Suh-weet-ness!!

I found a new place!! It's a 2 bedroom, 1 bath house out in the country-ish (kind of....it's still technically in the city but there are four acres of land around it). Some of the things I'm not super excited about are that it's gas heat and there is no central air, but the landlord does put a window air conditioner in each room. The bathroom is a little small-ish, but I can deal with that. It' s not like I spend a lot of time there. LOL Some things I am SUPER excited about are that there is lots and lots of cabinet space, and even a lazy susan. I love those!! There's a dishwasher (kind of elderly, but it works so I can't complain) and garbage disposal. The oven is self-cleaning (yesssss!!!) with a start/stop timer (yesssss!!!), so that makes getting Sunday dinner together EVER SO MUCH easier....seriously!! And since Sundays are my biggest social day, I'm pumped about that, too. And the kitchen is painted kind of a rusty red color. It actually matches my dishes almost exactly, so that's pretty sweet! The way the kitchen is set up, I'm not sure if my table will fit or not. It may get be banished to the livingroom. Speaking of which, the livingroom is big. And there is a woodburning fireplace. Whoo-hootie!! I'm planning to use the fireplace quite a bit, since natural gas is so expensive, and really it doesn't get THAT cold here. The landlord said I can plant flowers and stuff in the yard. Actually, what he said is "there are four acres here....plant to your heart's content (or something like that). So, I'm going to have a little garden this summer. Probably I will do tomatoes, corn, okra, squash (I love summer squash!!), zuchini, and green beans. Maybe peas. Hmm......I'm gonna have to get a little freezer to put all that stuff in, but I'm good with that. I was planning on getting a little freezer anyways. Sothere. :o) There is a pecan tree in the front yard (yesss!!!) and a muscadine vine in the back of the property. For those of you non-Southerners who don't know what a muscadine is, check out THIS LINK to look at the Wiki. They are a wild vine similar to grapes, but have a really thick skin, and make EXCELLENT jelly!! Yummies. You can also have musccadine-hull-spitting contests....but I warn you, Mom is the champion hull spitter right now. The landlord already said I can come up this fall and help them make jelly. LOL Did I mention that there is a screened in porch off the living room? Yeah, that's really nice, huh? I think so! And I may see about digging a fire pit in the back yard. And there is a washer/dryer in the basement. Oh yeah. There is a basement apartment that someone else rents, and I'll share the washer/dryer with them....but that isn't uncommon for someone renting a house.

So there you have it. I'm happy to have a place to live. I'm excited about some of the stuff, and not so excited about some, but overall I think it'll be a good deal. And the rent reasonable. Mostly, I am thankful that the Lord provided me a place to stay. I knew that He would and He did. Yay!!

Frustrations

I am so mad that I could spit. I called the landlord today and asked when I can sign the lease and move in....Elena wants to move on Friday, since it's her day off. Well, he left me a VM stating that the ppl aren't move out (they had to go out of town for sick parents or something) until Friday. One of them isn't getting back until Thursday.

SO I called him and left a message that said that's not acceptable. Either they need to be out so I can move in by Friday or else he can put me up in a motel room until the apartment is ready.

But here's the deal -- I was supposed to move into the apartment on October 1. It's been first one thing and then another with the people who are living there now....and NOW THIS!! The landlord assured me that I would be in the apartment by the 15th. And there was a small miscommunication with the people I'm staying with now. They thought I said that I need to be out by the 12th, but I told them the 15th (that's payday....can't move without money, right?).

Something will work out....it always does, but I appreciate your prayers that I have wisdom to know what that something is. Ugh!

Comfy Cozy

When Cynthia was born, I made an afghan for her and decided to make one for each of my nieces and nephews. Here is the one I made for Mark and Krystina's baby, "Bobby Jo" for now. I'm about 1/3 of the way done with the one for Molly.

Enjoy!!

Pre-Feast Preperations

So tonight I made

Sweet Potatoe Casserole
Pecan Pie
Ho Ho Cake
Deviled Eggs

Jodi made
Two Pie Crusts
Apple Pie

Pat peeled the apples.

Yeah. And washed the dishes like 5 times!!! All between about 8:15 and 10:00. I was a busy girl!!!

OH...and in other news -- I was really sick this fall and in the ER 4 times overnight in the hospital one night. After a 40% discount they gave me, I still owed the hospital $13,000. I found out today that they wrote off my entire bill. What a blessing!!!

John

So I have to tell you....I have the most wonderful set of friends!!! It really is kind of like our own little family here. The members: Ben and Tiffany McPherson (my neighbors until Saturday), John and Pat Colpitt (John lived across the hall from Ben in college), Jodi Waterhouse (Pat's fiance, and they went to high school together), Jeremy Herriman (co-work of Ben in the summers during college), and a couple others but those are the main ones. We hang out together a lot, and take turns cooking Sunday dinners, although Tiff and I are the main ones who do the work and dishes. LOL Sooo....I decided to blog about my friends. I am so blessed to have them in my life, and since I am going to be (hopefully) blogging more, I thought you might like to get to know our little family better.

I'll start with John, since he is my best guy friend here. (No, I'm not interested in dating John. Yes, I used to think I was....back in the summer. But I'm not now. For the record.)

