Still at the hotel.  But it has a very pretty Christmas-themed lobby.  So pretty for a Fitchburg hotel!!!

Food has very slowly been going bad at our house. At first, we were keeping things out in the garage, because it was colder out there than it was in our fridge. Now that we’re living in a hotel (which is covered by our home owner’s insurance - score!), we have a little cooler with milk and cheese in it.

Today, we were at the house, and we HAD to do something will all the stuff that was in our freezer. I was most concerned about our fresh fruit that I had picked myself. I spent hours picking blue berries this summer, and I did NOT want to throw them away. We also had two bags of rhubarb that had been washed, and were all measured out exactly for a pie. They were just waiting to be made into a delicious pastry. I also had two delicious frozen vegetable lasagnas from Trader Joe’s that I didn’t want to see go bad (they were about $6 a piece, but enough for the whole family to eat).

We had a frozen apple pie in the freezer that my mom GAVE AWAY to our friend Sara (the one with heat and power). WHAT THE HELL WAS SHE THINKING?!?!?!?!?! If anything, she should have said “Hey Sara, can you bake this for me? I’ll give you half of it.”  Instead, she just said “here, take this.” And now we’re left with no pie.  Bummer.  If Sara was going to get HALF A PIE for free, why wouldn’t she do it?  My mom had the day off, she could have gone over and baked it herself.   (I’m sorry if you read this mom, but you clearly weren’t thinking. Seriously, you LOVE your apple pie. You could have gone about that differently, and both families could have scored pie.) I really, really hope that Sara offers us some whenever she bakes it.

Sara said she had a little more room in her freezer (for the fruit, I hoped), I called her, but she didn’t answer. I had already taken the fruit out of the freezer, so crap. Liz from the Brew Year’s Eve got power back, so I called her, hoping

she’d have a little freezer space. She did!!! She had a chest freezer in their basement that they never used. I filled the cooler with the stuff I wanted (Trader Joe’s lasagna, a pot pie, Megan’s quorn, and bumble berry pastries that are delicious!). Everything, including the berries, fit in her freezer.

Dad and I decided to go down to Worcester to see Dylan (who also has a working freezer), so I loaded the cooler up with even more stuff (pesto sauce, meatballs, frozen rolls, hamburger meat, and two big packages of sirloin steak tips), and brought it down to Dylan. All of the stuff fit in his freezer, too!!! Now, all that we have left is stuff that can just be re-bought, frozen peas, frozen OJ concentrate, rolls from Megan’s wedding (yum! why would we still have those? Silly!) And other stuff that we can just toss out.  Then, we went out to dinner where I had Lemon Chicken Picatta that was yucky.  It was too creamy, and I had to scrape off most of the sauce.  I thought chicken picatta was a mostly clear sauce with olive oil.  I was disappointed.

I am just so thankful for Liz and Dylan’s freezer. I REALLY didn’t want to lose that fruit. If Liz likes rhubarb pie, she is most definitely getting some. Maybe I could even bake her some muffins with the blueberries she helped me save.

Oh, and after I brought all the stuff to Liz’s, I found another bag of about 1.5 cups of blueberries in the kitchen freezer. I didn’t know what else to do with them, so I grabbed a spoon, and ate them. I left my dad about 2/3 cup, but the rest went in my belly. The date on the bag was 7-29-08, only several days before Megan’s wedding.

In fact, this might be a picture of us on that day, right after picking them!!! I think Mac is eating them!

More to come. We are still sans heat and power at home.

How cold is it?

It’s so cold . . . That people are sleeping in their office at City Hall.

House reached 42 degrees.

I’m off to the hotel, cause my parents are big babies.

We have hot water! I guess we had it all along, by parents just assumed that we didn’t. I kept washing my hands and feeling hot water, and I would mention it, and say “Are you sure we don’t have hot water?” And they said “Oh, that’s just the leftover water that was in the tank.”

