kiss my eyes and lay me to sleep

i am desperately trying to think of a sentence to begin with other than, "well, it's time for an update." nothing. blech.

january is over. it was a busy month of subbing. praise God! i subbed more (full) days than any previous month. too bad i won't see the fruits of that labor until the end of february. being on a tight budget is becoming a game. let's see how little money we can spend this month! it's amazing what you can save by cutting out little extravagances. and it's amazing how much you still have to spend on the necessities. yeep.

last weekend (as in, 8 days ago), walhof dropped in for the weekend. it was a nice surprise. he left monday morning and kendra came in monday evening. philip calls us the revolving door of dordt alum. i'm ok with that. the last week has been crazy with full days of subbing, full evenings of introducing kendra to the community, and nights of deeper sleep.

today i have the day off. i didn't find jobs early this morning, so i blocked off my day to prevent a later morning phone call. i decided to take the time to bring kendra to various potential places of employment, do some laundry, and attend a worship conference led by sean hall with my dear friend lynda. we'll top off the day with kendra's quesadillas and knitting night. a good day, methinks.

yesterday was also a good day. we had church (a combined service, but we accidentally showed up for the early service!), a birthday dinner for doug (complete with lots of great people and delicious...i repeat, delicious food), bringing soup for the jesus gathering and attending worship, and debriefing with small group at our apt. it was truly a small group, too! i love everyone in our group, but i enjoy the times when the group is a bit smaller, for conversation's sake. good times.

i'm rereading harry potter. after spending 3 days in a classroom where kids worked independently and therefore reading an entire commentary on hp, i couldn't stay away any longer. i'm loving the second time through. i'm almost done with book 2 and i'm trying to ignore the cries of the other books on my shelf: "are you kidding me? i've been here for four years and you haven't picked me up once! love ME! read ME!" i guess they'll just have to wait.

oh. and i caved. or rather, philip caved. we made the mistake of going to village books on saturday. i found a half-price copy of eleanor roosevelt's political writings. philip said it was another late birthday present for me. sweet husband = happy andrea.