Hey They're Gonna Sit By You! Another One Rides The Bus

We are still in the process of figuring out the best ways to navigate this city of 3 million. You would think that the internet would be able to guide you to a comprehensive list of the servees and bus routes, but there's is absolutely no hard guide on bus routes, numbers, etc. So, we have learned the old fashioned ways of asking the locals and trying things out to see if it works.

The best, most expensive (sometimes highly educational) and easiest form of transportation are the taxis. There are two types of taxis you can catch. The silver taxis are swanky and expensive. They have clean and polished interiors and computer screen in the seats for you to pick music. I avoid them because I dislike paying double what I could pay in your average taxi. Your average yellow taxi is reasonably priced (about $3 for the half hour drive from school to our house) and is much easier to catch since they're more common than their silver cousins. As a woman, I ride in the back and have to stick a kid in the front if there's not enough room. I might come off as flirtatious if I were to sit in the front. Culturally, most of the men enjoy interacting with kids and often try to engage them in conversation. Much less frequently will they talk to me beyond getting directions. For my husband, taxi rides can be a good language lesson since many drivers want to know about the foreigner and want to share about their city and culture. I've heard that some male language students will flag down a taxi and ask them to drive them somewhere with the sole aim of practicing their Arabic. Taxi drivers may refuse to take you once you stop them for a ride for a number of reasons:
1. They don't think there will be anyone needing a taxi when they drop you off.
2. It's to a busy part of the city and they don't want to waste time in traffic.

There are a couple of different types of buses that travel around the city. There are large buses with A/C that leave from a couple of central bus stations. The fares are cheap, 50 cents one way. We've only traveled via the large buses once because sometimes it's the same price as a taxi when you're a family of four. My favorite method of transport when there are only one or two of us traveling is the minibus. The minibuses are 40 cents and travel quickly through a set route. There is a minibus service that takes me close to the kids' school and to the west side of town where I can go to the mall or Starbucks. The bonuses for me on the minibuses are the fact that the driver won't take me to the wrong place if I don't speak clearly in Arabic. Also, the men on the bus have to move out of the single seats if a lady needs a seat. Quick, reliable and respectful make it a winner for me.

The third method of transport is something called a servees. This is something that makes A LOT of sense in a hilly city where most people walk. At the bottom of each hill, on a specific street, sits a line of white taxis. These taxis wait until all four seats are filled and then they head up the hill to a specific drop off point. Our home is midway up the servees route, so this is the way that Jason and I come home from school every day as we would hate to have to walk uphill coming and going. The fare is 40 cents per person on the servees.

Even with all these forms of transportation, we're still doing a lot more walking here than we did in the States. You may wonder why we aren't considering buying a car.
1. Unless you have a residency visa you're not allowed to own a car
2. Even with the residency visa, it's costly to buy a car, even if it's used
If you're in a minor fender bender (an extremely common occurrence here) you and the other driver have to determine who's at fault and drive together to the mechanic. If a cop becomes involved, the cop will hold trial on the side of the road and determine who will have to pay a fine AND pay for repairs.
All of that sounds like a colossal hassle on top of everything else we're doing.

J and I were talking today and recognized that we'll have reverse culture shock when it comes to transportation when we get home. We'll wonder why everything is so far away from each other and why we can't flag a taxi down on the main street.

Water Day

The first thing that will help you understand the title of this post is this fact: the city is in a desert.

Deserts do not produce much water.

Building a city with a couple of million people living in it comfortably requires good water management.

The solution this city has implemented is controlling the flow of the water pipes. One day each week the pipes to our neighborhood have the water flowing through them. Each household has water tanks on the roofs of their building to store water that you can use for the rest of your weekly water needs after the pipes are cut off again. Because you don't want to waste the water for the rest of your week, you try to accomplish all the big water activities on the day the pipes are flowing. For us, those big tasks are:
-watering the trees that line our garden.
-mopping all the tiles floors
-cleaning the toilets and tubs
-doing myriads of loads of laundry

Now, factor in being at school from 7-1pm and it creates a very busy day for me on Wednesday if I plan on using the flowing water. When we first moved in, I was very careful with using water for dishes, showers, etc. We've slowly been using more water during the week and haven't run out before water day, so that's good news. We've been told we have 3 cubic meters of water in our tanks every week. I've never had to think about my water usage before, so I don't yet know our average weekly water consumption.

