I'm baaaaack

I’m going to start posting regularly again (yeah, I know, you’ve heard that before ☺). So, if you keep checking, I promise you’ll get something.

There are lots of things I’ve thought about in the last few months, but it never actually made it into a blog post. So, I thought I’d start with a few highlights, in no particular order:

1) I love our house. I love our neighborhood. I love our neighbors. I can’t believe what a great deal we got on this house. I love that we only drive 5 minutes to church (that is, if we don’t ride our bikes!)

2) God is taking good care of us – not only did we get a great deal on the house (including a brand new furnace that we did not pay a penny for), but we also got an amazing break on our car insurance and homeowners insurance. Our car insurance only went up $50, and by the time our agent gave us all the discounts she could find, we’re only paying about half of the original price (which was astronomical!) We were expecting our insurance to double by moving into Detroit, but it hasn’t. I also went to turn in a property tax form and found out that the assessed value of the house for tax purpose is about 2/3 of what I expected, which means that our taxes will be slightly more reasonable. Property taxes in Detroit are insanely high, so every bit is huge!

3) Dave’s grandpa died a few weeks ago. We haven’t really told anybody about it. It’s not a bad thing – he was 87 and ready to go. But still… We had most of Dave’s family at our house the weekend of the funeral, and it felt so good to be able to do that. We actually had a great time together, despite the reason. I just wish I could talk to him again and hear one more story.

4) I went to Chicago last weekend for a girls’ weekend with Dave’s mom, sister and sister-in-law. We had such a good time and it was so much fun to be back in Chicago, except that I couldn’t go see any of my other friends who are still there. We went to see Wicked, which was really good, had amazing weather, walked a lot, ate cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory (despite living in the area for 4 years, I had never been to the Cheesecake Factory), went up in the Hancock Tower, stopped for samples at the Ghirardelli store and, of course, bought Franco mints from what used to be Marshall Fields.

5) I am the only one in my immediate family who is in the country at the moment. My parents are in Italy, with 5 of my mom’s sisters. They’re supposed to be eating some good food for me. My brother Scott should be in Iraq now. He’s been in Kuwait for the last 2 weeks and should be either in Iraq or headed there in a few days. I went home to see him in September and had several good conversations with him on the phone before he left. Please pray for him – that God would transform him while he’s there and give him a vision for who he is and what his purpose is in life.

6) I still haven’t finished my thesis, but I’m getting slightly closer. At least everybody’s not asking me about it all the time right now. It HAS to be done this semester, and I’m starting the feel the pressure, which means I’m starting to move a little bit faster. Part of me wants to be done, but part of me doesn’t. I’ve learned a lot in the last 8 months, but there’s a lot I wish I could do differently. I think that will need to be a separate post.

7) I went apple picking this weekend with a friend and canned 14 quarts of applesauce yesterday.