Last night after we had dinner at the City Hall Cafe (cause we were at city hall, and they were open, and right across the street - plus, it was BYOB, and we had tons of wine in the car for Larry’s party). Then, we headed over to the Senior Center where they had an emergency shelter set up. We helped set up cots and distribute blankets. It was weird, and I’ve never had to do anything like that. It’s weird how something like this can happen so quickly, leaving people without a warm home, and a lot of times, without food. Imagine how different it would be in the summer time… people would just be outside grilling food!

After we got back from volunteering around 9:15, I washed my hands, and again, the water was warm. It took a while to get warm, but I kept it running to test it. I said, “There is no way that this water is still warm after 24 hours. No way!” So my dad said he would test it in the morning, and try to take a shower.

I was still in bed when I heard the shower going, so I was excited that it was possible we had hot water! Larry came over for pancakes and coffee, then he and my dad set off for City Hall to do more emergency related stuff. My mom went to Sara’s where she took her shower, but I wanted to get some exercising in befo

re I took mine. I was able to do dishes with hot water, and had high hopes for a warm shower. The plan was to shower at home, change clothes in the steamed-up bathroom, and then drive to City Hall where my mom and I would spend the day, and I would get to dry my hair. I did a little exercising, push ups, lifted some weights, and did some sit-ups. I prepared my lunch to bring with me to City Hall cause I knew I wouldn’t want to do it with a wet head.

Right up until I got in the shower, my mom was still saying “I don’t think that we have hot water, I think it’s left over in the tank.”

“But I was doing dishes with hot water all afternoon.”

“And you probably used it all up.”

“Dad said that there is NO WAY that the water would still be that hot if it’s been left in the tank.”

“Well, I just went downstairs and felt the water heater, and it felt cool.”

“Dad said there was NO WAY!”

“Ok.”

But of course she has me freaked out that I’m going to lose hot water half way through. I think about what I’ll do if that happens, but jump in the shower anyway. The water was so friggen hot, I had to turn it down. It was so steamy and it burned my skin cause I wasn’t used to anything slightly warm. I took a very fast shower, but didn’t run out of hot water. Once I knew the water was still hot, I took extra long time rinsing the conditioner out of my hair. I got out, quickly changed, grabbed my clothes for Destare, my food, and left the house.

I’m now at City Hall, and using the internet and am nice and warm. I wish I had brought a blanket with me though, I love blankets, and don’t feel right without one. I was wearing two sweaters, but took one off and have that wrapped on me. I’m hoping we’re going to get pizza for dinner, and just eat here at City Hall. That’ll be less expensive, plus we won’t have to wait anywhere for dinner. I have work tonight at 6:30, and I have no idea where we’re going to sleep tonight. My mom really, really REALLY wants to stay at a hotel, but the one that has roo

ms doesn’t have any heat! My dad booked a room there anyway, just in case they get heat back tonight. City Hall is still available with heat and everything, but I don’t think my parents are keen on that. I think that it would be an adventure! Even if it won’t be that great, it will be warm, and it will be a memory. We’ll be able to say “Remember that time we had to spend the night at City Hall cause it was so freaking freezing??” I just know that even though I had four blankets on top of me, plus two pairs of socks, I was still very cold. My head was freezing, and I wish that I had a hat on.

No matter where I sleep, I might not get there until 2am (cause I have to work). But I heard last night, that there were only employees at the bar up until 11pm last night. It makes sense - people are freaked out about heat, power, and their food… who would want to go out drinking? Even though it’s a warm place with food, people want to eat dinner, and go to bed. No one wants to go out and have fun because they know there is a freezing cold home waiting for them, with no power.

**I have more pictures, but because the Edge network isn’t working, I can’t get them off my phone.  I took some with my regular camera, but don’t have it with me right now.  I’ll update as soon as I can get them!**

We had a really bad ice storm last night.  It rained all night, and slowly the rain froze on the tree branches, making them extremely heavy.  No one was at Destare, so I was sent home super early (at 8:30!  I called Amy and Caroline to see if they wanted to come over to drink wine, but they couldn’t.  Instead, I went with my dad to buy wine for the office party at Larry’s).

