la bella vita

So it has been a little over 2 weeks since the big move to glorious P.C.! Things are continuing to go wonderfully (knock on wood…). Amelia and my condo is still amazing; we’ve had a few BBQs with friends from my work over and it’s just the perfect little place for gathering good food, drinks, and great friends J It’s too bad we never have the same days off and often miss each other for the festivities. Good thing Kyle is designated “griller” because when I had to man the BBQ at work, my hot dogs were all Sarah-style-well-done (definitely not still mooing) and one of my hotdogs burnt and shriveled. So, maybe I need a few tutorials on becoming a grill master before I attempt to cook for 30 guests again…haha.

 

Work………is AMAZING! I’m having such a fun time here. Today we attempted to make a new type of ‘flubber’ aka gak, silly putty, slime, etc…out of corn starch instead of Borax. Who knew Borax can be fatal to a small child if they swallow as little as a teaspoon? We didn’t….but, all the recipes we can find for the best flubber consistency contain Borax, unfortunately. The corn starch concoction is a weird texture that gives me the heeby-geebies! Haha.  Then we had Rice Crispy Treat making, Candle Votive painting, earring making, and karaoke night. Yesterday I was given the nickname “Sparkles” by a cute little family, Juliana (Julie), Zack, and Josh…my love for pink and sparkly things has already been given away by all my crafts having something to do with being pink and you guessed it, sparkly! So as they say, the name fits! So now kids and co-workers call me Sparkles. It’s cute.

 

Every Sunday on Main Street is the Sunday Silly Market where hippie arts and crafts are for sale all up and down the strip. It’s really fun with live bands, beer, and good food. Kyle and I took his dogs, Elvis and Coach on a hike from my condo to Main and we saw work people, some families staying with us at Summit Watch, and people watched. Elivis nearly pulled me out of my chair like 5 times getting excited to see other doggies and say hi to people. Haha. Coach was my bff as soon as he spotted my tacos…My favorite part about the event (here comes the CA hippie we all know so well coming out of me) was the Zero Waste center where all the food was. Just like our Zero Waste event we put on at Chico State for my sustainability class, everything was reused, recycled, reduced…and even relocated. There were bins to recycle plastic, paper, glass, aluminum, and even a bin for food. You put everything in the appropriate bins, therefore, nothing was wasted and everything was ZERO WASTE! The bin where food was scraped into was taken to a local pig farm and used for food/compost. That sort of stuff is my little niche so I always like when I see things reduced, reused, and recycled! Thank you RECR 498! We recycle here at work, too. There’s bins for plastic, paper, glass, and aluminum. However, they’re right outside of the Activity  Center in between our building and the pool and unfortunately, people still just throw recyclables away because they’re too lazy to walk 10 feet from the trash cans and put them into the bins. Or, they’re just in an inconvenient space and need to have more bins out by the pool as well. This way, if there were recycling bins at the same ratio as trash cans, maybe people would be more likely to recycle. So, that’s one thing I want to work on while I’m on my internship here! Also, when we have to put fresh pool towels out, they come wrapped in a plastic string. Nikki and I are always recycling and the boys laugh at us but good thing they’re plastic and can be reused! An idea I had was to save the strings and use them with our beaded jewelry activity. They’re the perfect size for a necklace or bracelet and would prevent them from being dumped into a landfill!

 

News from the family front…excited to hear Uncle Butch got a new job offer at a prosthetic place downtown Sacramento. The fam just bought a new Golden Retriever puppy!!! Still throwing around names but so far Tucker seems to be a keeper…maybe. He’s so cute…from the pictures I get texted to my phone, anyway! Too bad he won’t really know me and I’ll miss him as a puppy L For now I have Elivs and Coach to play with I guess!

 

Anyway, my favorite kids are back so we’er going to make the boys sparkly crafts and surprise them with goodies in their cubbies. Haha. And karaoke time in 5 so gotta go!

 

Until next time, chao and cheers!

 

Shell