crunchy:

The leaves, the granola, and many of the people here are that. 
I'm already getting excited about Halloween. I hear that we go to Lucas community (a similar one to Plowshare but in Temple, NH) for a Halloween party and it's really fun to see everyone in costume and getting excited about candy and spooky things. I really enjoy being silly with the residents but have to control myself in the work place (occasionally), so I'm looking forward to that not mattering at all. I also look forward to playing more jokes on the volunteers, considering I went to bed last night with rocks from Portsmouth stuck under my pillow. Vengeance is mine. 


Four of us went to Portsmouth yesterday and it was ABSOLUTELY FABULOUS. The town is cute and has a lot of nice shops with samples (tribute to Mom and Dad). It was so freeing to smell salty air, walk along the beach and nearly jump into the water. I started thinking of my grandpa (Opa) and how he (and mom) grew up with the sea and delicious fresh sea food. As much of a mountain girl as I am, I can imagine loving spending more time by the ocean. 


What a contrast to earlier in the week which was rainy, cold and a little dramatic. I switched one of my shifts to see my brother Marc help coach a soccer game at the high school nearby - despite the constant downpour, I was very happy to see him in his element. The other coach seems like a Marc-kinda guy, with Marc-kinda humor :) When I got back, though, it turns out I had upset someone because I hadn't told every step of the chain that someone else was covering my shift. While many of you are probably confused by my whole work situation and schedule, the gist of it is that there are many people involved and the chain of commands confuses me. I'm pretty sure miscommunications like this will happen the rest of the year, like they do in life, but here it starts to become the biggest newsflash of the day :)


Speaking of small-town/small-community things, I also went to Milford's Pumpkin Fest this past weekend (one is in Keene next weekend - yay!). Basically what that means is: 1 pumpkin per 30 min is shot out of a 20-ft long gun/tube to  splatter half a mile down into a corn field (oo, ahh!), food like hot dogs that are "oh so gross" to Germans used to brats, music, a few booths, and 5 GIANT a** pumpkins that won "biggest pumpkin of the year" contest. I think the largest one weighed in at 1,800 lbs! A friend and I were fantacizing about carving one of them out for a jack-o-lantern, and then hanging out of the mouth pretending to writhe in pain when kids get their candy. Or, having two small children rest their heads poking out of the eye holes. I hope they do something good with those pumpkins.