It's very new to me to be in a place where water matters so much. The rights to water and the usage of water is of vital importance for this small country and this household.

Does that give you a good idea of what Water day is? Please, ask questions if you need clarification.

How Do I Explain...

...what it's like here daily? I've had many friends who've lived overseas and they've expressed consternation at the inability to describe their lives to us back home. Well, I'm going to attempt it.

When you move to a new place you have to rent a place and furnish it. To buy furniture here at a reasonable price you head to the “balad” a.k.a. downtown. It’s literally the part of town that is down in the valley between a number of the hills. Along the two streets of the downtown area is a Roman amphitheater and a number of small stores selling a cacophony of different products. There’s an area at one end where a number of small shops sells new and used furniture. You walk past these stores, feigning indifference while trying to assess quality and style. As soon as a shopkeeper notices you showing interest you’re in for some coaxing, cajoling and bargaining. Once you’ve agreed on a price (possibly over some tea) then you hire one of the many drivers hanging around with their trucks. In your limited Arabic you need to direct them to the store (more likely many stores) where you purchased furnishings and then need to get him to your house. Sometimes they feel as though they haven’t been paid enough to actually help you move it in the house and are disgusted that you don’t have people there to help you move it in. 

Even if you do something very Western and purchase your appliances at a Walmart type store, there’s a very good chance that you’ll still haggle about the price and that the credit card machine will not be working that day. You’ll have to try and call your credit card company a half a world away and explain to them that you sent them all the right paperwork and you are REALLY living overseas and to please, please, PLEASE not freeze your credit card every time you use it in a foreign country.

Tired yet?  That’s a brief snapshot of what we did multiple days in a row to get the basic furnishings needed for our place.

Now, let’s talk about lighting. When you move into an unfurnished place, the light fixtures are not included. Luckily, we moved into the neighborhood where many of the light stores are located. The shopkeepers in the Middle East believe that the best placement for their store is right next to the exact same kind of store. So, our area has streets upon streets of light stores.  Over the last week we’ve bought one “fancy” light fixture and two basic fixtures. Since we don’t know any electricians (and wouldn’t know how to direct him to our house or explain what exactly we needed done), J installed the lights himself. No, he’d never done it before and thankfully didn’t electrocute himself in the process.

My guess is that many of my posts in the near future will be trying to give you a taste of the different kind of normal we encounter here.

Now On To the Next Challenge

We didn't get the house we were hoping for in our neighborhood last week, but we did sign a rental contract over the weekend for a different place closer to a family we know.
This place is not a fixer-upper. We still have the task of getting curtains made (no pre-made curtains here), lights installed, all appliances and furnishings bought. This has to be done in the next 10 days while all 4 of us still go to school and do all the things daily that need to be done (food shopping, homework, bathing, cooking, cleaning, laundry, etc.) Needless to say, we're a little tired.
Those of you who know me know that I don't like shopping. If I could order everything I'd ever need to buy off the internet, I would. I'm envisioning some days of hot, grouchy bargaining in the downtown area for cheap furnishings. We'll see what the reality shows here in the coming days.
Off to prep dinner and study for class tomorrow.

Fried Brain

We started language school today and I suddenly realized that we will be very busy since all 4 of us will be in school. That said, we were hoping that we would have signed a rental contract on a place by now, but all our tea time negotiations were for naught.
So, we're putting an offer forward on a different place tomorrow closer to our school and the kids' school and we'll see what happens.
Small success of yesterday was getting a minibus from the downtown area to the kids' school. There are no bus schedules or guidance posted anywhere, so you have to take your limited talking skills and ask someone. I was very excited to have made it to their school with time to spare. I've also learned directions well enough to direct a taxi driver to the rode near our temporary home.

Let's Talk Housing

I’m not sure where to start with posting.  I guess that I’d first say that this is all going more smoothly than I had anticipated.  We have spotty internet and cell service, the kids have gone to school orientation and we are learning enough words to get a taxi to take us where we need to go. The only problem with taxis is they don’t like to take people to our neighborhood. The hill is steep, the traffic is heavy and they don’t always find a paying customer for their drive out.

