random update

it's been so long since i've written, or at least so much has happened since i wrote last. i hardly know where to start. bronchitis seems to be gone - but lungs still aren't normal. maybe it's just allergies, but i fear i've done something dumb. with all of the renovations of pink's room i had a really cool antiqque mirror in an awesome wooden frame... i sanded it without a mask, not even thinking about old paint - and i am wondering if it was lead paint, and then wondering what lead paint does... i have heard it used to make hatters mad (lead linings in hats)...

i was supposed to see the doctor on tuesday but had to cancel to pick up the owner of our last home - and oh did we have an amazing time together. she is kindred and never before have i met someone who understood so fully what it was like to be a silenced woman in the pb church. she has very similar giftings and callings - and we have shared deeply and bonded already.

her husband is driving their car up, so i got to pick her up alone at the airport. i dropper her off at her home after a tour and said i'd come back to pick her up for supper at our place. she ended up with a horrible migrane and spent the night in pink's bed too ill to move. we spent all of yesterday continuing our 'getting to know you' conversation and had a wonderful time.

at one point she got serious and said 'i never imagined moving away from the best community i've ever had to come to a new place with friends and family already waiting for me.' isn't that sweet? to know that she needed/wants my friendship as much as i need and want hers. it means so much to me. and this woman dreams really BIG!! i can't wait to see what god is doing here!

oh, and i think i'm going to start marketing a new diet... it's called the move twice in four months diet... you gain the weight back in the four months because of the stress, but with the next move it drops right off again... it's an expensive one though - costs about $1000 per pound... but it's nice to be on this side of the 10 lbs instead of the other!

we are also debt free again. we just couldn't stand the debt. we become different people with debt - we wanted to be who we were before the unemployment so we cashed out one of our 'major' (ha) investments stateside and paid off everything. after that happened we even got 3 suprises from uncle sam. i guess the pastor who had been doing our taxes didn't take some child tax benefit for the past 4 years and we got 3 nice little bonuses. i call them 'god's savings accounts' - they would have been negligible to us back then, but now we get to enjoy this manna from above. one went to installing a dishwasher in the apartment - thank you jesus! i call it the 'magic box' - dirty dishes in, sparkling dishes out - ta da! i feel like a magician every time i open it! it's really the difference of being on top of my housework or spending far too much time in the kitchen.

one of the good things about being without it for a season was that pink and buck learned that filling and emptying a dishwasher isn't really as bad as they used to think it was! HA! it is fun though to sit in the living room after dinner and listen to them wash the dishes together. pink washes and buck dries and puts away - they have quite the little system going. very cute.

when we first moved in pink said 'oh yah, i don't have to load/unload the dishwasher anymore!' i said 'yah, but now you have to wash dishes.' she said 'oh yay - i love to wash dishes' me 'well pink, unfortunately you'll find that there is a difference between i 'get' to wash dishes and i 'have' to wash dishes.' they both cheered when we picked up the dishwasher! :)

well, the family is stirring - thanks for your prayers and concern about my health - it's meant a lot to me, and i don't think we would have gotten through this past month without it! ttfn!