Goodbye, Gram.

Grammie (Jamie's grandmother) passed away this morning.

For those of you who are unaware, Jamie and I have been best friends since before we could walk and talk with ease. In turn, Jamie's family became MY family, and vice versa.
Grammie was a staple in my childhood and teenage life... I even called her one day when I was stranded at the theatre and needed to be picked up. She came right away. Grammie was HILARIOUS, full of spunk, and was always offering to make us sandwiches or some such thing.

Grammie loved eating out. She loved to get her Jim Beam and Diet Coke. She loved her children. She loved her grandchildren.. including those who weren't really related. She was always concerned with who fed the "bow wows" as she called Jamie's 2 dogs, and any living thing that needed her attention, she was there to give it.

I loved Grammie, and will continue to love her, and her legacy of love and loyalty will be carried through Jamie, and Chris, and all their cousins, and me.

Love you, Gram.

gonna quit my job & cross the border;

Today I got offered an au pair job in Verona, Italy.

The family seems WONDERFUL. They are so sweet.. and so BEAUTIFULLY Italian. They have 3 young children.. Nicola, Elena & Fabrizia. We spoke on skype, and I showed them my ukulele.. they weren't sure what one was. IT WAS SO CUTE. I love them.

It surprises me though, how NOT surprised I am that they picked me. Like, it seems surreal, but at the same time it feels like it was going to happen all along, you know. I don't know.

They want me to wait until the end of this month or so before letting them know my final decision. They want me to weigh all the options because they I guess are worried I'll get homesick or something or be unhappy or whatnot. I get that. So now I am having to contact the other families I've spoken to and be like uhhh idk where you are on the decision making process but... I can't be your au pair GAHH IM SO SORRY I FEEL LIKE A HORRIBLE PERSON. It is seriously like a knife through my heart saying no to these people. Even though I wasn't offered anything for real for real except for by this one family today. I love them all and I haven't met any of them. Maybe I should just BE Mary Poppins and fly around underneath an umbrella and whip my ukulele and a kiddie pool out of my hippie style bigger on the inside bag. Seriously though. I am emailing this one guy right now, and my heart is breaking. Even though I don't think I want to be the au pair for his family, my soul weeps at telling him no. Every time that happens, I feel like I've missed an opportunity. Is that weird? I mean, I can't say no to EVERYONE.

And ever since I saw the first photo of these kids (the Verona kids) I was like.. I want those kids. They are SO FRICKIN CUTE.

There is one family I am holding out for though.. maybe 2. I need to hear back from them both before I make my FINAL final decision. I never thought this would be so difficult..

AND. And. There is also a lady in Ireland who might want me. That just throws a huge wrench in all this. I am really trying to advocate for her to just take me out of the applicant pool for January, and allow me to be her family's au pair starting in August 2012. Which would be amazing because the Verona peeps want me until the end of July! Annnnd the Ireland lady likes to keep her au pairs through an entire school year, but she says that a semester length would be fine as well. So yeah. Things are taking shape.

My stomach is doing somersaults, but I think I am moving to Italy in January.

sing for me;

It has just now occurred to me that if I go to Italy in January, which I damn well better be, then I won't have a REAL job.. which means that AT LONG LAST I CAN FINALLY DYE THAT PINK STREAK IN MY HAIR.

Yet another perk of hauling ass out of here.

In other news, I started my second job today. Yay retail. It seems like its going to be fine once I get used to everything. The people there seem nice.
But.. my schedule..
I got my schedule for the next couple weeks, and I basically know my current job schedule.. and ...


its a lot.
I am a bit overwhelmed.

I will basically never have time to hang out with anyone EVER because I will always be exhausted or at work.
BASICALLY, this is going to be a repeat of what this past school year was, except 2 times the jobs and minus the school.

Buh.

I can hopefully do it though. I've done things that were difficult in the past. lol.

I am really thankful to have both jobs though, for real. It'll really help me save money so that when I go to Italy or NYC or whatnot, I will be able to not be broke, hopefully. Yay.
All for now. I'm probably going to fall asleep soon.

the show goes on;

This is what I know for sure.

1. Happiness is a choice, and its not a hard one.

2. Loving others is really simple.

3. The only real things that matter in life are relationships with others, building each other up and finding happiness and love. Everything else fades away.

This is some other words.

Work was so funny today. There was not a lot of catering, so I was really chill the whole time, putting together orders and bantering with my amazing co-workers. It was a good, though rather short, day.

