Cakes, Carpet and Cameras

Hey Kids!

Well, it's been a super long time since we have updated this, but I just had a few things I wanted to share, and this seemed like the best place.

Janelle had a bake sale at Eastgate a few weeks ago and I used my new cupcake pan from Christmas (thank you!) as well as the cake-pop cookbook to make some goodies for it. Here's some of the photos:

The bake sale went super well (but Janelle will probably want to give you all the details), and she raised a bunch of money which she used to buy new tables for the kids rooms.

Also, we finally got new front room carpet...here's before and after photos:

It may be sort of hard to tell, but the new carpet is sort of an olive-green shaggy-style...it's super soft and we avoid it at all costs...seriously, dad & I walk through the dining room and family room in hopes that it will last.

One more thing: my dad sent me a web camera and your dad & I were thinking that we should do an occasional family video chat. Does anyone need a web cam? If you do, we would be happy to send one your way, otherwise, what will be the best time for everyone?

Between dad & I, any evening except Wednesday would be fine...any Saturday except the 3rd Saturday would be good. Just let us know and we will try to do a family hangout on google.

We miss all you kids so much and look forward to talking/seeing you again soon-

Mom

Moving Day + a Visit

Hi Everyone!

I just wanted to make a quick post to tell you a little about our next apartment!  It's definitely smaller than where we're staying now, but it has all of the must haves and it's got more personality than any of the apartments we've stayed in so far.  We just got the keys and signed the lease yesterday so we will be moving a little during the week and hopefully we'll be settled by Saturday night!

We will be living in the back half of the building on the second floor.  So we'll use the stairs you see on the side of the building.  It has two small bedrooms and laundry downstairs.  The living room and one of the bedrooms is painted a bluish color...kind of like periwinkle, but not quite, and the landlord just put in all new windows, a new heater, and really pretty tile on the bathroom floor.  It also has a great location - close to transit  friends, and the grocery store :)  We've had a lot of people praying for us to be able to find a place quickly that was within our price range and still offered what we needed, so we're really excited to finally have everything in motion.

Also, Brad and I will be visiting PCB in August!  :D  We will be arriving on the 20th.  Brad will leave on the 23rd...I think his flight is around 9:30pm.  I will be staying until the 28th. Brad will be coming back for work, but I'm going to take a little extra vacation because I'll be between internships for the month of August.  We can't wait to see you all!!!

I took this picture about a month ago, and still think it's pretty funny, so I thought I would share with you.

Most of my news you probably already know about via Facebook. Like the fact that we got a new car, which is still AWESOME and it makes us want to take trips every day. It's good on gas too, a lot better than the old Camry. I'm just wandering if I can be classified as being in the Camry family having only one at our house...because I would really like to be.

I'm also really excited about our trip to Atlanta in August. We plan on meeting my dad & brother out there and spending two nights, Friday and Saturday, coming home on Sunday. Matt & Janelle will go up there with us and Jess, Dan & Mel will meet us there (sorry Brad/Jamie). My latest project has been trying to figure out a hotel situation. We like the idea of being across the street from the game, but the hotels are sort of pricey and have some pretty bad reviews on tripadvisor. Also, they are really ONLY close to Turner field, and nothing else. I'm thinking about the first night staying downtown and the second night staying by the ball field. Any ideas/suggestions are most appreciated, and I would be happy to share my google earth map as well as my google doc with all of the accumulated hotel info.

Here's the next photo. It's a little dark, but I love it. This was taken last December when all you guys were together last.

Dad has been updating Rabbi Encounters and has moved it to its own site now, rabbiencounters.com. It looks a lot better now I think and is more like he wanted it to to look all along. He also re-did some of the artwork more to his liking before he uploaded everything.

A lot of changes around Eastgate, mostly the people that are moving I guess. There is Dustin/Leah, Ford/Melissa, Mike Kern, Curt (the keyboard player)/Sue, and the Hayes family. Also Leah/Thomas and their friends as well as ours John/Jenny Pipkin. It feels weird, but maybe it means that some new people will coming soon, that would be nice.

I had a great visit with Aunt Madi, she posted several photos on Facebook that you probably have already seen. I think she had a good time too, because she has been saying that she & Don are going to have to be snowbirds one day so that they can live here for 3 months at a time. She really liked Burning House too and Matt & Janelle and said how she wishes that her kids would get involved with a church, and less involved with their party friends. She has encouraged Natalie to do so and Natalie has been asking Madi for prayer (yes, prayer) to help her find a job. God may be up to something.

