Worth a thousand words.........

This week I don't have much time to write because its dark and Heather and I have to walk back to The Crossing...where I was cooped up all day, I had to get out (heather got to go to the zoo with the kids..her job is so much better than mine). So I will give you my first week in Denver via pictures....

My roommate, pictured above has this weird disease where shes thirsty all the time. We didn't add any water bottles for this photo shoot.
Thursday night my good friend Nick cam to visit me!!! We went to this really cool restaurant called The Old Spaghetti Factory. Awesome food, awesome company. So good to hang out with someone familiar!
MY BOXES CAME!!! All six of them. My loving parents shipped all the rest of my crap to me. This is the total amount of stuff I brought to Denver. I keep telling myself...its okay, I'm here for a year.....yea well I think I went overboard again. At least I'll have a lot to wear.
Jenna....enough said.
Friday night...random group of us went to Jenna's restaurant she works at on the weekends. AMAZING CHEESECAKE!!! seriously. This is Jenna, Bruce, me and Heather (L to R).
This is me in my room being sad because my one and only wall decorations won't stay up because of our textured wall..its weird and I was sad.

So then I went to a very contradicting BBQ at the crossing...call me, I'll tell you about it. But at least the food was free. Tomorrow is church day again and then the start to another long week. One last thing to share with you before I go...this verse has helped me get through the week more than anything else. Enjoy. Shalom.
Luke 4:18-19
¹⁸"The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to preach good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to release the oppressed,
¹⁹to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

I'm scum of the Earth

So I live in colorado...so I guess I shouldn't be surprised when I drive down the road to Panera and see about 100 of these guys by the side of the road...

Meet my friend..Mr. Prairie Dog. He is going to be my new mascot for Colorado. I love him. They seriously look like statues and they stand like this for a long time and its hilarious.

The other thing I have discovered in Colorado is mystery meat. I realize that this is not a colorado thing - but a you live in a homeless shelter thing. On Sunday, I visited Scum of the Earth Church (http:www.myspace.com/scumoftheearth.com) . At this church they share a meal with everyone and then have the service at night. My nice new friends served me what I thought was lasagna...took one bite. TACO. It was a taco mix with mystery substances all throughout...I am still not sure what it was. But I was grateful. This same night Heather and I were craving burgers...but DRM never serves burgers, so we figured Scum would serve something better. We get back to DRM and find out they had burgers for dinner. And on Monday, we had spaghetti and mystery meatballs....someone said they were deer, Jenna was sick from them all night.
Church was good, it was interesting and different. There were homeless and tattooed, mostly young in their 20's but diverse in ethnic backgrounds. It wasn't very formal, which is kind of hard for me but it was so communal and different that I'm definitely going to give it another chance.

Speaking of scum....this is my roommate haha...actually I loooove her. If we look flustered in this picture, its because we were. I really enjoy that we match.
I started my job and I'm working with clients and I'm going to start setting up appointments by the end of this week possibly. It is so exciting to love where you work and be excited to get up in the morning walk downstairs and start your job. I love meeting new people and pray with people who appreciate the fact that you care. I love it. This is definitely where God wants me to be right now. I'm just trying to take it all in. Because I feel like for the first time in my life I am here, I am present. I am not thinking about "the next thing" or what I'm going to be doing next..looking forward to my next big adventure but enjoying the one I am in now.
Life is good.
God is good.

Carolyn the Coloradianator

I figured an update was fitting since I have much to update you on. I am now in Denver..currently sitting in Panera because the DRM (Denver Rescue Mission) blocks this blog website and I can't post when I'm there :( So I'm going to try to post whenever I get the chance!

I arrived on Thursday night really anxious and upset to leave Delaware but totally excited about Denver, Josh, my intern coordinator, picked me up from the airport and showed me my new home. We walked in and we saw a girl coming down the stairs and Josh yells, "HEATHER! I'm so glad you're here! I totally forgot to tell you that you're getting a new roommate...by the way her flight got in an hour ago and shes right here." So not much time to prepare...but its okay. I took some pictures of Heather and my SWEET room...I want you to pay close attention to my head board....yes those are horses and tassels. And yes those sheets are for real. I cannot wait for my mom to send me my comforter. Here are the sweet room pictures....


please notice in this picture the wall that ends right before it gets to the ceiling....thats where our bathroom is,.....yes there is no ceiling above our bathroom. Luckily the toilet is farther in..fully enclosed...
also notice the lack of color and decoration on our walls...PLEASE SEND FUN THINGS TO HANG UP! :) Its depressing.