However, I have mentally checked out of living in the US, and into Italy. I am so so so excited to hopefully be there in January. I have a skype date with one of the families tomorrow afternoon. I am really stoked.
I couldn't sleep last night because I was thinking about living there, and what sort of creative things I could do to keep the children occupied, and help them learn English. I was also wondering how I am going to get my ukulele safely across the ocean. It will have to be a carry on.. maybe I can count it as my "purse" and then have another smallish carry on bag. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it. First I need a family, and then I need a visa.

I don't have really anything else to say.
Life is well.

the painting of the world;

I can't even look at pictures of Italy without having major excitement-gasms. Like, everything about it seems to perfect. The families I have spoken to seem so delightful!! There are 2 families right now that I am supposedly going to talk to via phone or skype soon. One of which lives in Rome and the other lives in Verona. BUT another family with little girls who like to dress up as princesses also contacted me today.. they apparently spend every summer on the coast and if I am with them next July & August, I am allowed to vacation with them. And that would be EPIC.
Its going to be hard for me (if more than one family wants me in January) to choose.. I am just going to trust and hope that I make the right decision, and that they do too.
I am really anxious about talking to these people. It needs to happen asap, so that I can find out when I can to go flipping NYC or DC to get my visa.. And then I need to start learning Italian.. and figure out what is going to happen after I leave whatever family I stay with.
I really want to go to NYC to get the visa.. that will give me an excuse to see a show or two. :) PERHAPS ALSO FINALLY SEE JACOB AND CHAN. I want to get that done like.. IMMEDIATELY as soon as I sign a contract with a family.

I just feel so ready for this. I have never felt this ready for anything else in my life. At this point, I am GLAD that I've put off going to Europe, because I honestly believe that this is the sort of thing I've been holding out for. Its not that I didn't want to go, its that I was worried I wouldn't get the full experience with a shorter trip. I am ready for this experience. I am ready to learn Italian and try to communicate with people. I want to see Rome and Pompeii and the Amalfi Coast and Cinque Terre and ALL THE PLACES. Venice! Florence! ALL THE PLACESSSSSS. ALL THE PLACES IN THAT SONG IN KISS ME KATE. "We open in Venice, we next play Verona, then on to Cremona (lots of dough in Cremona)! Our next show is Parma, that dopey, mopey menace. Then Mantua then Padua & we open again WHERE!? IN VENICE!" Yep. All that. Want.

...
But there are some months between now and then.
And it is not 100% that this is happening. It is all going to depend on the families.
And yeah.
I need to remain calm.
But I am pre-emptively in love with the children who I will be taking care of. I adore them, and I don't even know which children they are yet. And I adore everything about Italy, and I haven't even seen it in real life yet.

Squee.

This whole possibility is the biggest squee of all time.

I was going to talk about more realistic things, but.. there is no need for that when my mind is in Firenze.

OH GOD LIGHT IN THE PIAZZA WAS IN ITALY TOO. GAHHHHH. MORE GASMS.

you said you loved me;

or were you just being kind?

..Or am I losing my mind?

power to go;

So I've spoken to several Italian (and Irish and British) families about this aupair thing!!! :DD I am so stoked about this potential experience.

Family A: A mom and a daughter in someplace called Castellammare. Its apparently close to Pompeii and Naples.

Family B: A mom, a dad, 2 daughters and a son. Dublin, Ireland.

Family C: A mom, a dad, a son, and 2 daughters in ROME.

Family D: A mom, a dad, 2 daughters, and a baby girl in TUSCANY.

GAHHH. I am gasming over this as we speak. Every day I flip out a little more if I get another email from any of them.
Its kind of weird though, because like.. I just want one of the families to be like OK WE WANT YOU FOR SURE. And then I can agree or disagree to that. And then I can get a visa. I looked up a lot of things today about how to do that.
But between now and then, I don't really know what to say in these emails.. I already know what a day in my life would be with all of these people. They've given me a lot of details and I know what they look like and I have their references... and I JUST WANT TO BE CLAIMED. Also, right now, I am very calm about the idea of like.. moving to another country in a hot second.

But.

I am well aware of the fact that the closer it gets to this time (if it even happens), the more I am going to freak out. I am going to be a hot mess when I leave for this.

BUT HOW FUN IT COULD BE. GAHHHHH. So much anticipation for this ambiguous opportunity...

I can't even imagine how much I could grow from something like this. Who knows where I will be after. Who knows what I might do with my life. This is what I want though, right now. This is how I want to make the most out of the time I have. I CAN MAKE FRIENDS IN OTHER COUNTRIES. HOW COOL WOULD THAT BE. It'll be like that movie where Mary-Kate & Ashley go to Italy. (There is a movie like that, right?! Probably.) Anyway. This might be the best thing I've ever done. Just sayin.

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“So, I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have the power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.” —Stephen Chbosky