Okay, the last photo, and I saved the best for last. Ever since we burned a few of the pine cones from this basket, the cats have taken it over.

Oh yeah, we also traded our couch for a surfboard to Dustin and then bought a new set of couches. They are a lot like our old set, except darker a material and it is a couch and love seat, so you don't have to walk in front of everyone to sit down any more.

Robbie Hudson and his family are supposed to be visiting a week from today for a couple of days. His wife just had a miscarriage though, and she may not be up to the trip. I'm sure they would appreciate your prayers.

Love to all of you-

Mom

Isaiah 40:31

So, no job yet... That's the elephant in the blog. Now for some rhinos...

Melissa and I had an amazing visit to Chicago and a wonderful time with Brad and Jamie. They were very hospitable, and Melissa and I couldn't have had a more exciting trip. Chinatown was very interesting, particularly the smells. On our first night Brad told us we would be helping tutor at the Pui Tek Center, which caused a fair amount of dread to rise inside of me, since I am not a learned man. Melissa also felt similar feelings of doubt. However, it turned out to be exceptionally motivating and quite fascinating. Our task was simple, we had to talk about anything normal people talk about to English learning Asians, but of course I eventually ran out of things to say. After attempting to explain the meaning of the word 'alien', I drew pictures to show the difference between a boogie board (which I spelled boogey) and a surf board. Nevertheless the kind Asian fellow across from me smiled and laughed and nodded to every thing the white devil had to say. We did get to do other things as well, like walk around Chicago, see 'The Bean', ride the bus and trains, walk through the observatorium (?), eat some genuine Chinese food, and Second City was out of sight. The show was hilarious. Top rate! And overall the trip was fantastic! Thanks Brad and Jamie, you two sure know how to show a good time.

Come to think of it, I don't really know how to put pictures in here... let me try this...

Hopefully that worked...

Anyway, good news everybody! Melissa was offered a temporary position as an H.R. administrator at "the Y" (which is the new name for the YMCA) where she has been interning for the last 8 months or so. She will basically be part of a 3-person team that is covering for the head H.R. lady, who is going on maternity leave. It's very exciting for Melissa, and she will start making $14 an hour, 40 hours a week, next Monday. Which is a huge blessing since I have yet to find a job yet... :( The lady who is going on maternity leave said that I should just go serve some where, but I was hoping to avoid that notion. Unfortunately, it looks like I am running out of options. I even applied for a movie theater job... :) Luckily, money has not been an issue for us yet, mostly because the garage door company gave me two weeks severance pay, which was pretty cool. Also I've already received two weeks worth of unemployment. It's not a whole lot of money, but it has really helped us pay all our bills and rent, which means we're completely covered till late next month.

In brighter news. I received a credit on my card for not cancelling it. You see, I got a new credit card, transfered the remaining balance from my old card and attempted to cancel it. The guy I spoke with was very convincing, something to the tune of $30. So I told him I'd keep the card till the next annual fee was due and cancel then. Melissa and I applied that credit towards a new cat condo! I know what you're thinking, "What a waste of money!" But so far the kitties like it, and it wasn't all that expensive. Hopefully these pictures are working, if so, here is a blurry image from my phone of the cats enjoying a good lounge in the penthouse of the condo.

O.K., enough about cats and jobs. I'm really deciding on what to do about my VBI classes. I still have not finished my final essay from the first class I took. Fortunately, it's a European grading scheme, so time is not a priority. But, I'm finding that writing papers is not one of my fortes. It can take me days to get through a couple paragraphs, perhaps I just edit too much or over think the whole process, but it's definitely hard for me to finish. The classes are close to $500 each or $200 with scholarship, but I told them that I was going to try to pay the full cost eventually, since the money goes towards keeping the classes alive. I just feel a bit inadequate, particularly with the papers. The class itself is awesome, I love reading the material and discussing it, I'm just not a profound writer... I have already missed the first day of the next class, and Bobby emailed me asking if we can hang out or if I know if God still wants me to go to VBI, so I need to make a decision. Maybe just pray that I can sort it out, and in a timely fashion.

Well, thanks Mom for reading all this (or whoever else was crazy enough to read this entire ramble) and hopefully Melissa and I will be seeing all of you very soon!