So yesterday I did a bunch of hanging out, Josh took Kayla and I to Chipotle on the company's money and called it an intern orientation...fine by me :) Then came Friday night...........................

Kayla told Heather and I that there is this sweet band playing downtown, little did we know the kind of night we would have once we said yes. First we went to Sonic and had some mediocre chicken popcorn but some FABULOUS cherry limeade....new favorite.

Then we ventured to JC's Grounds...which is apparently a Christian coffee shop that is only open on Friday night from 5:00-midnight and Saturday night 5:00-midnight....interesting hours..and an even more interesting band played. This band called Moon Baybees was a hardcore christian screamo band. Which every time someone else walked up I expected it to be my brother and all his friends...but then my favorite band played. Tokyo Unicorns...a one man band with a microphone and a mac. Techno meets imogen heap meets christian meets drugs. It was the greatest thing i have ever seen. He sung about his love for Mario and then about his dancing shoes. I want to be his new best friend.

We left (against my will...I could have listened to him forever) and went to The Tattered Cover bookstore...SO CUTE! I loved it. On a friday night, we stayed there for about an hour and a half. Fantastic.

Saturday morning.
I was (am) still jet lagged. So Heather and I decided sleeping in was in order for our non busy Saturday.
7:30am...cue worship service directly outside my window...for an hour....with a FULL band, complete with full drum set.
Back to bed...
8:45am...cue vacuum directly outside our room in the hallway for what seemed like an eternity.
Back to bed....
8:55am...cue screaming child banging on the door directly across the hall for about 10 minutes.
Back to bed...
9:10am..cue cell phone text message from Jman....2 hour time difference is really gonna start to suck.
No use going back to bed this time...

All in all, my time here in Denver has been great. I've met great people..I absolutely adore my roommate, Heather. She is from Ohio but goes to college in Canada...just because. We laugh a lot and I feel truly blessed to have such an awesome roomie. We are going to venture to Wal-Mart tonight with Mike..another intern with a full spider web tattoo on his bald noggin...about a mile walk from our building, which is nothing when you don't have a car.

Tomorrow are going to try out Scum of the Earth Church.

So I'm in my new home. I'm in friggin Denver, Colorado. This is my life. And I love it.

Who needs clothes anyway?

So this week has been rough for me to say the least. After Sunday night's goodbye dinner, the reality that I'm leaving started sinking in... I started packing up everything on Monday morning, but instead of feeling relived that I had started and that I was getting somewhere...this is where I got:

No where.
So I sat in my room wondering one how I acquired so many clothes and two how the heck I was ever going to fit all my stuff in one huge suitcase and one snowboarding bag and then I realized that the Eagles were playing the Redskins and I, all of the sudden, realized the great need for me to watch this football game even though I don't really like either of these teams. And then I made some phone calls and decided it was time for bed...theres always tomorrow, right??

Tuesday, errand day.
I think everything that could have possibly gone wrong today went wrong. I am still not packed and I found out that bringing a third suit case costs an extra $80, and did I mention my one suitcase is over 50lbs? Which means I have to re pack it. After every errand I ran I had to hold back tears because all I could think about was I'm leaving and I have too many clothes.

So instead of being rational, I felt sorry for myself ....I went and got a pedicure.
And then I turned on Oprah. I have to say it was an annoying episode...way to kick me when I'm down, Oprah.

Farewell Delaware

So last night me and 20 of my closest friends ventured to the Casablanca Restaurant for my birthday for the third year in a row. The only difference this year, was that it was a going away party as well and the last time I will see some of my friends for a long time. We had fun, and I have to mention that we were the most obnoxious guests they have ever had.. throwing grapes, screaming and laughing so loudly the other guests were starring. In fact, this was the first time they didn't finish the meal (they "forgot" the tea) I think just to get us out sooner.

Here are some pictures of the best night ever.



Presents that made me cry in the middle of the restaurant....yes, that green duck is the one and only Sherman.

THE restaurant

Last year's belly dance performance

This year's belly dance performance

Some cool people

Thriller

So tomorrow when I'm a little bit more rested, I will post sopme wonderful pictures of my wonderful goodbye/birthday party at casablanca..but until then I want to share this video with the world. I don't understand it, but I love every second of these little orange men and bless their dancin hearts.

freak out

So Haley suggested that I create this blog for her to keep up with my life while i am so far away...she may be the only person who ever reads it, but thats okay.
Speaking of Haley, we just returned form our sweet new england road trip. check out our pictures...

Mets game

Ben and Jerry's!!!

Haley and me on Lake Champlain Vermont

Fred in Maine


LIFE IS GOOD