Donna's Diary June 2011

SmartHome resident Donna keeps an online diary/blog of her activities at the Bob and Judy Charles SmartHome in Boulder. Below, see what she had to say about jobs, birthday, and a special visitor to the SmartHome in her June diary entry.

June has been another great month that has had me on the go. My husband Gerald started his first job at Twisted Pine Brewery, my birthday was last Friday, all of us who live at the Bob and Judy Charles SmartHome went out a couple weeks ago to the FAC at the Millennium Hotel , and a Congressman, Jared Polis, took a tour of the SmartHome this week. My job at In Clover has been busy, and I’m enjoying the warmth of the summer weather.

On my birthday last Friday I went out to dinner with Gerald, my housemate Lana, and Cailin, who works at the SmartHome. We went to Applebee’s and I had the shrimp. It was delicious. Gerald had some fish and he ate almost all of it which surprised me. He doesn’t eat a lot, but when he does he goes all out. My friend Chloe brought me a present too. It was a roll of coloring paper, a box of crayons, and a box of art markers that you make dots with. She’s a wonderful friend.

Going to the FAC at the Millennium was fun. I liked everything about it, the music, the food, and hanging out with my friends was the best part. I’m really glad I live with active people who like to do things, and that the staff are willing to take us to a lot of places. We’ve got a really good thing going here at the SmartHome.

Gerald is so tickled to be going to work. He has spent a lot of time learning his numbers. Just yesterday Richard from CORE/Labor Source came to the house to help Gerald work on his numbers and it went really well. They worked on numbers above 100, which is a new step for Gerald. It’s great that he’s learning to identify his numbers so well. He’ll need to be precise when he counts bottles at work. The teens are still troublesome at times but that’s understandable. I think they’re the toughest numbers to learn.

I’m so proud of Gerald and all he does. A couple days ago someone asked me how in the heck does he operate his chair? They could see that he wasn’t using his hands. I took them over to Gerald and they were amazed he could operate the chair with his head. He’s a neat individual. And his family, that family is awesome. I’m still so happy his dad asked me to call him dad. Right then I knew I was accepted into his family.

I prefer the warm summer weather to the cold of winter. Today it was 95 out, and I wasn’t complaining. Life is so much easier in the summer. No snow and ice, and you don’t have to grab a jacket, scarf, and gloves to go outside. Today me and Gerald sat outside enjoying the warmth.

My job at In Clover is busy. We put out 112 bags of supplements today, which is a lot. They had a couple new orders they needed right away so we buckled down and helped them fill the orders. I’m not planning any vacations soon. With both Gerald and I having jobs, we figure we’ll work it while we can.

We’ll watch fireworks this weekend on the 4th of July, and that’s about it for now. Whew! Thanks for keeping up with me.