Love,

Daniel

A Cohen Brothers-Type Update

...Meaning it is in bullet form, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

• Last week, I turned in my 2 weeks notice (while simultaneously offering to teach an addition two weeks, making it veritably 1 month's notice). Instead of wishing me well, my boss gave me a typical Chinese guilt trip. This made me sad.
• I am now doing freelance work full time -- part of my time going to editing with McGraw-Hill (where I get $45/hr), the rest spread between:
• editing and contributing to the upcoming book The Process Report 2011 about the Rays,
• maintaining the Cubs Stats blog while working on our upcoming and yet-titled book (we hope to release it by the All-Star Break),
• completing the first draft of my labor of love, Scone the Rat, the novel I have put ~3 full years of labor into,
• continue writing on Homebody Abroad and submitting short stories and poems to contests,
• and completing a graphic novel script I am preparing to pitch to dad. I don't feel like he liked my idea when I initially mentioned it to him, so I building a base of research before I give him my second pitch.
• Things are going well with our church, Cornerstone. I sat in on a bylaws committee yesterday, which was kind of a bummer because everyone but me wants a traditional western church structure: the whole membership, voting, an-elder-trumps-a-deacon format. Oh well, not everyone can be Eastgate. :(
• Because my (technically second) Christmas grift to Jamie fell through (a Groupon for yoga), we used a gift certificate (and some hard-earned cashed) to purchase an XBOX Kinect and the game Dance Central. Both are amazing.
• In some pretty sad news, it sounds like about ~75% of our friends are allergic to cats. My dreams of becoming an old cat lady, well I guess "man," will have to wait until our (hopeful and eventual) return to Florida.
• It's starting to feel like: Us returning to Florida = Paul's intentions to visit Rome (i.e. talked about often, yet only accomplished post-incarceration).

That's all of which I can think.

I love you guys!

Sitting

I like sitting.  I realized that all the times that I'm not sitting I am counting down to when I can sit again.  I used to think my focus was always on food, but now I'm thinking that my focus is on sitting as often as possible and in the absolute most comfortable place I can find.

Here are some of my recent thoughts:

I really like stuff.  I like furniture stuff the best I think.  When I go to sleep I create a wishlist in my head of all the stuff I want- A bed frame, a square soft foot rest to go in the living room that has storage inside, storage organizers (not for anything in particular just to have in case I can find something to organize at home), tupperware, and chalk board paint.  I have to watch myself because I am constantly swaying over into materialism.

So right now in my life: Work is going really well and there is a good chance (but I don't have my hopes up) that I could get a promotion at work.  This promotion would mean a lot of extra work but would give me a raise, benefits, full time employment, and bossy privileges.   They keep putting off when they will open up the position, but that's good because I haven't polished my resume yet.

Matt is doing well at work.  He just texted me saying someone gave him a 10$ tip- I wonder where I can spend that...  He is in talks with Scott McCuchen about a job opportunity so if you want to be praying about that.  We don't know when that would start but he would quit the Marriott to work with him on a new business Scott's going to get going on (but I'll let Matt tell that story)

... I just painted a Kidsgate sign with colorful hand prints around it at Eastgate and that was fun and now I'm looking for other places I can add spice to.

Matt and I have a lot of fun trips coming up.  In March we're going to Islands of Adventure with Zach, Dayle, Leah and Thomas and  in April we're going to GA for Matt's Grandpa's 80th birthday.  We're also going to Gainesville in April for Ben Wallis' wedding and in May we're going to Maine for a week with the Greene's.

Okay, love you guys!! Thanks for keeping this thing alive

-Janelleeeeeee

Bored to death

I have too much time off. I don't do well with it.

In other news the planning for Italy is going along well. We're going to be gone for 12 days and two of them will be travel days. Here's a screen shot of my spreadsheet of our trip.





We've only got where we're going to stay in Florence figured out. Here's the link to the hostel in case you're interested.
http://www.florence-youth-hostel.com

I think I'm most excited about our time in Cinque Terre (Cheenk-kway tehr-ray.) It's a group of five coastal towns that have a hiking trail between all of them. They're small and cute and I can't wait! Apparently if you were to just hike straight it would be 5 hours, but we're going to take all day and stop in each town and explore. It just sounds cute and quaint and I can't wait.
If you're curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinque_Terre

Work has been slow. Here's a logo and letterhead I designed for my boss's hotel. (Yes, he just bought a hotel - they're super rich.) He's also planning a trip around the world with his family this summer. But he's nice and down to earth so I can't hate him. ;)



















Well, that's the latest. Hope you all are doing well. Love you lots!