Some of my Favorite (Wakefield) Things

Today was my first day about town on my own. First stop was breakfast at Java Madness. They have a great selection of bagels, breakfast sandwiches, great coffee, tea, lunch, and all sorts of little goodies. This morning (or rather, closer to afternoon since I woke up at 11) they had a girl with a guitar singing out on the patio. It was really lovely...and a nice perk is that this is the view I had, while listening to local musicians, and eating a delicious egg sandwich on an everything bagel (Instagram helped me with this one):  Oh, and it's also about a 30 second drive from my house! 

My next task was to help my parents keep up with the moving in. I cleaned the upstairs bathroom, and discovered the amazing powers of the magic eraser (I have to stock up on those when I move into our new apartment!) I also realized that people who are around 5 feet tall shouldn't be given the task of hanging up a shower curtain, but not to worry-I made good use of my bachelor's degree and figured it out. Then I realized I had only 2 hours to find my brother a birthday present! Oops...really dropped the ball on that one. So I drove into town (a 5 minute drive from my house) and stopped at all the places that I want to take my boyfriend to tomorrow! 

I figured Chris might want to do some exploring with his girlfriend when he has more time to spare, so I got him a few gift certificates so he could have a day on the town. The first place I went to was the Mews, they have 69 beers on tap...and yes, I'm pretty sure they did that on purpose. Then I drove closer to the little town and stopped into Brickley's, whose frozen products I can only enjoy sparingly, since I have no patience for lactose. Then I walked around the corner to a funky little place called Smoothie Booty, which in addition to delicious smoothies, offers birthday cards (score!), jewelry, and other little treats. I can't wait to stop in there tomorrow, to sip on a smoothie and do a little shopping. There are so many cute boutiques and antique shops that line the street. I'll keep you up to date on our adventure day tomorrow night when I blog. 

The birthday boy got to pick where we went out to dinner that night, and I must say, he chose very wisely. If you EVER come to Rhode Island and want the best seafood in an awesome clam shack by the sea, you MUST come to Champlin's!!! As you can see, we had steamers, fish and chips, fish tacos, and coconut shrimp (my personal favorite). So many awesome New England treats, and the steamers were so sweet and tender...the best I've ever had...and I've had a lot (from working around seafood all year).  Basically, it was a pretty successful day. 

And naturally, the last stop today was at *HOME* in our new kitchen. Christian turned 19 today, even though there are only 4 candles on the cake :-P

We sang Happy Birthday, there were presents to be had, and then we ended the night with a rousing game of Pass the Pigs. Just buy it. It's SO. MUCH. FUN. 

Happy Birthday Chris!

The Great Armadillo Hoax

I have a pet armadillo. He is about 5 years old. His name is Captain and my dad brought him back from Arizona for my 16th birthday (he has a friend out there who breeds armadillos on his cactus farm). We keep him in a rabbit cage in our backyard during the summer, and in the winter we bring him inside to our finished basement, but we take him out a lot. We play with him in his pen in our basement, and when it's warm outside we take him for a walk. He has a leash and a harness, but often times he doesn't walk too far and we have to carry him back. He likes to eat rabbit and ferret food, as well as small veggies like baby carrots and little tomatoes. He's a wonderful pet.

Sound believable? I made that whole story up when I was 16 and I've been telling it ever since. It's kind of fun to get people excited and interested in it, and the look on their face is priceless when they realize you're not as cool as they thought. It's mean...I know, but funny how gullible people can be.

It started out as a joke on my friend Caroline (very gullible) because in my backyard we have a fence with an armadillo on it. The picture is included of the armadillo who started it all.

I'm also going to add some pictures of my new house outside...and some nice shots of the Rose of Sharon.

Leaving

Saying good bye is hard when it's to another person...but what about a house? That's what I did today. My house of 13 years and I parted ways today. Well...my family parted ways...houses can't really do that. I took a quick video tour of our empty house, but I already uploaded some pictures yesterday of our empty house. Our old house.