We watched Pushing Daisies, then we all went to bed around 10:30, cause we were expecting the power to go off at any minute.  Sometime in the middle of the night, I woke up and could just hear crashes throughout the neighborhood.  It was really hard to go to sleep, because I kept worrying about my car, which was in the driveway, under a mostly dead tree.  I was worried about it, but my dad said it’d be fine.  But all night, I kept hearing tree branches falling, and kept thinking “Oh man, what if something big falls on my car?!”  Usually I keep a fan on, but with the power dead, my fan went out.  I have an app on my iPhone called White Noise that I turned on, which helped, until Niles called me at 2am.  I answered, but couldn’t hear anything.  He had also previously woken me up around 12:45 telling me to go to Hooligans.  They had power (a generator), and it was packed.  My friend Rob also sent me a text asking me to come out.  I had already been asleep for 3 hours, so that was not going to happen.

Around 3am, I woke up to a huge crash and the whole house shook.  It was as if we were being attacked by bombs.  It was absolutely ridiculous.  My heart started beating really fast, and I could hear my parents talking in the other room, so I got out of bed and said “Did you guy feel that?!?!?!!?”  We all went downstairs to check things out.  My dad grabbed a huge camping flashlight, and went outside to see what happened.  It was still pouring, so he got soaked.  Turns out, one of the trees in our back yard had split in half, took out our electrical service (what actually feed the electricity into the house).  It also took the phones line with it.  We called Unitil (our electricity provider) from my cell phone at 3am and told them what happened.

We all woke up again at 8am and went downstairs for breakfast.  My parents had made pancakes, and coffee in their drip coffee maker that works on the stove.  I had a mini pancake with real maple syrup, plus my cereal and egg whites like I usually do.  It was freezing, so after breakfast, we all went back to bed. I didn’t end up actually getting up until 11:40.  It was cold, and I had nothing to do anyway, so staying in bed where it was warm seemed like a great idea.

My dad headed out for work - City Hall was closed, but  we were in a state of emergency, so they needed people downtown to coordinate efforts.  My dad was manning City Hall, answering the phones and also using a Walkie Talkie to talk to people who were over at the Senior Center setting up cots as a shelter for people.  My mom and I stayed home and puttered around in the house, freezing cold.

I was sitting on the couch reading a book wearing:

• a turtleneck
• 2 sweaters
• leggings
• jeans
• 2 pairs of socks
• slippers
• a hat
• a scarf
• my “blanket with sleeves” (but not The Snuggie)

I also had a regular blanket on top of me, and I was STILL cold.  Our thermostat read 56 degrees.

We have no heat, no hot water, no phone, no cable, no internet…. it sucks.

I definitely think the worst part of this is that I can’t exercise.  I could exercise at home, but I can’t shower.  The Rec Center at school is going to be closed until Tuesday (I think) because they don’t have power either.  If I can’t shower, I can’t exercise (because I will get sweaty and gross.  I guess I could take a cold shower, but if we have no heat, that could be dangerous to my health.  If the Rec Center was open, I wouldn’t have a problem at all.  I could exercise and shower there.  I’m angry.  Maybe I could use my dad’s membership at the YMCA).

Luckily, our friend Sara said that we can go over to her house and shower.  It seems like she is the only person we know in and around Fitchburg who has power.  It’s incredible.  I should figure out a time for me to go over there tomorrow, and just made sure that I have all my exercising done before then.  It’s a pretty frustrated feeling, but I understand that it’s not the end of the world.  No where near.  Maybe I’ll exercise tonight before bed, go to bed, wake up in the morning, exercise again, and then shower.  Then I’ll just change my sheets before bed tomorrow night (cause I think I’m due for a change anyway).

Ok, so anyway.  Back to this afternoon.  Around 3:30, my mom mentioned that if it gets really cold out, it might get to around 30 degrees (about 0 degrees Celsius) in our house.  I said there was absolutely no way!  She says “Yes, it’s possible.  We should rent a hotel room.”  Then I said “We should go get some wood so we can use our fireplace.  If it’s going to get THAT cold, we might as well.  It would be better than nothing.”

