Mmmm...Pizza!

Today I got to hang out in the three-year-old classroom at CFC (my new abbreviation for Center for the Child). It was pretty fun, but I was a little concerned when one of the little girls asked me repeatedly if I was a mother. She asked me that question two or three times, and I was little surprised that this was the second question she asked me after asking my name. Besides that incident, everything else this mornig went pretty smoothly. I played with them outside for a while and then retreated back into the academic wing to work on my research assignments.

I didn't go to the gym today, but I think I may go for a jog in a little while. We had some delicious Pizza Hut pizza today. On a smelly note, something in our kitchen REEKS!!! We think it may be Alice's stromboli so we need to throw that crap OUT! I don't think anything else is really going to tonight. I'm out!

Today I returned to the Center for the Child! When I first got there, I went to find Dr. Hester to see if Dr. Hill-Chapman had arrived yet. I was supposed to meet with her to discuss her current research to see how I could help. She was late coming into the office because she had a family emergency, but once she got me started I spent most of the day entering data from her research project that she was working on. She was researching the effects of drugs and alcohol on behaviorial issues and academic performance. I was basically punching in numbers into Excel for most of the day, but it was actually pretty interesting to see the different answers to the questions and see how they corresponded to other answers. I also met with Dr. Hester to talk about my week with Mrs. Jackie at Troy-Johnson, my single mother project, and how I felt about Nickel and Dimed. I was glad to have this conversation and update on my progress so far. Hopefully, tomorrow I will have the chance to interact more with the kids. :)

After work, I picked up Khadijah at work, went to the gym, and came back to the house to start dinner. We were having chicken, rice, and steamed veggies - a pretty standard meal I'd say. Then...Khadijah and I went to library to get our library cards!!! Khadijah got Jane Eyre and I decided to wait until I finished Into the Wild to check out my first book. We spent another quiet evening at home watching "Jon and Kate plus Eight" and just hanging out! The Sims 3 comes out this week so I'm putting up a notice now so if I don't blog for a while everyone knows why! Thanks!

My new name is Noelle Elizabeth Kelly POOP

Today was another great day. I woke up pretty early to wash clothes and clean the floors because I was beginning to fear the huge dust bunnies that were beginning to show up everywhere. I was contemplating going to the Methodist church this morning, but Alice and I decided to stay behind while John went. I finished my Single Mother project and made some notes about Nickel and Dimed and Alice introduced me to iGoogle and how I can link my Duke webmail to my Gmail account. It was very exciting. Alice and I eventually went to the gym later on in the afternoon and then went to Wal-Mart to buy the week's groceries. We plan on having Mrs. Jackie and her brother Milton over for dinner on Thursday evening so I plan on calling her tomorrow afternoon to officially invite her.

David Oberst and David Womble arrived back to the house to have dinner with us at Ming Wao's. The Japanese restaurant was ABSOLUTELY declicious. We will definitely be going back there very soon. When we came back John Luttrell and Brandon arrived soon after and we played yet another round of...MAFIA! This was again a very interesting set of games and I got to be the narrator TWICE!

After Mafia we had an interesting set of conversations concerning marriage, ethnic names, stereotypes, and a lot of other controversial topics. I really like discussing these issues in the house because I get to hear a lot of different views on interesting and controversial subjects. I think we're going to have many more in the future! Tomorrow I'm back at the Center for the Child and it should be an exciting week! I'll let you know!

Hole in One!

Sorry I haven't updated this in a while, but here's a quick recap over what's happened since Thursday...

Thursday afternoon after work, Charlotte, Alice, and I joined Khadijah at Fresh Start to have a barbecue with the girls at the facility. We got to meet the girls and some of their kids, have a nice hot dog and hamburger dinner, play some games, and just give the girls a change of scenery and some new faces for a while. The girls don't get out that much and are rarely exposed to new faces, so this was something that I think they really enjoyed and appreciated. Khadijah did a really great job preparing the food and planning all of the activities. The girls at the facility seem to really like her, so I think she picked a great spot for her internship.