John is from New Hampshire. He graduated from BJU in 2004 (pretty sure....the same year Mark did) with a degree in Interpretative Speech. Let me tell you, he is VERY GOOD at all things speechy. He can hear a comedy skit and repeat it almost word-for-word, and usually funnier. LOL John eat, sleeps and breathes football.....even on the off season he's keeping up with stats and watching past games. He makes the Packers fans look like wimps. LOL

Pretty much, John has been like my brother, especially during the past month or so. The day after Josh and I broke up, John and I went to lunch. Oh -- we work together and used to have the same schedule (until about two weeks ago) so on payday, we used to go to lunch....fun-ness! So I was trying HARD not to cry, and John was TOTALLY sweet and let me hold his arm on the way back from lunch. It was really nice!! Saturday night when I had to leave my car in the WM parking lot, he came and rescued me (this is probably the third time he has rescued me......once or twice when my battery died, too) Then, when I was all upset that night (we were at Ben and Tiff's watching a movie) he gave me a hug and said it was going to be ok and stuff like that. And on Monday when I went to take my car to the shop, John came and picked me up. After the car got all fixed again, he was like "See. You wasted a perfectly good emotional break-down for nothing." LOL Anyways, the past few weeks have been pretty traumatic, with the move and the break-up and all that. John has just really been a great friend....always there when I needed him, and willing to listen to me whine about my life. Last night, he told me that he's always there to talk, and one of his shoulders is mostly dry if I needed to cry on it. LOL What a great guy!!! And ladies, he's single...LMK if you want his number. LOL

Maybe next time I will blog about Tiffany. She's like my sister.....everyone loves Tiff. And we cook together and stuff.

Tragedy!!!

Ugh!! MY life seems like an unfortunate set of circumstances right now. The weekend was CRAZY!!! To start with, I realized on Saturday that I only have one week to pack and get moved out of my apartment. And it's a holiday weekend. And all of my people with trucks are working or won't return my calls. UGH!! AND THEN I was at WM on Saturday and my car broke down. UGH!! That, of course drove me to hysterics (yes, the first thing I do in a crisis is cry!!). I was so afraid that I was going to have to pay bundles of cash to get my car fixed. Then on Sunday, I could NOT stop crying all during church...and I tried....really I did!!! Plus, I'm feeling realy homesick (not gonna be able to go home for Christmas.....booo hooo!!) so that didn't help either.

So anyways, I'm just working on getting packed up and cleaned up a little at a time. I'm hoping to get Friday off work, but we'll have to see what happens with that one. It's up in the air right now.

I will be realy glad to get into my new place. I went and looked at it again yesterday. It will be SO NICE to have a diswasher and washer/dryer there (as soon as I buy a set....) too. Plus I'm gonna have a roommie for a while...maybe until June or so, and I'm looking forward to that, too. Well, mostly looking forward. I really prefer to live alone, but my friend Elena was looking for a place....and she was kind of in the same situation I was when I moved here.....so I offered. It will be nice to have some help with the bills. Plus that way, I can get some bedroom furniture and better living room furniture. And I can pay off the doctor bills from when I was sick a few months ago. Ugh!! I'm looking at about $1500 worth. Crazyness. I was sick in September and my insurance started in October. C'est la vie, I guess.....

Pirates!!!

SO guess what I did on Tuesday. Can you guess? NO? Ok...Tiffany and I went to see the BJU production of Pirates of Penzance (thanks for the ticket, Tiff!!). It's a Gilbert and Sullivan musical, and SOOOO FUNNY!!! Basically, the plot is about Frederic, who was supposed to be apprenticed to a PILOT. BUT his nursery-maid misunderstood and apprenticed him to a PIRATE instead. The story starts on Frederic's 21st birthday. He tells the pirate band that he is leaving them. However, by some twist of fate, it turns out that Frederick was born on leap day so instead of being 21, he's actually only 5 (and a quarter!!). The pirates are all soft-hearted, so they refuse to attack anyone who is weaker than them. They also cry every time someone tells the pirates that they are an orphan. So, every ship they capture is somehow manned only by orphans. LOL Anyways, it's a really funny story!! If you want the whole plot, you can go to the Wiki ((here))

The guest artists were The New York Gilbert and Sullivan Players. I have to tell you, they did a FABULOUS JOB!!! The choreograph was great, and some of the things they did was soooo funny!! My favorite in the second half. The pirates were singing and they ended up all doing a kick line. Then, for the last chorus of the song, they got some glittery top hats and added that to the act. And the Major General came out at one point with a night cap, nightgown, and doggie slippers on his feet. That was too funny, also!! There are some great pictures ((here)) if you want to see them.

And in other news, I went to WM and got some really pretty yarn for the next two babies coming to our family. The yarn for Molly is white with blue and sea foam green and ballet blue (for those stampers reading this....for anyone else, kind of a medium shade of blue). I've started on that one, and it's trurning out realy pretty. The yarn for Baby McMillen (or Bobby Jo as he/she is being called right now) is light green with some blue flecks. It's a realy soft, fuzzy kind of bulky yarn. I can't wait to work with it.

Anyways, I'm gonna go work on my baby blanket. Have a happy day!!