joe's surprise birthday potluck went really well. i had told him that i would make dinner and we would go out afterwards, but our friends and i coordinated a mass entrance at about 7:30 for dinner and drinks at our house. i made fig and olive tampanade, orange ginger tofu, strawberry poppyseed salad and garlic mashed potatoes. friends brought over sushi, pasta salad, fruit, stuffed mushrooms, chips, cake, bread, wine and beer. the neighbors performed a song about joe, and we eventually went up to the mountains to enjoy the full moon. i think joe was really happy about how it all turned out.
on thursday, joe and i worked this big picnic in the park for my americorps program. all the kids in our afterschool program were invited, along with all their families, to celebrate the end of the school year. there were hundreds of elementary kids running around, and joe and i had the most intense face painting session he's ever done. it was nonstop (free) facepainting for hours. that was crazy.
friday night was the opening for the museum show that joe's in. it was great. i'm going to leave him to blog about that one.
this weekend was big for me, because we had an americorps event that i coordinated, with the help of some of my coworkers. basically i had been busting my ass the past few weeks getting together everything for this neighborhood beautification project. our budget for the project was nearly zero, but we were able to secure donations for everything: we worked with the city of las cruces codes enforcement, habitat for humanity, a local community center called 'the dream center', etc. what we did was go into this low-income neighborhood and completely repainted a house, put in a bunch of landscaping and seeded and fertilized the lawn. all the paint, tools, most of the landscaping materials, 100 flowers, etc. were all donated. we even got 25 pizzas, bottled water, soda, and medeterranean food donated to feed the volunteers both days. we had 45 volunteers between americorps members, their friends, local kids from the shelter and the group homes and even walmart sent over some employees to help. it was awesome, and i'm really pleased with how everything came together. the couple that lived there are very happy too. so that was both saturday and sunday, all day long, plus lots of overtime the past few weeks for me, hence my day off today. i'd like to post a photo of it, but i'm not sure if that's kosher or what...especially because some of the kids we had helping out aren't supposed to be publicly linked to the shelter/group home etc.
saturday night we hung out with our friends ilana and joe, who are moving back to DC for the summer after finals this week. that was bittersweet, since they won't be back in cruces until after our americorps contracts are up, so we may not see them again.
so, yah. it's been fun. a big thank you to anna for sending me a letter from france, and to chelsea for sending a package from guatemala. nothing beats getting things in the mail. i've got some packages to send out myself, hopefully today.
see ya
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