solo

I rented The Soloist last night off of OnDemand. It is SUCH a good movie I loved every second of it. It just futher reinforced how much I love working with the homeless population and how badly I can't wait until I'm able to do it all the time. It also made me really really want to open a soup kitchen (with showers, laundry, computers, clothing, etc) in my home town. There seem to be enough of those types of services here and I just don't really feel a tie or a strong enough desire to bring something like that here...but at home it's like a whole different world of opportunity. Of course that would be when/if we move back to Montana...it's okay that it's a ways away because I'd need to be a point in our lives that we were stable in our home, had lots of loans paid off and I could take the risk of starting a "business". Obviously it'd be a nonprofit so it'd require some patience and perserverence...and the ability to probaly go without pay for a little while. But oh what a wonderful place it would be. I would call it bread. Lowercase. Don't steal my idea internets, it's going to happen some day! And then my brother can come once a month and do free dental check ups and my other brother can make really awesome, touching videos about it all to help us raise money. And my dad could build me a beautiful kitchen to serve my meals and a desk to work at...awww...my mom would love it too. We both have this thing about people going hungry. It just breaks our hearts, it should never ever happen. So she could serve up all her greatest recipes in our big kitchen.

Ahhhh...I miss having that inspiration and love for my job. I don't hate mine right now but it definitely doesn't give me that feeling that serving in the soup kitchen and loving homeless people does. THAT feeling is why I am in social work and I need to be reminded of it every now and again.

I'm eating like I'm single this weekend with Nathan gone. There's just no reason to cook a big meal so my staples are brie and crackers, grapes, olives, humuus, Naan bread, bagels...just quick and easy yummy stuff. My cousin and I always used to eat cheese and bread 3-5 days of the week when it was just the two of us. We both loved it and didn't mind at all but no boy would probably ever be too fulfilled with that meal. Don't get me wrong, I will be very happy when Nathan is back to make his amazing food- you know me, I love to eat! But one of my favorite things to eat is snacky stuff so this is nearly as fulfilling.

4 day weekend

My Labor Day weekend has officially begun! Nathan is gone for a boy's weekend at The Gorge and Scrappy and I are here, just hanging out. I had every intention of making big plans for myself this weekend and then waited until the last minute and realized everyone was off doing their own thing. Oh well. I'm going to see some friends tomorrow night, maybe meet up with another for lunch Saturday, go to a new church Sunday...but otherwise I'm just going to relax, go to the library, organize the garage, take Scrappy to the new dog park, go use my IKEA gift card, go shop the Labor Day sales...It all sounds really great to me!

I need a break anyway. My job is non-stop busy (which is a huge difference from when I was hired 4 months ago and was stuck doing absolutely nothing in my old position) which I LOVE but it just starts to get old. Lately I've been dreaming about work. This is my absolute least favorite thing in the world. It feels like I never left! I think this is a clear sign I need a few days away. There are just so many details involved in this program (a government program-which explains why there are so many useless details) and I am NOT a details girl. I just do, take care of the little stuff later, you know whatever works...There's not really room for that. I also don't believe there is one method for helping everyone and this program does, which is so stupid for the goals we try to meet...but again, all these government programs seem to often be backwards in the way they play out. So I just suck it up and follow the handbook, fifty billion pages long as it is.

My parents will be here next weekend! We'll first meet them for a couple days at the vineyards in Walla Walla and then they're coming back here for a Seahawks game and a couple days in the big city. I'm so excited, we keep talking about all the places we want to take them. There is definitely not enough time! Guess they'll have to come back!