Silent Fury

I took a short break from the craziness that my life has become in the past couple weeks (packing, cleaning, etc.) to go see my cousin Alex's band Silent Fury. Their three man band has been traveling around and touring quite a bit, but I had never managed to see them. So I was super excited, but unsure of what to expect. I was VERY pleasently surprised to find out that they are a really good band that plays music I really enjoy. They moved from original songs to covers and back again seamlessly. I found myself rocking just as much to the original songs I had never heard before as I did to the covers, which happened to be some of my favorite songs. They were also quite the show men and the people there loved them, filling the dance floor. Let me tell you, there is nothing quite like seeing your young cousin autographing his CD for a fan, but I was super proud of him and really can't wait to see them again. I didn't get any great pictures but I included a couple of them just to give you an idea.

Holiday Spirit (or lack of)

I adore the holidays, I love the decorations, the family time, the weather (I really do), giving the perfect gift, really just about every part of it. After my first Thanksgiving away from home went so well, I was ready to march right into the Christmas holiday. Unfortunately some things were working against me. Accepting a new job, while exciting, also means that I am not adding lights, a tree, and garlands with bows to create a beautiful and merry feeling. I am, instead, emptying my place a little at a time making it less and less of a home. It also means that I have not been roaming around to various family members as much due to the amount of work I have to do here, so I can't even partake in their brand of holiday joy. On top of all that scrooge-like activity we either set the record or came close for the latest snow fall ever in Vermont. Instead of a winter landscape of snow, and the crisp and clear air of winter, we had rain and muck. In the past week I have had a significant shift though, for two reasons. 1) My advent calender and 2) snow. Most years growing up we had an advent calender and as adults we have not let go of the tradition. When I was home in November I was thrilled when my dad presented each of us kids with an advent calender that he had gotten us. So every morning I get up and find the appropriate date and uncover a new picture, building the excitement for impending holiday one cartoon picture at a time. Then, just as I was already starting to get excited, our first big snowfall. We got about 6-8 inches over the day wednesday creating a beautiful winter landscape, finally! So even though my home is less home like, and I continue to postpone christmas shopping, I am in the holiday spirit and enjoying every moment as it comes. The view from the bend in my road after the snowfall on Wednesday

My advent calender, yay!

News

While I will always be thankful for the experience and the fact that it got me where I am now I must admit, I am not a huge fan of my job. I have, in fact, spent the last several months looking seriously into other options with little to no luck. So I am quite happy to report that I have accepted a new job. I am going back to my roots and working with the children. I am going to be working as a nanny again. I hooked up with a girl who is running an agency where I will be working full time, but splitting it for a couple different families on a regular basis and will have the ability to add extra time in helping other families in the area from time to time. I am very excited about it, and after spending a day working with one of the families that will be my regulars I feel that I have made the very best decision for myself. Oh and one other thing, it means I am moving again. This time I am moving even closer to the coast, and will actually be working right on the coast. My living arrangements are still up in the air, but let's face it, I spend half my life up in the air. It's a little scary but like I said, I am just really excited and happy to be going back to something I know I love to do. Anyway just wanted to let you all know what's going on with me.

Birthday memories

In honor of my mom's birthday, and Thanksgiving, today I am going to tell you one of my favorite moments ever from my mom's birthdays over the years (also included is mom doing shots of jager straight from the bottle on her 40th and Drew catching on fire at her 50th). When we were younger my dad often was the man in charge on school holidays since he usually had the same days off. Well this particular year mom's birthday fell on the day before Thanksgiving and we were home with dad all day while mom worked. We spent a good portion of the day working very hard on a SURPRISE chocolate cake for mom's big day. We also spent quite a bit of time trying to explain to 3 year old Megan why we it was fun to make a surprise cake and that she absoloutely couldn't tell mom under any circumstances. She asked some questions but seemed to get it. That night as we were finishing dinner dad said something along the lines of dinner being over and Megan, with chocolate on her brain and an incredulous look said "what about the cake?" Immediately angry that she had spilled the beans about the cake I quite firmly reprimanded that we were not supposed to tell mom about the cake. Megan looking sweet as a button looked at me and smiled and said "what cake?" To this day every time I think about it I laugh out loud. She always was a smart one :)