We’ve focused our time before school starts on finding a good and reasonably priced place to live…the furnished place we’re in now is more expensive than finding a good unfurnished place. Unfurnished here means you are renting a place with walls and doors. The previous You have to buy and wire the light fixtures, hot water heater, get curtains, stove and fridge. In our case, the place we want was vacant for 6 months. This means it became the place for garbage to be tossed and windows to be smashed. So, we had a friend of a friend do a walk through with us today and give us an estimate of the cost of repairs. At the end of the walkthrough, you sit down with the neighbor showing the flat, he serves you soda, you talk about the minutae involved with plumbing and water spots and how much repairs will take off your rent monthly. This conversation takes an hour and a half. This is the way things are done here and luckily through our other travels I was prepared for this sort of back and forth. So, the next step is for the friend of the friend to talk to the landlord and see if he’s willing to take the cost of repairs out of the monthly rent and also to lower our overall rent. Hopefully we’ll know if it’s ours to take on by next week.

We're Here

We haven't gotten an internet connection at our house yet, so my posting will be sparse until we have it.

The travel itself would have gone smoothly if we hadn't run into 2 separate airline supervisors for 2 different airlines who decided to be hosers about baggage. US Airways skimmed us unjustly for a couple of hundred dollars in illogical baggage fees. We thought it would be the only travel hurdle until we got to JFK and a super for our airline to J wanted more money in unjust baggage fees. Granted, we don't have bribery fees in the US, but what these airlines were doing was just as pointless and unjust. Luckily the 2nd airline super left and the other ticket agents rightly didn't charge us for bags.

Thankfully all 16 (that's not a typo) bags (checked and carry-on) made it intact and we were able to flop into our furnished rental apartment by 8pm Wednesday. Ramadan was happening, so we were unable to eat in public during the day. This meant that many of our neighbors were up very late our first couple of days eating and enjoying their break from fasting at night.

Our temporary apartment has been glorious, to be able to settle down into a semblance of normalcy has been a great stress reliever. We have gotten phones, basic household items and the Wii hooked up. My next desire is to get internet since I'm feeling cut off from the world without it. School signups are happening this week and we need to decide whether we'll continue to rent this furnished apartment or rent an unfurnished apartment. Unfurnished would be cheaper, but here it requires us to furnish everything meaning cabinets, curtains, stove, fridge, heat, etc. Unfurnished literally means you're renting the walls/rooms and must come up with the rest. I've been told it's cheap to furnish a place, but I admit I'm skeptical.

A surprise for me was to be taken to the west side of town to Safeway! They had many western goods which I hadn't expected to see. Granted they're expensive, but I was very pleased to find cheddar cheese, wheat bread and Clorox wipes available in the country!

I'm absolutely loving our local corner store. The owner has a nice selection, speaks a little English and looks like the Arab version of Albert Einstein.

Sorry this is ramble, I'm a little tired. Until next post.

All the Bags Are Packed...

...and we're almost ready to go. We took a break from the packing madness and went on a 4 day camping trip with our church to the San Juan mountains.

I recommend this method of moving to everyone! It took me a couple of hours to start relaxing, but once I did it was glorious. The food, landscape and company were the perfect balm for my wigged out heart.

We came back yesterday evening and I'm looking at everything with fresh eyes so I can make this final packing push.

At A Low Point

We started packing bags yesterday and I started to crumble.

There are so many little things we need to get done today in order to go camping that I'm getting the sense of drowning in a sea of moving chores.

I logically recognize that this is all easy in relation to being held hostage or climbing Everest. But emotionally I haven't been tried in the fires of having to power through things often. Elk butchering days and the church debacle would be the closest comparisons.

Poor J and the kids are being absolutely wonderful, thankfully there's just one of me with my type A tendencies!

Hope I can hold it together better today and power through!

A Time to Keep And a Time to Throw Away

We are nearing the end of the household insanity. Walls and drawers are getting wiped. The majority of our furniture has disappeared. We're keeping only what we're packing, storing or throwing away by Tuesday. Thankfully we have camping stuff still, so we're making due with sleeping on cots and air mattresses.

The couple overseas already has found two possible apartments for us and Jason is watching loads to see when there are most seats for flying standby.

Someone asked me the other day if I'm stressing about finding an apartment and furniture when we get to J. I realized that I've embraced the mentality of today having enough troubles of its own, I haven't even considered all we need to do when we actually get there.

So, we are almost there.

Good Times Are Coming?

Right?
This whole packing and tossing things will end?
I'm amazed at how the emotions can override the logic of a situation. I logically know that there will be an end to this process by August 10th, but that doesn't stop my emotions from treating this as a mentally exhausting hurdle with an unknown end.

I've experienced this with elk butchering every fall and with the infancy of my two kids.