So I went out back to where we keep our fire wood.  Some of it is under a tarp, but of all the wood we had, I’d say only 30% was covered, and thus, dry.  I grabbed that wood and threw it in our wheelbarrow, then looked at the trees that had crashed down.  Some of the wood looked dry (it was a much lighter color than the wood that was clearly wet).  I went downstairs, grabbed one of my dad’s saws, and went back outside and started sawing away at the wood.  I think I’ve heard that it’s not that good to burn wood that is fresh, but I figure if we don’t use it tonight, we could use it sometime later.  I just wanted to get it before it got wet.  I brought in all of wood into the garage, and hopefully we’ll be able to light a fire tonight.  (Sawing wood is a little but like exercise, right?  It did make me a little out of breath!)

Then, I went back into the house, and I went upstairs to my mom’s room where she was reading her book under the remaining sunlight.

“I’m going to City Hall.  I can’t stand it anymore.”

“Ok.”

“Want to come?”

“I guess….  what will I do there?”

“I dunno, bring your book.  I’m going to bring my computer.”

“But I’m done with my book.”

“So bring another book.”

“Okay.”

So then I packed up a few things (my laptop, charger, charger for my iPhone [we had been taking turns charging our cells in my car, my lighter still works even if the car isn't on, and we were quickly using up cell phone batteries], water bottle, hat and gloves), and we headed down to City Hall.  When we got there, my dad told us that Trevor had just set out to the house to check on us.  I tried calling him, but couldn’t get through.  Somethings wrong with my phone, and when someone calls, I answer, but it’s just silence.  Also, the Edge network (how I use internet on my phone) isn’t working either.  It’s frustrating.

So now I’m warm and in City Hall using my computer.  I think I’ll see if my mom wants to watch TV on it or something. We’re both pretty bored.  When I walked it, it was so warm I said “I think we should sleep here tonight.”  My dad said “We were talking about having a party here tonight!!!”  The party at Larry’s that I was so exctied about is cancelled cause he doens’t have heat, and we’d have no way to make any food.  It sounds like they might grab take out and chips and dip and bring it here!  My dad and I went out last night and bought all the wine… I think it’d be fun!

You know how I know that I made a good decision to leave Destare?  It’s Wednesday night, and I’m already dreading having to go to work tomorrow night.  Then, Friday night, my dad’s office friends are having a big party at Larry’s.  For anyone who has ever hung out with my dad, Larry and Trevor knows that’s going to be an awesome time.  Happily, I had already asked Jessica for the night off, because I didn’t want to work Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  And I asked before I even knew about the party!  Sweet!!!  But then, now I’m dreading working on Saturday!  And that’s not for a couple more days!!!  It will, however, be my last Saturday working at Destare.  Alysha said she has some friends coming in for a party, so hopefully I’ll get to wait on them!  That will make it a fun night.

I was driving to Hannaford Sunday night to buy some fruit, and I wanted to stop at Walmart to buy yarn.  I haven’t knit in a long time, and I was thinking “Wow, without working at night, I could spend my nights watching movies and knitting.”  I don’t know about you, but that seems like a fantastic idea to me.  I really want to knit a blanket.  I love blankets, and am under one on the couch all the time, even in the middle of August when its 90 degrees out.  I think it would be awesome to be able to use the blanket that I made myself!!

We had a Brew Year’s Eve meeting tonight at Hooligans after our two meetings, and we got a lot done.  At each meeting we all leave with “to do” lists.  It’s a good way of getting stuff done, but now I have a list of things to do!  Luckily, I passed in my paper for school today, so I don’t have to worry about any more school stuff.  Yay!  Now I don’t have to feel bad about spending my free time reading or blogging.  Cause what else am I suppose to do with it?  I will happily take suggestions for books, especially from Paul who said that Twilight was “written for tweens.”  I’ll admit, I’m still a little bitter about that comment.  Perhaps it wasn’t that comment specifically, but here’s how I feel: “If your comment isn’t helpful to me, or nice, I don’t want to read it.  If you’re trying to be funny, include a smiley face, or ‘lol’ so I know.  Otherwise, don’t leave me something bitter and mean for no reason.  That’s not a nice thing to do.”  If you can’t say something nice, please don’t say anything at all (but I didn’t mind your “douche” comment… that was a good one).   But in all seriousness, Paul, send me books suggestions.  I’ll look into them.  I just read Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) and it was really good!!!