Weekends

Last weekend, through a series of random events, I ended up having an impromptu weekend in Cincinnati. While there I had what can only be described as an awesome weekend. I made friends on the plane ride down and barely noticed that I left my phone in Vermont by accident. I had great times with family and friends both in partying and relaxing environments, plus my first Bengals game of the season which was a total WHO DEY win over the Ravens. When you have weekends like that its sometimes hard to return to the new life that you have set up hundreds of miles away. So when some of my new friends/coworkers wanted to hang out this weekend I jumped at the chance. I love my coworkers, they keep me sane in a job that is constantly trying to drive me crazy. It seems that some of our job requirements are a slightly off sense of humor and either a dysfunctional or non-existant filter between our brains and mouths. Saturday I met with one of my friends in Stowe where we tried out one of the less ritzy places called The Shed, and even then we went to the pub side and not the dining room side. It was great, homey and warm on a rainy and cold night. We had good food and good conversation and I got to try a new place out, which I rarely get to do. Sunday two of my coworkers came over to my apartment, which is also a rare occurence since i don't live all that close to either one of them. I got to be a hostess which is one of my most favorite and most missed things to be. Part way through the night I realized that somehow I had slipped into adulthood along the way. Sadly this epiphany came with chocolate, when I actually paused while serving coffee with dessert because it seemed like such a grown up thing to do. Although, now that I think about it, if behaving like an adult makes me giggle I guess I'm not quite there, haha. Anyway, whether partying till 6 AM in Cinci or serving coffee with the brownies in Vermont I am a happy girl to be able to go back to my hometown and have such a rockstar weekend then to follow it with a nice, relaxing, comedy filled weekend with friends in the place I am making a new kind of home.

Spookiness

Yesterday, in keeping with the halloween spirit, one of my clients and I decided to participate in some spooky activities. First, we decided to venture into Hope cemetary in Barre, VT. Barre is a granite town so there are some truly amazing and original headstones in this cemetary. I had never been before so we decided to go check it out, partly to see the headstones and partly to freak ourselves out before our trip to the haunted zombie house. While we were there we took some picture, mostly as a joke, to "catch" something other worldly. While I blame the dots in the pictures on the light rainfall, they do look a little creepy and when they are blown up some of them appear to be falling upward. Take from them what you will, I leave it up to your judgement...

On our way out of the cemetary we decided to exchange spooky and true stories. Mine was from way back in my childhood. When I was little there were quite a few cousins all within the same age range who would be running around camp together. Over the years we have put serious time and effort into freaking each other out, either physically or mentally, with varying levels of success. So from a young age we had in our minds that there were quite possibly some pretty old spirits sharing our lake with us. One night, when I was maybe 7 or 8, we were headed out for one of our very favorite childhood activities, PJ Patrol. We would put our fashionable orange life jackets on over our pajamas and pack into the boat so one of our Uncles, or Grampy, could take us visiting across the lake. This night, we were on our way back to our camp and my cousin Kevin and I were sitting in the very front of the boat. Right as we were rounding the point and at the exact same moment we turned to tell our Uncle to make sure and watch out for the fishing boat, to which he responded "what boat?" Well of course we turned to point it out, but the boat was no longer there. Now Kevin often liked to steal my thunder, so I made him tell me first what he had seen. He proceeded to describe, in detail, a long fishing boat with a man standing on one end with his fishing pole cast into the lake and the man was wearing a tall hat and a long coat. This image, only a dark shadow against a dark lake, was the exact image I had seen. We spent the rest of the ride home in open mouth shock and I am not sure we've ever really talked about it to anyone else or even each other. And to this day I will sometimes think of the fisherman as we come around the point at night and wonder if I'll ever see him again.

Buckling down, settling in

I was looking outside and realized how perfectly the weather suits the day, which isn't rare exactly, just not a given. It's like snow falling on Christmas, a warm breeze on Easter or a bright, hot sun on the 4th of July, when the day just fits. My first Vermont Halloween has heavy, gray clouds hovering over the mountains and a wind that is actually whistling through the trees that have only those very few leaves hanging on before baring for the winter. It's one of those days that you just want to hunker down in your house with a good book, but maybe keep your curtains open so you can watch the trees bend and sway. It's also the kind of day that reminds you of what's around the corner, weather wise. For a few weeks I've noticed the preperation people are putting into getting ready for the coming winter, you know, the people's equivalent of squirrels burying their nuts. If you pay attention you can almost always hear the sound of axes hitting wood, as well as notice the chords of wood getting taller and longer by the day. The scent of a woodfire is always faintly riding every gust of wind and everyday you see more and more cars with the snow tires on and ready for the first snowfall. Even though I showed up mid-winter, and dealt with the coldest of cold temperatures, I have been told that it's the month of December that can make or break a person and truly seperates the natives from the wannabes. Apparently the sun all but disappears for the month and you can feel as though you are being buried in the snow as it rises around you. Well I am determined to not be shamefully cast as a wannabe and to maintain my sanity during a full New England winter, so I will also settle in and buckle down for the winter and keep plenty of entertainment on hand. Wish me luck!