Things gone by...

First off, I need to start by telling you all that it rained last night! It actually feels strange, because every other day we've been here (almost a month now) has been sunny and warm. And this morning I woke up and looked out the blinds and I had to take a second look because the picnic table looked wet. I thought maybe the sprinklers had just made it wet, but then I noticed that other things looked wet too...and that our eaves are dripping. It rained in the desert! What a weird feeling! Apparently it's the first day of rain in the last 30 days here. I think I may take advantage of the cooler temperatures and go put on a hoodie and socks! It is a chilly 17 degrees outside! The fresh rain smell is nice coming in the door though.

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In other news...the potluck went well. (Yes, we did have a guest appearance by Spiderman - front left in picture) I had a number of people ask me what I ended up taking to it. Well, I've heard that you should always take something that you, yourself, will eat so that if there's nothing else there that you like, at least you have something. So I ended up making a hashbrown casserole type thing. Hashbrowns with chili-type stuff on top with cheese on top, baked. It turned out that there was alot of good food there...stuffing and mashed potatoes, salads, fried chicken, meatless chili, Japanese dumplings, deep fried veggies, sushi...there was a big variety! I was also surprised with a birthday cake that one of the other girls on campus made for me! That was a fun surprise! We ended up staying outside and visiting with our neighbours for 5 hours. It was pretty fun, despite my dread. Thanks for all of your suggestions! It sounds like these potlucks will be monthly, so now I have a list of ideas to refer back to every time!

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As I mentioned earlier, yesterday was my birthday. September 13. And yes, I was born on a Friday...though I'm sure it wasn't a misfortune, seeing as how I was due in August already. My mom was very happy to not be pregnant anymore, Friday the 13th or not! Anyway, we started the morning with a little sleep-in and then church at 11. We drove up to church with some friends and then directly from church we kept driving out of the city and went to the beach for the afternoon. We picked up Subway on the way and had a picnic on the beach. We also found a little dinosaur toy on the beach that was clearly abandoned so we enjoyed it's company all afternoon (he sat watching us as we lay on the beach) and then we brought him home and gave him to a little boy who lives here in the court. He was so pumped that he had a new dinosaur toy. I'd never spent my birthday in 30 degree weather and sunshine, laying on a beach so that was great fun. I'm pretty sure one year it snowed either on or around my birthday though! I just can't even imagine snow this year on my birthday. Everything is still so green and summery that I can't even imagine the trees all changing color and loosing their leaves!

Once home, we finished our day with pizza (Little Ceasars $5 pizza!) and a movie (Pink Panther 2). It was a good end to a fun day. And now it's rained, so I guess that's an extra birthday bonus!

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I finished my first seminary project last night. No, not a paper. Remember when I talked about going to Wal-mart, wandering for an hour, and coming home with a ball of yarn? Well, this is what I made it into. A hoodie. It actually took 3 balls of yarn. There are a few things I would do a bit differently next time, if there ever is a next time. But overall I'd say it turned out pretty well. I'm not sure that I'll ever wear it, but we'll see what it's like this winter. It might be perfect. Either way, whether I wear it or not, it was a fun project to work on...something completely different from an afghan or scarf. My next projects (yes, I have two) are going to be an afghan for our apartment and a rag quilt, the supplies for which are a birthday present from Nathan's parents. And, from my parents, I got $$$ for a quilting loom that I saw at Wal-mart so there will be a few more project options opened up with that once I find one that's the right size! So many projects all of a sudden! I'm getting very excited about the next couple months!

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Pictures of our sold house! I realized all of a sudden this weekend that I don't have any pictures of our house with the "SOLD" sign! And that is a picture that I really wanted! So I sent out a plea on Facebook for someone in the area to run out with their camera and take some pictures and send them to me. Within a couple hours, I had 7 wonderful pictures from my good friend (and former neighbour) Nikki Friesen. Thank you so much Nikki! We sold for quite a bit lower than what we were asking, and VERY much lower than our original asking price. But all we wanted was for it to be sold, so, after quite a few counters to the offer, we agreed on something that would work for both of us. And then, the very next day, we received another offer! This one was higher (*groan*) but included a condition that they sell their house before they would buy ours. Well, having had our house on the market for 5-6 months already, we weren't really interested in waiting for someone else's house to sell as well. And we had already signed the first offer so we were committed to sticking with that one, even though the second was a few thousand dollars more. Oh well. I'll take the hit to be done with it at the end of this week! Possession day is this Friday! Whoo-hoo! We're pretty excited! We've still made a profit, despite the selling price being almost $20,000 lower than our original asking price, so that is a blessing. It will certainly help with our tuition and living costs while down here in California! God really does know exactly what we need.

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And now that I'm writing about random things, I'm remembering more and more to tell you! So, I'm going to make a confession here. I am a nerd. There, now you know. And to prove it, here is a picture of my nerdiness in all it's glory. The school has a huge pile of used books that they are trying to give away. Now, this is right up my alley to begin with. But while I was looking through books the first time, I found an old Algebra textbook. I laughed when I saw it and left it there, but then I wished I'd grabbed it (yes, I found algebra great fun in high school). So I went back and tried to find it. My high school math/calculus teacher used to get so excited when companies would send him their new textbooks to try to get him to use them. He would come to class and tell us about how he got so excited the previous evening as he did questions from these books...that's what he found fun. The entire class, myself included, laughed and thought he was so weird. And now I've grabbed myself an Algebra text and am excited about doing questions from it. Arg...I am such a nerd.

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So there's the last couple days of my life! Random post but life is random sometimes...most of the time. Now I'm going to catch up on all of your blogs and then do some dishes that have been piling up for way too long now. Two disadvantages to this life, as far as dishes go: small kitchen = no room for dishes to pile up. Four place settings = only so many meals before the dishes NEED to be done so we can eat again! Hmm...now that I think about it, perhaps these are good things...