So anyway, we printed up labels for our B.Y.E. postcards, but somehow, the labels printed randomly, and we don’t know which ones printed!  So I’m going through our 150 postcards and marking down which ones we already printed.  I have to go through the postcards, find the name on our mailing list, and check it off.  Then, I need to print out labels for the ones we didn’t already.  I am sitting on the couch with a blanket on top of me, laptop on my lap, and watching TV.

Time to get back to work!

We got our tree on Saturday.  Beautiful!  Also on Saturday, we went to the Armory for the Fitchburg Chowder Taste Off (or whatever it was called).  Then, we walked from the Armory to the Fitchburg Art Museum where they had their Holly Berry Craft Fair (also unsure of the name).  We bought some nice homemade presents for Christmas.  It was a very eventful day!

Monday night, I went over to Amy’s for a Lia Sphia jewelry party.  Cait and Alysha were also there.  We had wine galore and vegetables, chips, and M&Ms.  I ate too much.

Because I ate so much at Amy’s, I did a super hard hour long workout at the gym on Tuesday.  I watched two episodes of Californication.  It’s not a comedy, and sometimes it’s kind of depressing.  But it’s with David Duchovny, so that’s awesome.

I started watching True Blood this morning while I did strength training at home.  It’s going to be my new gym show (it’s about Vampires!  Like Twilight!).  I could still use suggestions, if you have them. I’ve already watched Pushing Daisies, How I Met Your Mother, and Californication.  I need more suggestions.  At home, I watch (or have seen all of) House, Heroes, Medium, 30 Rock, X Files (duh!), Lost, Weeds, and probably more that I just can’t think of.  My mom suggested New Adventures of Old Christine.  I’m going to download it… I’ve heard good things.

I am babysitting this afternoon, and then tonight I have an interview with The Telegram’s FLASH at 5:30, and then we’re on FATV (Fitchburg Access Television) at 7.  I knew that I might not have time for cardio, so I wanted to get something in this morning before babysitting.  Also, when will I have time for dinner?  I didn’t know about the FLASH interview until Trevor called me a couple hours ago.  It was scheduled for 4:30, but I’m babysitting until 5!  Luckily, they were able to push it back.  I thought I’d have time to have dinner, but now with this interview, it doesn’t look like it.  We’re at the Armory for the first interview, so maybe we’ll have to run over to Espresso Pizza again for dinner (that’s what we had to do last Wednesday, too!  We had one meeting at 5:30, and another at 7:30).

I did end up going down to Destare to talk to the owner.  I told him I was giving my two weeks notice.  He seemed indifferent.  That’s another reason to leave.  I’ve been there  a year and a half, as long as the place has been open, and the guy doesn’t even care that I’m leaving.  Why would I want to work for a person like that?  That’s just not very nice.

Trevor said a nice thing about me leaving is that I’ll have plenty of time to work on Brew Year’s Eve.  I had to call him and Jenny from Macy*s on my way to Destare cause I was freaking out that much.  I said “I’m making the right decision, right??”  They both said yes.  When I told Jeanne today, she didn’t miss a beat when she said “Oh good, you shouldn’t work for such a jerk anyway!”

If any of you guys have any ideas for things I can do for extra money, let me know!  I’m going to sell the school books that I don’t need on half.com, and then I babysit.  If you need your kids/dogs/cats/house/plants watched, let me know!  I have great references.  What else can I do for spare money while looking for a job?

So, I’m freaked out about leaving and not having any money.  I’m thinking January is going to have to be another Buy Nothing Month.  I’ll also cut out other things that I don’t have money for.  Diet soda will probably be one of them.  It’s bad for me, and I shouldn’t waste my money.