How do you get Logic to talk Emotion off the ledge?

Mentally Fried

That's me, the one in the workout clothes, sifting through our worldly goods. Putting value on some and realizing how much detrius we have.
Eight checked bags and four roller bags will contain the sum of what we deem worthy to keep. That and we'll be having some friends hold onto a couple of bins and beds we want to save.
I'm glad we have started getting rid of our things three weeks out from leaving because I'm finding it easiest to make a couple of sweeps through each room. There are things I'm not ready to part with, that by the last week will probably be passed on, but I'm not ready to part with it this week.
How much do we think we need??? That's what I've been asking myself. Obviously there is so much in this lower middle class house that are wants not needs if I can walk away from them so easily.
Congratulations if you made it to the end of this stream of fried consciousness post. Do you want some of our stuff??/

Is It Really Time???!!!

As you long time readers know, this has been a crazy 3 or so years. We lost our church home, were church nomads and finally came to rest at a stupendous Body a little over a year ago. In the midst of all the church shuffling, we've been slowly raising the funds to move to Jordan and study Arabic. As of last week, it looks like all the funding has come in!

And now begins my internal panic as I'm looking down the barrel of spending my time until mid-August getting logistical things accomplished. I'm trying to start going through rooms now, but it's difficult to decide what to not throw away yet. I'm having a hard time believing this is truly finally happening, so I won't begin going through rooms in real earnest until the last week of July.

What would you store if you knew you might be back in the US in two years?

Ukrainean Funfest

I am nearing the end of an adventure visiting my friend in Rivne, Ukraine. 

Last time I was here, it was winter and bitterly cold. As a result, I was surprised to see how lush and green the land is around my friend's house. She informed me that Ukraine was considered the Bread basket of the Soviet era. Everyone has a garden plot that they tend lovingly and intentionally because they often depend on their plots for many of their vegetables and possibly some of their income. In a truly foreign twist, many of them seem to find the most comfortable way to garden is in their boxers and bras. Is this any different than those in our country that find it sensible to garden in their swimsuit or trunks? 

I have been able to spend two evening meals eating with local families. The first family had their Russian sister also visiting who taught me the find Russian art of toasting elaborately and often while eating. Needless to say, her tongue was loosened soon after we started to ask us our views on politics and to give us hers in return. The second meal was an open house birthday celebration where the mother in law gave us a beautiful bouquet from her lush garden. Both of the homes were sized for modesty and usefulness. When you don't have space to waste, you learn how to make do and use well the space you have. Kitchens double as living rooms and living rooms double as bed rooms and all this is perfectly normal in this part of the world.

I also went to the dentist while I was here. I'm always surprised at how cheap medical/dental services are overseas. For $40 I was able to get two cavities taken care of by a very professional, albeit slightly old school, dentist. Why in the world does America allow the crazy insurance scheme continue instead of opening it up for competitive prices?

Twelve days is much too long to be away from my husband and kids. Thankfully both the Amsterdam airport and Warsaw airport had free wi-fi available. With Skype on my iPod I have been less sad as I'm able to see their sweet faces and scold them if needed.

On Monday I will be taking a 3 hour train ride to Lviv, Ukraine and then a 5 hour plane ride to Amsterdam. I am hopeful that trying to fly standby out of Amsterdam at the beginning of summer won't cause me to have to spend multiple days waiting in the Amsterdam airport, but we will see.

Smart Travel Supplies

All of our world travel has caused me to become a smart and light packer. Through trial and error I've come up with a list of what I believe are long travel essentials. I see decadent travel lists in magazines often, but this list is for the rest of us.

Let's first address clothing. Make sure that you know what clothing is culturally appropriate. They can already tell you're the goofy foreigner, so try not to stick out like a sore clothing thumb. A coat can come in handy anytime of the year while traveling. You can use it as a blanket, pillow or object to block out light while sleeping. A scarf for ladies can also be useful for covering necklines that are too low or as a light blanket to ward off the chilly air in the plane.
After learning the inner of airlines, I'm shocked that any checked baggage ever makes it to its destination at the same time as the passenger! So, always bring at least one full change of clothes in your carry on.

Since luggage is often lost, accidentally torn open or otherwise treated with no TLC, never pack anything of value in checked luggage. If you can't toss your luggage across your yard and have your luggage stay intact, then don't expect it to last long in the metal underbelly of a plane. Again, no meds, breakables, valuables, electronics in checked baggage unless you're prepared for its possible loss.