Friday was a pretty good day as well. At the Troy-Johnson Center, the four-year-old class had horseback riding in the morning and I got to ride...twice! Lightning (the horse) was a great horse who just walked the kids around a gated circle. The kids seemed to enjoy it a lot, and of course I had a great time. I even got the horse to canter by myself! It was really fun. And then to make the day even better, Alice, Brandon, John Luttrell, and I went to Webster's for lunch! This buffet-style restaurant is a wonderful spot located in downtown Mullins that a lot of the locals really enjoy. They are only opened for lunch on the weekdays, so we've got to find a way to get everyone there together before the summer is over. The rest of the day at work was really great, and I was kind of sad that I wasn't going to be with Mrs. Jackie at the center next week. But I am really excited to see how I can get involved in some research at the Center for the Child next week so hopefully I won't miss my other job too much. A lot of people went home for the weekend. In fact, it's only John Deans, Khadijah, Alice, and I here this weekend! When we got home, we decided what we wanted for dinner, and Alice and I went to Food Lion to pick up the ingredients. The chosen meal was turkey meatloaf, mashed potatoes, roasted zucchini, and chocolate chip cookies for dessert! Talk about a good dinner right? The girls worked on dinner while John was at the gym and he brought back The Curious Case of Benjamin Button for us to watch after dinner. Unfortuanely, I was unable to stay awake for the entire movie (not a big surprise) and fell asleep early. Even though, I didn't quite make it through all the fun, it was really nice to have a nice evening with just a few of us. It was nice and quiet and drama-free and we all really enjoyed each other's company. :)

Today was another great day. I got up pretty early and finished reading Nickel and Dimed (finally!) and just got an early start to the day. John Deans and I went to the gym after breakfast. After we came back, we were all hoping to go the library to get our library cards and check out some new books. However, we were unaware that the library closes at 1:00 on Saturday afternoons and since we arrived at 1:08, we were not able to check out any books. :(
Despite our disappointment, we quickly became happy again when Ben Demarco and his sister Grace came to visit us! Ben had come home for the weekend and was planning to go with us to Conway/Myrtle Beach for the day. I volunteered to drive since I had the biggest car and we squeezed six of us into my little Corolla. We had a great time driving there and back and once again enjoyed each other's company. First we went to the mall to do a little window shopping and just hang out for a while. John and Ben had a great time in the arcade, while the girls checked out Victoria's Secret, Charlotte Rouse, and our other favorite spots. We also check out the massage chairs and awesome mattresses at Brookstone...lol! After the mall, we decided to check out Broadway at the Beach instead of actually going to the beach. This huge public space including lots of restaurants, shops, clothing stores, an IMAX and regular movie theater, a mini golf course, and a lot of other cool stuff. We fed some huge fish when we were on top of the bridge and saw a little boy struggling inside this plastic ball in the lake (it's kind of hard to explain but it was really funny!). We went to Amici's Italian Restaurant for dinner...I had the lasagna and it was sooooo good! I'm actually still full...lol. After dinner we headed back over to the mini golf course and decided to play a round. We quickly learned that the Demarco siblings are BEASTS at golf, with each receive at least 3 holes-in-one. John Deans also joined the hole-in-one crowd. However, I believe the rest of us were not as lucky...maybe another day. We had a really great time at Myrtle Beach and we are looking forward to more trips with the group as the summer continues! :)

HELLO

HELLO NOELLE,

JUST THOUGHT I WOULD SAY HELLO. THE SCHOOL YEAR IS WINDING DOWN AND STUDENTS ARE TAKING FINAL EXAMS AND EOG TESTS. SOUNDS LIKE YOU ARE HAVING A GREAT TIME. KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK. EMAIL ME YOUR NEWSPAPER ARTICLE. TAKE CARE