On another note (I sure am jumping around a lot today!), I think that the reason why I’m always hungry is perhaps because I’m not getting enough water.  The Real Age doctors say that I should be getting half of my body weight in ounces of water every day.  I don’t get that much water at all!!!  I should be getting 65 ounces of water every day (to save you the math, I weigh about 130 - but I haven’t weighed myself in over a week…).  That’s 8.125 cups.  That’s 2.7 fill ups on my Camel Bak water bottle.  That’s a lot of freaking water.  After the gym, I usually do about 1.5 of them.  I should make a plan out where I will finish one by 11am, one by 4pm, and another one by 8pm.  Now that I think about it, maybe it’s actually not that much water.  I just started drinking one, and it’s almost gone!  Unfortunately, it’s 4pm, and I still have two more to drink.  Also unfortunately, I’m in Leominster, and Leominster water is pretty crappy.  It comes out brown, crappy.  They have a Polar water fountain thing… but I don’t think it’s that full.  Darnit!

Anyway, my point is that I think this is a challenge!  I’m challenging every to start drinking half your weight in water.  Starting tomorrow!   It’s a good thing for everyone to do, especially around the holidays when we’ll all probably be overeating anyway.  Then, our tummys will get full with water, not on cheese and pastries, and crackers.

But I really think that’s why I’m ALWAYS hungry. Seriously, I am hungry ALL the time.  That’s why I talk about food so much.  I eat, and then I’m still thinking “Mmm… what else can I eat?”

Oh, and this is most definitely a challenge for Shauna.  Shauna, you have to do this with me!!!

(long post!  Sorry if there are spelling or grammar mistakes, I haven’t had time to read through it yet)

I am freaking out right now. I am planning on going down to Destare and giving my two weeks notice today. I made a final decision Saturday night into Sunday that I was most definitely going to quit. I had been thinking about it for about a month now, and I’m going back and forth, back and forth. The only thing that I am worried about is the money. I’m freaking out about losing the money. But last Saturday I made absolute crap for money. Serious. Crap. My sales were $218. I tipped out the bar $11 (5% of my net sales), and I walked out of there, after seven hours, with $36. I swear to god. On a Saturday!!!! Plus, I got yelled at. He didn’t really yell, per say. But he spoke down to me, and made me feel incredibly small and like I was a complete idiot. I shouldn’t be made to feel like that any job, but especially not as a job as a waitress. A job that means absolutely nothing to me in the long run. It’s a waitressing job. Seriously. It’s not my career, and it’s not like I absolutely NEED the money. I don’t. I live at home, I don’t pay rent. I’m at Macy’s until January, and I’m still babysitting every Wednesday (and I’m going to tell her that I’m leaving Destare, so if they ever need me overnight, so they can go away for a nice night). I can live without Destare, especially if the people there make me feel bad about myself and stress me out beyond belief. All of this stress and crap that I’ve dealt with has made me cry several times, and even has kept me up at night. I shouldn’t be so freaked out over a job like this, and that should be the first sign that I need to move on!

I’m still thinking back and forth about it. I know that I should move on from there. It’s been a year and a half, and I am no longer happy. I also feel that I deserve respect for being there for so long, and that they should be thankful to have me, and thankful that I’ve stayed so long. I am the employee that has been there the absolute longest, and they don’t even give a crap. It’s quite sad.
It really is just the money that I’m worried about…. I’m wrestling with this in my head, but I know what the right decision is. I need to leave. Plus, I’ll give my two weeks now, and then I’ll be free to hang out with Megan when she’s home! I already told them I can’t work New Year’s because of the Brew Year’s Eve party, but he was trying to make me feel bad about it (I honestly think he might have fired me for not showing up, even though I gave him two months notice). Plus, I am sick and tired of working at night because it sucks to miss out on things all the time. My parents would go out to dinner parties at friend’s houses, which I couldn’t go to. I’ve missed numerous parties at friend’s houses because I “had” to work. It sucks. I want a regular day time job, with my nights and weekends to myself! I’d be fine working Saturday during the day, but not Saturday nights.

