One week, one day... and counting...

Henry David Thoreau once said, "nothing makes the earth seem so spacious as to have friends at a distance. They make up the longitudes and latitudes." I think that is doubly true for family! I am going home in eight days and even that is feeling like an eternity away right now. Funny... all I've ever wanted to do was travel, and yet I wasn't even as excited about going to Italy as I am about going home. Oh, the irony of life!

Learning to Hope

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

~ Romans 5:1-5

Gotta love...

Power outages, fire trucks (complete with blaring siren) outside your apartment at midnight, smoke detectors that are connected to your aparment's power source and feel the need to go off when reset (when the power comes back on), guys outside your window using the only form of language they know - pure billingsgate (got that word from my Google homepage =]) - to complain that it is too hot (without AC) and too boring (without TV) to stay inside.

I remember complaining about the guys at school when they would do stupid things during power outages - like singing "God Save the Queen" and "The Star-Spangled Banner," or running around the dorms with their flashlights, making all kinds of noise that disturbed my sleep. I thought about it last night as I tried to fall to sleep, and I realized that what had seemed like such a trial at the time, had become a memory that made me smile in spite of myself. I should remember this in the future when I am quick to complain about something...

So, I'm not the only one who faced these problems!

The vacancy rate for apartments is 2.3 percent. That's down from 3.1 percent two years ago and among the lowest rates since World War II...

I had no idea I was asking for the impossible as I searched for a place to live!

During the first weeks of her internship, Kinlaw refreshed her Internet browser every 20 minutes, checking the "sublets / temporary" section of Craigslist.org, a Web site for free classified advertisements. If any new listings cropped up, she pounced on them, firing off an e-mail... She responded to as many as 14 ads in one day. If someone e-mails back and agrees to arrange a visit --something that happens about 10 percent of the time -- the rooms rarely match their online descriptions, Kinlaw said. More often than not, " 'furnished' means air mattress," she said, and "close to Dupont Circle" could mean a 20-minute walk and a steep hill away.

Sounds familiar... I could add many more horror stories to that one... like the spacious studio apartment that was smaller than my dorm room in college and had no closets...or the basement apartment that required my walking through the kitchen, dining room and living room of the main floor to access the apartment (there were 3 guys living on the main floor)... or my favorite: the kitchenette that consisted of a sink and a single burner, plugged into a wall outlet!

I am more thankful than ever for my little apartment!

A virtual tour of my cute, lil' apartment. =)

When you walk through the front door (as opposed to the back door - I'm kidding... there is only one door into my apartment) this is what you see.

Take a few steps you will be in the hallway that doubles as a kitchen. =) I told you it was small! I'm so happy I got those bamboo shelves so long ago... it's the only piece of furniture I really like.

Once you make it all the way to the other side of the kitchen, you enter my bedroom. I couldn't find a good spot to take the shot from... so I settled for a picture of the bed. =)

Once in my room, make a left and there is my dolphin/hawaiian bathroom. It is actually my favorite room because it is so cute, but if I posted all the pictures I took of it, you would think me odd. I took this picture from inside the shower. Notice the shower curtain in the bottom, right-hand corner of the photo... it looks and feels like board shorts. I just LOVE it!

Tour's over. Hope you enjoyed it!

I need more hellos

Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like
and then just stay together?
I guess that wouldn't work.
Someone would leave.
Someone always leaves.
Then we would have to say good-bye.
I hate good-byes.
I know what I need.
I need more hellos.
~Charles M. Schulz