DADDY

I was just demolished by John Deans in checkers :(

Today was a great day. My six hours at the Troy-Johnson Center went by quite quickly as I spent most of the day in the office pretty much being Ms. Jackie's assistant. I answered phone calls, helped her with her summer program schedule, volunteered to start up a website and Facebook group for the daycare, and submitted the article I wrote to the local newspaper. I got to meet one of the older girls in her after school program today whom Ms. Jackie said really needs a role model from a young black female....kind of like me!!!!!! She seems really nice and I hope that I will be able to connect with her later in the summer. Tomorrow I'm supposed to working in the four-year-old classroom and the adult center and maybe take a child and an adult on a walk together. Many people have commented on the healing power that being around children can have on the elderly who feel useless or lonely in their current lives. I hope to see that happening in front of my eyes tomorrow. Mrs. Jackie asked a lot about the B.N. Duke and Trinity Scholarship today and I told her that Duke is putting a new scholarship in place next year that is specifically seeking students from the area where she works. Mrs. Jackie and her family are so involved in their community and I'm really hoping that they can find someone to nominate to the program. That could really make someone's dream come true....just like it did mine! :)

After work, I headed to the gym for a quick cardio workout because I thought I needed to come back home early to clean for our big dinner tonight. In turned out, however, that Charlotte and Brandon had cleaned up the kitchen and living room already so I was off the hook! I picked David Womble up from work, came back and took a shower, and then got ready for our company. The mayor's wife and daughter came by our house for dinner tonight. The mayor himself had another engagement that was already scheduled so he couldn't make it, but his family was wonderful. My favorite portions of the conversation was the debate over Jon and Kate Plus Eight's fate as a couple and a family, the upcoming release of The Sims 3, and Hailey and my conversation on Steve Madden shoes. It was really great to meet them...and they invited us to an upcoming pool party at their house!!!!!!!!!! Talk about a good night! :)

After dinner, I challenged John Deans to a game of checkers because I was feeling confident after I murdered Alice last night....but unfortunately I have to say that after a few faulty moves of mine, I was completely demolished! I have to give up my props to John Deans for his extraordinary defeat. However, I do reserve the right to post this photo that I hope will embarrass him and make him regret his performance. Take that John!!!

Today was great (again!) and I hope tomorrow will be even better. :)
Goodnight all...

Choo Choo Cha Boogie!

This morning marked my first official day at the Troy-Johnson Intergenerational Korner. Ms. Jackie greeted me warmly as I came through the door and almost immediately gave me my first assignment: taking her new phone around the entire daycare and getting the staff members to give them their phone numbers. I can't see that this was the most important or challenging task I've yet to encounter but I think I did a good job. The four-year-old class and the adults were going on a train ride as their kind of end-of-the-year celebration, and I was going to accompany them on their trip. Despite the gloomy rain outside, everything was going pretty smoothly until....the tantrum! One of the boys was misbehaving on the bus, so unfortunately he was escorted off and not allowed to come on the trip with us. Needless to say, he was not happy about it. He kicked and screamed and looked like he was physically melting in the rain. Anyway, the group had to go on without him. The kids really enjoyed the Amtrak train ride and safely made it back to the daycare center only to find their left behind friend still crying and misbehaving. To make it even worse, the kids brought back Burger King for lunch which only intesified his anger, frustration, and sadness when he saw that the other kids had toys and french fries while he had the boring school lunch (even though it looked quite appetizing!). I felt kind of bad for the kid but he definitely had it coming to him with all of his misbehaving throughout the day. After lunch, I spent the remainder of the day in Mrs. Jackie's office chatting with her about the kids, writing an article for the paper, and meeting one of her brothers (who by the way is a very cool guy). Hopefully, we'll be able to have their family over for one of our Weekly DInners with cool people from Marion (lol). They should be a very interesting group of people to have over.

John Luttrell and I headed to the gym after work today, and then we came home to have some delicious tacos for dinner. Alice, the Davids, and I took a nice walk after dinner to burn off some of that taco meat (lol again). Then we spent the rest of the evening discussing the house's fiscal policy regarding communal meals and other miscellaneous topics. Overall, today has been a pretty good day with a lot of memorable experiences. Hopefully, tomorrow will be just as great! :)