a couch paid me $17.08...

Yes, I said a couch. While I have been here visiting my friends, I have wanted to do my part by cleaning something or helping out wherever I can. I helped clean out one of the girls' closets and cleaned the sink and the kitchen as well. Today I cleaned the den and aired it out. The weather was so nice. I had the windows open and enjoyed the nice breeze that floated through as I worked. The best day of cleaning so far was yesterday though.

I had been waiting for the girls to get finished eating breakfast and getting ready for the day when I decided to clean the living room/piano room really quickly. I started with the dusting and then vacuumed. I had vacuumed out a few chairs as well, one of them producing a handful of broken darts and some pencils. I then turned my attention to the couch. I figured that there were probably some missing pencils used for music lessons and just regular old day to day dirt.

I lifted up the first cushion and found some grass that I am sure had been shed by someone after playing outside. I also found a bead and an unidentifiable cap to something else. Under the second cushion I found a whole slew of loose change. No, there was not $17.08 in change under there, but there was $2.08. Mama G. had grabbed her camera by this time and wanted a picture of me beside this rather large find. I also found a sort of Chinese looking coin thing with a hole in it that had one been tied on a string for a necklace. E6 was in front of the couch nest to me and in jest I looked at her and said, "Let's see what's behind door number 3!"

I lifted up the last cushion and oh mylanta! There was a bona-fide ten dollar bill right smack in the middle. I shrieked with amusement. I had just been kidding when I said lets see what's under the next cushion, but I was pleasantly surprised to find that in this house the rules are finders-keepers. I did also find some pink and blue Life "people" which the girls joked were my future family. They said that the blue one with the raisin smashed around his head was my future husband with an afro. I also suppose I am going to have two boys and a girl as well according to my allotment of colored plastic people.

So I know that all you accountants out there are going, "Ok, now she has $12.08. Where is the rest of the money?" Well, E6's idea was to go check out the couch in the den and see if there was anything else hiding out. She said that she went in there and had felt something crunchy. I went in, lifted the first cushion I came to and found a five dollar bill! I felt like I had hit the jackpot!!! I got paid by two couches in one day. I ended up with a grand total of $17.08, four Life pieces, a fake Chinese coin, a plastic army man, and a piano homework pencil. Sah-weeeet!

Today, E6 had a friend over for her birthday. He got here while I was in the throes of cleaning the den and as I stopped to break for lunch, he asked me if the family was paying me. We chuckled as I told him, "No they weren't, but the couches had." :^)

i've been adopted

I never would have thought that I could cook. I mean, I guess I always figured when I moved out I'd start to try recipes and find my own way through a kitchen. Well, I guess I got that chance to experiment sooner than I thought I would. In the past month and a half, I have made, for the first time on my own: pan seared Tilapia in a butter and wine sauce, herbed chicken, cheese sauce for broccoli, chicken alfredo, and a whole slew of other food. I didn't use a recipe and they turned out fine! I even learned how to cut an onion the right way and let me tell you, I don't hate cutting onions anymore. I've been staying with some good friends and helping out with cooking and cleaning and keeping the order. "Mama G." as I call her, is a great friend and even though she is my mom's age, I feel connected to her as if she was a friend my own age, but with the added wisdom of someone older than me. Their whole family jokes around that they are going to keep me here forever and never let me go back home. There are seven children in their family and each one has an abbreviation from the top of the siblings to the bottom. It begins with the first letter of their name and their number in order of birth. There is C1, C2, B3, G4, M5, E6, and G7. Just the other day, I was bestowed the honor of becoming A8.

My time here has been spent letting go of things about myself that I have needed to change. Actually, things that I have needed to allow to change. The Lord has been doing amazing and wonderful things in my life. He has increased my measure of self-control and added to that perseverance. I am SO excited! I have asked Him for so long to help me with self-control and it just seemed like He was taking so long to answer. But there is no other way to describe the ability to not fall apart emotionally all of the time other than to say that the Lord did it. And when things seem crappy and the sort of things that I would have wanted to back out of right away, it's easier for me to stick with it than it used to be. I am not perfect by any stretch of the imagination. I am such a flawed person. I struggle with comparing myself and what I have to what others have. I do not always think kind thoughts or act kindly towards others. I am selfish. I don't give my Creator the kind of devotion that I should. But I know that He is working, even in my discontent, contentious, self-centered heart. 

These verses sum it up:

1 Peter 1:5-9

But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, ⁶ to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, ⁷ to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. ⁸ For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. ⁹ For he who lacks these things is shortsighted, even to blindness, and has forgotten that he was cleansed from his old sins. 

It is so easy for me to forget to be dilligent in adding these things to my faith. It is easier to be lazy and not strive to be like Him, but it is so much better when I do! The past couple of months of my life the Lord has given me the grace to look upon experiences in my life than have been less than glamorous and not so fun, and to see how He uses those things for His glory. He is so incredibly Powerful. He is Faithful to love. And He is so worthy of praise.

best design inspiration site... period

I just found the best design site ever.  Period.


www.designbump.com

If you need inspiration for graphic design, photography, and a whole mess of other things you should go check it out. Even if you don't need inspiration, you should check it out. They have some awesome wallpapers (I found some sweet apple ones to put on my MacBook Pro), and I also found some sweet free fonts. It's pretty much  just amazingly awesome any way you cut it. So go check it out. You'll like it. I promise.

Also check out http://www.smashingmagazine.com for more cool design ideas, fonts, and wallpapers.

Ok, go now! Go see for yourself. Now.

Illustrated, a first attempt

I tried my hand (literally) at making a completely illustrated album cover. I have never had the talent to draw as well as my sister, but to heck with comparisons. That is something else the Lord has been helping me with; to not compare myself to other people. Especially the people closest to me. I'll have to write more later on all that He has been doing lately. Oh how He loves me so.....