Think about how big of a carry on you might want to bring. Make sure it's a bag or backpack that you don't mind running with through a large, crowded airport. Bring a water bottle and fill it up as soon as you can after you clear security. Flying is dehydrating, so you'll be more comfortable if you consciously hydrate. Melatonin, tylenol pm or other OTC sleep aids are great for overseas trips. Melatonin may help your body adapt more quickly to a new time zone if you take it as you fly to your destination.
Flying and sleeping are not compatible and I've found some things that make my overseas flight sleeping a little more comfortable. Bring a couple of blow up camping pillows to cushion you from a hard seat or arm rest. A neck pillow can also help keep you from slouching onto your neighbor. A light blanket, coat or scarf is also great to help you feel more cozy which in turn might help you relax enough to get some sleep.

As for entertainment and navigation overseas, and iPod can be your best friend. There are translation apps that can help you have phrases available if you don't know the language. You can save maps of the area you're going to for reference when you arrive as well.  If you have a long layover, can't sleep, or need to look like you don't care about your surrounding and certainly aren't lost thank you very much, then you can stick your headphones on and tune out on something that's familiar. I load mine with free TV shows, some movies and entertaining podcasts. I would also recommend getting a couple exercise routines (pilates, yoga) that you can do anywhere to help an achy back or tight shoulders. I also recommend an e-reader to keep your packing light. Most libraries are now loaning e-books, so check a couple out before you leave on your trip. Any mindless game like Sudoku, crosswords and the like can keep you occupied while you have to have your devices off during take off and landing.

Because I'm a mom, I have always traveled with a large bag of snacks. Here's some of our favorites:
-Trail mix
-Granola bars
-baby carrots
-red pepper
-bagel w/ crm cheese
-candy bars
-string cheese
-jerky
-pumpkin seeds

Most of this I see as common sense, but some of it may be new to you and I hope you find it useful.
Anything I've missed?

I Swear!

I am very pleased with the Sunday School teacher that the kids are sitting under right now. She's a mother of 2 grown kids and approaches parenting with eternal purposes in mind which made/makes her a very forthright parent. This translates into her being a very forthright teacher on Sundays.

In past weeks they've talked over the 10 commandments, which caused my kids to ask her what adultery was. She didn't shy away from giving them a very tactful definition. They dug into the deeper implications behind the commandments as well.

Ruth's soccer team had played a very rough opposing soccer team Saturday (a la Real Madrid) and one of the girls on the other team had cussed at Ruth on the field. Their teacher on Sunday had asked them about their week and Ruth had brought up the game. This led them to discuss cussing and the meanings behind the words we use.

The Sunday School teacher made an extremely astute observation. All our cuss words fall into two categories: those directly offensive to God, those directly offensive to what He's made.

If you consider the meanings behind some of our cuss words:

sh**- poop
bi***- female dog
d***-to curse
f***- an intimate action with your spouse
c***- female anatomy
h***- place of torment
d***- male anatomy
p***- to urinate or be drunk
a**- donkey or ones rear end
various racial slurs which I won't list
There are also many, many more that predominantly have to do with bits of anatomy.

It's very interesting that people still damn others or use the word "God" to be profane when many of them don't believe that He exists.
As we've become a more atheistic/agnostic culture, wouldn't it make sense that people would find man-made objects something to be cussed about?

You never hear anyone stub their toe and say, "Macbook Pro!" or "Sailboats!" or "Pants!".
Along the same line, no one ever says, "Buddha!" or "Dali Lama!"

We still choose to wound the people around us by referencing God or predominantly the creatures made in his image, mankind. We insult their design both in anatomy and race.

This, I believe, is a result of what Paul talks about in Romans 1:18-19, "For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth by unrighteousness, because that which is known about God is evident within them, for God made it evident to them.


I've long been a proponent of the alternative frustration words...here are some that the kids and I use:
Buckets
Frack (Used in Battlestar Galactica)
Darn
Freaking
Son of biscuit
Cripes
Blimey

Now, growing up, our parents ran a very verbally clean house, so clean that there were words that they were not familiar with. So, it was quite a shock to my sister and I when we realized one word that our family had been affectionately using to say, "Don't be silly" was actually a term that was a sex toy! (Psst, it was the d**** word)

I think we confuse some people because we fully support our kids knowing correct anatomical terms for private body parts, and yet we are against cussing. We give them the correct terminology for the privates because we believe that they're not shameful parts of the body, but parts that are to be correctly understood and explained to the glory of God.

