week. I'm having a great week! And I expect the rest of the week to be great as well.

I bought new nail polish!




So - I WASN'T going to buy nail polish at Target yesterday. I scanned the nail polish section, and WALKED AWAY.

Then, I was in a completely different section of the store, and saw this nail polish sitting on the shelf, out of place. And, I immediately loved it. It's called, 'School of Hard Rocks.' Kinda like a dark teal, greyish color. LOVE IT. And, it was my very first Essie. So, yay!

YOU ALL SHOULD READ MY ARTICLE ON QR CODES!!!! Yes you scan!

OK!! I have to get back to work. Just wanted to take a minute blogging break.

I hope you all are having as great a week as I am :)

Take care! Enjoy the crisp weather! Be well! Talk soon!!


<3 <3 <3

loves it!

Oh, ya know, just another email from Robert Schwartzman in my inbox.



(click on that to make it bigger.)

Yeah, that'd be this guy:



You know him from The Princess Diaries, the band Rooney, and for being Jason Schwartzman's little brother. YEP. Ya know, just sending me emails...

(Yeah, I know probably like a thousand other people got emails from him... it's just pretty cool to see his name in the Sender box.)

ALSO COOL EMAILS YOU MAY HAVE NOTICED:

* Updates from CULT: This is very cool. So, my friends are making a movie! A horror movie! These friends are Kevin (@KevinKlausman) and Pat (@realmccrea). You should start following them on Twitter right now. This is the website where you can read information and watch videos about their movie, CULT. Also - the place where you can donate your $$ to help them out! I donated $10!

I'm just really excited for these guys. Like, I went to high school with them.. I was pretty good friends with Pat. (We were Writing Center superstars together.) I don't know. I just kind of realized that everyone needs to start somewhere, but it's hard for anybody to get anywhere without support. And - I just decided that I wanted to support them.

I mean, currently that's only been through the form of $10 and a few re-tweets. And now through the blog.

I just think it's great that they're trying to do what they know they want to do. And like, I have no idea what I want to do with my life, but if I did, I would want people there to support me.

Also, I just really liked everybody that I graduated high school with. We all experienced some really great and really terrible things together. And Pat and Kevin are cool people. And they're supposed to be writing and recording me a redneck country love song...?? Which I'm pretty freaking excited about and will try and share it with you all once it arrives.

OK!

Also - more about friends from high school!!

Remember how my friend Laura won the Real Maine Wedding of the Year?!?!! Well - she got married!!!!! And there's a pretty awesome video montage of the wedding that you should watch. I may have watched this video twice already and cried both times. It's pretty great. Also, it features many of my beautiful friends as bridesmaids!!! You may recognize TAMMY - who just got married!


On another note: I'm having a great week. Today is and will continue to be a great day.


OK!! That's about all for now.... I hope everyone is having a great weekend!!! Talk to you all soon :)


❄ ❅ ❆

(it's snowing!)

JULIE AND BRITTANY GO SEE HANSON!!!!!

O.M.G. You guys. This has been the best week. For serious. And, it's only wednesday!

So, yesterday, myself and Brittany Dyer drove up to Portland, ME to see HANSON.

Brittany, Maria and I were BFF in high school and then semi-lost touch after we all went in different directions for college. :(


(from L to R: Maria, Julie, Brittany)

That's us at Friendly's after the alumni chorus concert, haha. We look so young!

Anyways - it was SO GOOD to see Brittany! I don't know if you all remember, but I had dinner with her and Maria back in the winter and haven't seen her since.

But we were meeting up on Tuesday afternoon and going to see HANSON together! They were playing a show at the newly renovated State Theater in Portland, ME.

I hadn't seen Brittany in like, 10 months and I hadn't seen Hanson in like, 15 months, SO - it was a pretty special night.

I drove to Britt's new apartment (super cute!) and picked her up!! SO FREAKING GOOD TO SEE HER!!! And - we were dressed almost exactly alike, which was super weird and totally awesome. It was like we went right back to being BFF.

We had a great drive up, lots of catching up about life, jobs, boys, etc... GOOD talks :)

Found the parking garage with no problem. We were going to get dinner first and ended up at this Thai restaurant almost right across from the garage and right down the street from the venue. Britt had never had Thai before! Um, it was delish. Like, really good Thai food. And I got a Thai iced tea, which was also delish.

Right at the end of our meal, these two girls at the next table over heard us talking about heading over to the State Theater and made some comment like, "we're headed there too!" or something, so I said, "are you guys going to Hanson?!" and they were like, "YEAH!!!!" So then we all had a mini-Hanson freak out moment. And they were like, our age, which was cool.

Then we headed over to the theater. When we first pulled into Portland, there were people already lining up outside the doors. Crazy.

We finally got in line probably just before 6:30. The doors didn't open until 7pm. So, we had some waiting to do. Lucky for us, we ended up in line in front of these SUPER Hanson fans. They were from Canada and had seen Hanson like, 15 times or something.

(I've seen Crash Kings 19 times... soooo.... not to brag, but whatevs... haha)

And also lucky for us, this girl had like the loudest voice ever. And she was literally talking nonstop about all the different Hanson shows, their different album covers, photo shoots, music videos, songs, concerts, like, literally everything Hanson related. :/ it was pretty obnoxious.