The Internet is up surprisingly fast in our new house, as I'm sitting in our new living room surrounded by misplaced furniture and loads of boxes. I'd like to add some pictures when it starts looking like a home, so I'll put a picture up of the beach we went to today. First time at the beach this season and it was cloudy. Kind of like my mood and mind. At least it took my thoughts away from moving and 13 years of memories and good times.

"home...home again"

I like to be here when I can...

Well today was the big move out day, and I have pictures to make up for the few days that I haven't been blogging.

Not that anyone is following this blog anyways...

It's a sad day :( tonight is my last night in this house.

And at the last minute I remembered I wrote stuff in my closet, it's a secret:)

Turn Up that AC

It's amazing how much of a difference central air makes. If you have it, you know you have complete control over the temperature and your comfort. If you don't have it, you boil and sweat.

As David Sedaris says "I was lying on the floor making a sweat angel..." but I just left central air in Rhode Island and now I'm back in the old buildings of Boston where you need to BYOAC.(bring your own air conditioning...yeah).

So today I bring you two pictures as I loose about 5 lbs from sweating. The first is an homage to my old home an it's one of the last dinners we were able to have in our dining room...before everything got packed up. And now, sadly, pretty much my entire room is in boxes:(

The second picture is an homage to summer. When you grow up with both of your parents being musicians playing in a local wind ensemble, you get pulled along to every concert during the summer concert series. The American Band...check them out on Facebook. Wind ensemble music just reminds me of summer...especially marches and John Phillip Sousa. And it helps that this picture is a classic photobomb.

August is snapshot month!

So as I said before: August 1st came and went but I have 4 pictures to make this month current! So...

1.) Well, you know its going to be a weird day when you think you've time traveled.

2. This is a picture taken at sun down of the skyline of the beautiful city of which I live, and was enhanced using Instagram. 

3. Just some summer weather including intense thunder and lightning, soaking down pours, and heavy winds, complete with a tornado watch over the city. 

4. And from today, the beginnings of my room being packed up :/

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More to come...and stay tuned. It seems as though my photos will mostly be about moving and changing locations, as well as exploring the new areas I'll be moving to. It's both exciting and daunting, but I'm glad I picked this month to document with photos. 

the endless cycle of moving and packing

I've been a very bad blogger lately, but a lot has been going on. August 1st came and went and with it went my motivation for this blog. However, I am at home, where it is easiest to blog (since there's not much else to do) and I'm in the process of packing up my room. This is kind of going to turn up being a few weeks of moving hell:

1.) Already moved all the things from my apartment in Somerville to my boyfriend's apartment in Boston...and bless his heart because my multitudes of shoes and clothes are piled around his room.

2.) I am now at home packing up my room here so that my parents can move from the bay area to southern Rhode Island.

3.) I will return in a couple days to help them move and unpack.

4.) I will then help move all my things, my boyfriends things, and two of our friends things into one huge truck to our new apartments on September 1st. And I can't wait to decorate our new apartment! And eat Chinese food on the floor surrounded by boxes...and always have a bottle of white wine in the fridge.

So right now it is August 4th. I had decided that I knew August was going to be a busy month, so I resolved to take one picture a day. Easy enough, right? Well...I owe you four pictures today. I'll upload them later.

Just taking a break from packing up my things. It's amazing how much crap one can accumulate in 13 years. I found pencils that I remember from 3d grade! I also realize that I can't bring myself to throw out three things: photos, greeting cards, and sheet music. I just can't do it. I have thrown out a lot, and for that I give myself credit.

I also need to ask myself...how did I just discover Portlandia? It's HILARIOUS. Yesterday I packed and threw things out with that on Netflix in the background and watched all the episodes through. Today was more of a Family Guy, stand up comedy day...in fact I've got some Gaffigan playing in the background right now.

Well I'm going to take a break from blogging now, which was originally me taking a break from packing to...eat! My favorite part of the day. And I got some Outback steakhouse ribs. In honor of my little brother, who loves loves loves ribs.

I'll be uploading those pictures later! (Four of them...i know!)