I’m going to look for a job in the mental health field, because I should get experience for my degree. Because the economy is so bad, I understand that I might not be able to get a job right away. If that is the case, I will try to just find a place to intern with. That way I can still get the experience that I need for my resume, even though I won’t make any of the money. I’m ok with that. Somehow I will make it through. I need to quit because the job is driving me insane. It sucks, but it’s true. I’m going to have to take school loans out. I owe ~$1600 in January (cause my class is 6 credits), and then in September, when I start my internship, I’ll owe $3200. My internship is 12 credits, and for every three credits, it is ~$800. I’ll probably have to take a loan out for some of that, but I won’t be done until May 2010, so I have until then to pay it off in full, before I’ll start being charged interest. But if that’s all the school loans I have after being done with my Master degree, I think $5,000 is pretty good.

On the news tonight, I heard that the Indiana Planned Parenthood is offering gift certificates for the holidays.  Some people are crapping their pants about it, and saying “Gift certificates for abortions!  That’s horrible!”  Planned Parenthood is saying “with the economy so bad, people are having to choose whether to eat, or heat their house.  We want people to have the option to go get their health screened for free.”  They also added that less than 5% of their services are abortions.  The crazy anti-PP lady said that it was crazy to offer free abortions on the day that celebrates Baby Jesus.

I believe that these gift certificates are a moderately good idea.  I honestly don’t know who you would give a PP gift to…. I don’t know how I would feel if I got one from my parents.  I’d honestly be a little confused, I think.

I do, however, absolutely love Planned Parenthood.  I would love to work for them (my mom feels the same way!).  I would love to do abortion counseling, or just counseling young women on their options for birth control, or even just other issues that women face.

In other news, because of the closure of my gym for holidays (cause it’s connected to the college, so it is going to be closed a lot during winter break - dammit) on Thanksgiving, and the Saturday after, the gym was closed, and I was forced to face the cold weather and run outside.   I  have a usual two mile route that I do, but I haven’t done it in a while since I’ve been at the gym.

Anyway, I headed out Rindge Road, and towards the end of the road, I started to notice all of the trash that had accumulated on the road again.  This made me very, very angry.  When I started picking up trash in the past, it was my daily running that made me realize how bad the trash was.  My very first clean up was on Rindge Road, back in mid October. I hadn’t been running in the street, so I didn’t notice the trash.

Rindge Road is a pretty long road, at one end is McKay school, and there aren’t any houses until the very other end of the road, about a mile down. (See photo for eye-popping graphics) Most of the trash that I noticed was up near the houses!  Not in their yard, but in close proximity to their house.  Close enough where if the inhabitants of the house ever went on a walk, they would be disgusted by the trash in their “neighborhood.”

So here’s what I was thinking.  I was thinking about doing a “Help Robin Pick Up Trash This Week,” and ask all of my friends, family, and anonymous blog readers to pick up trash.  You don’t have to live in Fitchburg, or do it every day.  But take a moment, and pick up a good amount of trash.  A whole bag, if you will.

I was thinking that I would make up posters to give to these people who live at the end of Rindge Road.  On this sheet, I would tell them who I am, a local college student who also lives nearby, and runs along their road.  I would explain my goal (cleaning up my town/neighborhood), and also provide them with pictures of the trash I’ve picked up in the past.  Then, I would ask them to please help me, and to go outside their homes (they don’t have to go that far, the trash is RIGHT THERE), and please help me with the task of picking up this trash.

What do you guys think?  How would you feel if a stranger left a flyer like that in your door?  Would you be annoyed?  Pleased? Thankful there are caring people in the world?

Would you help and pick up the trash?

Do you think it being holiday season has any effect on what you’d do?

If I DO do this, I would want to do it before it snows a lot.

Oh, and tomorrow, I would like to write about the quote “The best things in life aren’t things.”  Remind me!

Finally.

It’s just a dusting, but it was enough that I woke up with a snow covered yard.