So we finally get into the theater and immediately find spots in the crowd. There's like a section in front of the stage for people to stand, and then there's the huge theater with seats and also a balcony. We got a standing spot in the center, probably like, 7ish people back from the stage. AWESOME.

The Hanson concerts I have been to before all had like, assigned seats, which definitely makes for a different concert vibe. Standing concerts are so much better.

Also cool - the Hanson shows I've been to before, I've felt like a senior citizen. Like, I can remember Kerianne and I commenting on all the high school girls when we saw them in Northampton and same thing when Kara and I saw on Cape Cod last year. But this time it really felt like everyone was right around our age. Like, mid-twenties. All people who have been fans RIGHT from the very beginning. :) That made us happy.

We took pictures of us in the crowd:




HOTTIES AT HANSON! Right? That last pic is so good. Also: please note how we are almost wearing the same thing. We both wore royal purple tops with grey cardigans. And I wore a denim skirt and Britt wore jeans. We totally matched. It rocked.

The opening guy was called Charlie Mars. Relation to Veronica? IDK. Should've asked him after the show.

He was really good! And super cute and kind of awkward!






He was like, "This next song is called, "Listen to the Dark Side," and I wrote it while I was high and listening to Pink Floyd." And then he was like, "I wrote this song for this girl who had just broken up with me... I wrote it because I wanted to get back together with her... and I played her the song and she said, "that's a great song... but we're not getting back together."" It was just all very cute.


AND THENNN!!!!!!!!

HANSON CAME OUT!!!!!!




ZAC!




TAYLOR!



ISSAC!









Brittany and I were talking about how when they first became popular everyone was crazy over Taylor and Zac, and thought that Issac was like the older, creepy one. But now - Issac has turned into a SUPER HOTTIE.

Britt was saying that Taylor looked like a Frenchman and Zac looked like a member of the Foo Fighters. haha. He kinda did.




After every song they would have like, a 15 second band meeting at the drum set. It was weird. And then after the third song, they were like,

HANSON: We'll be right back!

And they all ran off stage and took like a five minute break... it was really weird. I assumed something was wrong with the sound on stage.... or something....

They came back on, played one song and then Taylor went to the microphone and said,

TAYLOR: So, we took a little break a few minutes ago because I've got a really bad cold... and we always want you guys to have the best Hanson show possible. We always want to give you 175% - all the time. And, we're not feeling that way right now.. So, this show is going to be shorter. And we're going to come back and play you a better show.

At first everyone was kind of like, "whaaatttt???" And then they just kept playing music... so it was a little confusing...



But you could definitely tell Taylor was sick... he could barely talk and his cheeks were bright red and he was sweating really bad :( Poor guy.





After their break, they switched to songs where either Zac or Issac had lead vocals. Songs such as Deeper, A Minute Without You, and Man From Milwaukee, which rocked. They played Mmmbop, of course, but Taylor really counted on the crowd to sing for him. Which, of course, we did.








Here are some rocking shots that Brittany took with her iPhone. I stole these off her Facebook. All the ones of Issac are soo cool. It's like he's got this glowing outline. We were looking at them in the car on the ride home and she was like,

BRITTANY: Haha, it kinda looks like he's just a cardboard cutout!
JULIE: Yeah, haha, they were so sick that they just brought out cardboard cutouts of themselves!

It does look like that, though...






Mmm Taylor Hanson.... thank God for those skinny jeans..

(we also made comments like that the whole ride home...haha)






ALL IN ALL - it was such an awesome time. The crowd was totally pumped up, singing and dancing and doing all the right hand motions at all the right times.




♡♡♡

So fun.

And! They said that if we saved our tickets we wouldn't have to pay to see the show again. SO - guess who's going to see Hanson again?!?! Um, me and Brittany are. I'M SO EXCITED. haha.

I mean, they played for an hour last night, that's a pretty good show. It's like getting two shows for the price of one, kinda. Which rocks.

It feels so good to be at a Hanson show. It's like, I've loved them for SO MANY years, it kind of feels like a 'full circle' kind of thing. There have been only two things I have made scrap books for in my entire life:

1. Titanic
2. Hanson

Yep. I have both of those things. Clearly those have been the two most important things in my life so far.

I got some videos... they're pretty short and very jumpy... but the sound quality is good...

"Waiting for This" - As I was taking this video, a State Theater employee tapped me on the shoulder and said, "still photos only!!!" I nodded my head and stopped the recording...

But that didn't stop me from taking these videos too:

"A Minute Without You" - TOTALLY ROCKED
"Mmmbop"

Yeah, guy, I'm actually going to listen to you. I'm at a HANSON concert, COME ON!!


OHHHHH it was such a great night. Too bad it ended early, but we have another whole show to look forward too!!!


OTHER GREAT LIFE UPDATES:

1. My dad is coming to visit!! At the beginning of November!! I haven't seen him since the beginning of February! AHHH SO EXCITED!

2. Robert Schwartzman is doing a solo tour and he's coming to The Space! I'm really super excited about this, because if you've been to The Space, you know that it's like the smallest most coolest venue ever. And the rockstars practically just walk around mingling with the crowd. This could be my chance to finally make my move!


ANYWAYS... I think that's all. Hope you enjoyed coming to the Hanson show with me and Brittany! I CERTAINLY did.

Hope you guys are having as great a week as me!

Talk to you all soon :)!


lovelove!