I could go on and on about this topic, but sufficed to say, her observance has me thinking about the reasons that all cultures use the terms they do as cuss words.

What do you think? Do you cuss? (I have to confess, I'm not cuss word free) Do you have a good alternative word?

Foreign Adventure Countdown

Okay friends, here's the bottom line.
I'm tired.
Tired because of all the planning that goes into moving overseas by Christmas, tired because of all the changes that have had to happen and tired because of all the changes of friendships that have happened and will have to happen as a result of the colossal move.
*Sigh*
But, there will come a day when there will be no more that I can do to prepare and will be on the plane (tired I'm sure) trying to wrap my head around not being stateside for a couple of years.

If you've miraculously hung with this blog and its huge drought over the last two years, you may see more of me depending on how this all goes down. Above all, pray for our sanity and that we would see God as amazingly sufficient and providential in the midst of our shifting sands.

10 Is Just The Beginning

I've been thinking about today for the last few weeks. It's our 10 year anniversary.

Ten years ago today, Jason and I skipped chapel at CCU and went to downtown Denver. We paid $10 each, said our vows in front of the judge and had our wedding kiss in the Denver Post in a story on that judge.

Ten years was a number that I looked forward to because it sounded like the number of a mature married couple. I see now that ten years is just the beginning of a glorious union that God has brought together. The places we've been, jobs we've had, things we've worked out are just a taste of all the things yet to come.

Seeing more clearly every year God's hand on all that we do has made these last ten years so good:

-We've traveled and encouraged believers in 13 countries

-We've had 5 jobs that have all moved us closer to what God had for us at the next job and phase of life.

-We've moved 8 times and every location has been exactly what we needed at the time.

-God's given us 5 cars over the last 10 years that we haven't had to pay for. They've all been glorious mid-90s monsters that have even broken down at just the right times.

-We've been given two kids to raise in the fear of God and to see His glory and we're only now grasping some of the magnificence of that task.

-We've gained a deeper and more God-entranced vision of all things, including each other.

And that last good thing has really been the best thing. Without this deepening and joy-filled sight of God, the little annoyances and day to day misunderstandings would have worn at these last 10 years.

Living together as a man and a woman is not made to be easy, but it is made to be good! So, my dear and faithful Jason, here are the things that cause me to respect and love you more as we shuffle on this mortal coil:

-Your faith that God's sovereignty is always good and right

-Being able to look at life and say, "What's the worst that could happen?" and knowing it's a momentary light affliction.

-The joy you have of our children.

-Your full understanding that all that you have is to be given to others to glorify God...whether it's your time, your car or your finances.

-That you do not write or say anything lightly, but weigh things carefully.

-And, while it may seem silly, I love that you are so strong and stately looking.

I love you and, if God wills, I want to be able to spend 70 more years maturing in the knowledge of all God has made marriage to be.

Let The Games Begin

Jason and I have 2 different language programs for learning Arabic.

Why two different programs?

Because we're pretty sure that we learn differently. So, since we're also competitive, it is now a race to see who can communicate the best when we visit Jordan next month.

I have to say, I'm nervous I'm going to lose solely because my husband seems to be such a smarty pants. I have hope I can pull this off, enshallah!

Much Ado About Life As I Know It

I know, I know, I've been seriously falling down on the blogging job lately. Thank goodness you can't fire me!

Much, and not much, has happened over the last couple of months. So, here's the flyover:

-Kids in school and soccer. They have a love/hate relationship with both.

-Daughter entered early stages of adolescence...trying to ignore this because I'm sure it will go away (psh!)

-Grandparents health has been absolutely aweful, so I've been trying to help where I can.

-Slowly, much too slowly for me, getting ready to move overseas. Have spurts of trying not to think about this since I'm sure it will be so easy when it all happens.

-Studying Romans and Job with my women's groups and loving them. Just finished Deuteronomy and think it's amazing. Who knew it was such a pivotal book?!

-Took a free four day vacation to Universal Studios, Florida. My daughter won us that trip and it was everything I'd hoped for and more. Found out my daughter is a roller coaster/thrill junkie just like her mom.

-Three of the four of us got the influenza virus which laid us all out flat for Christmas Break. Also, I had the joy of my eardrum rupturing. It's still in the healing process.

That's life in a very quick flyby...I'll try and post sooner next time!