when you get exciting that you only lost $300 in the stock market in the past 24 hours.

I was just listening to Rebecca St. James and Todd Agnew sing “Our Great God,” and it just reminded me how thankful I feel right now.

We’ve had a ton of bills lately with the new table (we outgrew the old one), computer (it died), washer and dryer (they were dying together), computer, midwife, doula, tuition, and visits from family. God has provided a lot of money to meet those bills. I mean a lot. Close to $10,000 in the last three weeks. (I broke a Black Friday sales record and received my overload pay from teaching all in the last three weeks.) That almost covers everything (yeah, they add up). What would normally have been a stressful time has not been that bad.

I have a beautiful new son. The birth was incredible. It couldn’t have gone any more perfectly. The doula was incredible when it came to supporting Rachel. The whole time Rachel was in labor, I kept thanking God for her. The midwife was great too, but let the doula pretty much handle things.

My daughter continues to grow in her relationship to Christ. She amazes me sometimes.

I’m glad to be in a church where we can chant, receive communion every week, feel loved, and our children can commune. We’ve actually been able to develop a relationship with a fellow congregation member (though in its early stages, it’s nice to be able to connect to someone other than the pastor and his family). The lady is a bit older than us, but her youngest son is close to Kyrie’s age.

My class this semester will be taught by Reggie Kidd, and it’s on my favorite subject. How great is that? I’ve been able to finish most of the books (I saved the best ones for last, so woohoo).

I’ve had off of work for three straight days. I don’t think I’ve had more than one day in a row off since August (and even then I was usually working on my day off). It’s been a time of healing and rest (though I must say I am wiped out from all the work I am doing–but it’s different work, so in a big way, it’s restful).

We have family coming to visit. Forrest and Rebekah will be here in less than two weeks. The Enloe family also plans to come by. Mommy and daddy plan on coming in February. It will be so nice to have company again, and it’s nice to have a table that will fit everyone (tightly though!).

I love how all of our close friends’ families are growing. Exponential growth is nice when it involves friends.

We are planning to stay our entire summer in Spokane, if possible. Actually, it would be nice to just move up there, so maybe a job can fall in our laps (pretty please!).

It’s Advent. The long green season is fully over.

Oh, Lord remind us once again of your wonderful works. Hallelujah! Glory be to our great God.

I like krumping and clowning. Everyone makes fun of me for this, but I think krumping is incredible. I like to watch rap music performed. It’s captivating. I can’t listen to the stuff if I can’t see it being rapped.

FACT: The Office is great this year. I’m so excited it is a Thursday. My co-worker (who thinks I’m like Stanley) bought me some cheap Dwight sticky-notes. They say “Information is Power” and have a picture of Dwight. They’re awesome.

The Scrubs premiere is tonight. The previews look musical. The musical Scrubs are my favorite. I’m hoping.

I’ve already made too much money this year to get an Earned Income Tax Credit, which means our refund is going to be sad and pathetic. This makes me very sad. I was hoping a second child/new child would give us a big refund.

When I woke up this morning, Kyrie was sleeping with her head and chest on her bed and her feet on the floor. It was hilarious. She ends up in all sorts of weird positions by morning. She’s like her mother.

I’ve read six books this week, graded five sets of essays, and gotten to bed before 1 AM every night. I am hoping to finish one more book tonight, grade a set of essays, and get to sleep before midnight (but let’s face it, Conan runs long on his monologue a lot of times, or the guest is just too good).

One more week of less busyness.

That is all.

Apparently Ebay was hacked, and while Ebay is saying that no credit card info got out, the hacked posted the cc info with the verification codes.

Check out the forum discussion.

The media isn’t on this like it should be; I had to hear from a colleague who was reading a German news magazine.

Ever since we have lived in Monroe, we have had problems with one of our banks (Capital One, formerly Hibernia). They drive me freaking insane.

I checked our balance since I’ll be going on a trip, and I noticed our account said we had $80 less than I had in my ledger. Normally it’s the other way around as we wait for things to clear. I looked through the recent charges when all of a sudden, at the very bottom, I noticed FIVE overdraft charges for $32 each. I saw that I had deposited $3,000 from our other bank account the day after the overdrafts, so I had to ask myself if I was trying to cover up a mistake. Reassured that I really was just transferring money, I looked further.

Then I saw another deposit for $1,050. It made no sense because I hadn’t had any deposits for that amount. When I went to the second page, I saw it. Right before the five overdrafts, they had deducted our rent TWICE. Then they tried to cover it up by putting the $1,050 back (two months rent; don’t you love how cheap it is here?), but they didn’t credit back the five overdraft charges. UGH! What a bunch of punks. PUNKS. Needless to say, I’m not very happy since I only have one day off to sort this out before my trip, and the bank is just plain stupid. Rachel made up a dialogue to my future conversation with them:

Bank: Well, you did go over the balance.
Rick: Well, that’s YOUR fault.
Bank: Well, regardless…you were over the balance.

Woohoo! Now if only Louisiana didn’t make me pay them another $25. Meanies. At least we’re getting a measly federal refund. We should definitely have another kid. I don’t think we’ll make it for this tax year. Oh well

Last day of the semester. Papers are more than half graded.

Car is in the shop…again. I think I need a new Mass Air Flow Sensor. Hopefully, that will fix my acceleration problem, and we’ll have no problems on the way to Tulsa. We’re hoping to drive to Tulsa this Sunday. Snow needs to melt off the roads. If we get to Tulsa, everything will be fine.

Our car has been faithful, but we’ve had to make repairs over the last month that have been way too much. We’re hoping to wait it out until spring before we get a new vehicle. Fortunately, we have about $1,000 more left in our bank account than we normally do after paying all our bills…and it’s December, so I’ll be getting $4,000 or so after taxes in the next two weeks after being paid yesterday. The university needs to get a more normal pay schedule.

I met an actor, Ed Nelson, on Wednesday. He lives around here. Why would anyone want to live around here? He’s done way too much stuff.

I’ve forgotten way too many quatoable things this week.

Faculty Christmas party is this weekend. I hope they have some good wine, so I can be a slosh (that one’s for you, Rachel W.). And while, I am mentioning you, I should tell you that you need to cut your post length in half because I always save long posts for later, so I’m about 27 posts behind now.

We have way too much food at our house to eat before we leave. Most of it is meat, so I guess that’s okay.

It’s World AIDS day again.

Take a moment to pray for those suffering from AIDS, and especially pray for the church in the world, especially in Africa, as it ministers to those who suffer from AIDS.

Rick’s working at Sears right now. I miss him. He’ll be home around 9:15. Kyrie’s napping. The house is very quiet. It’s not completely clean, so I could definitely make myself useful and get that taken care of, but I am feeling sick from this silly cold, so I feel justified to sit here and waste away in front of the enchanting glowy screen of the computer monitor. I like playing arcade games online. It sort of makes me feel like a loser, but at least I’ve gotten that out. I feel better now. Rick did a very nice thing for me today and took me shopping and bought me a leather jacket. I’ve wanted a leather jacket for years, but they’re quite expensive. It ended up costing just over $70. It was originally $199.99 and was 60% off, plus we used another coupon. I still feel like it was a lot of money, but I do like it. Also, I’ll be playing a concert on November 11 which will cover more than double what it cost. That makes me feel a little less sick to my stomach. Also, plane tickets are purchased, so that stress is entirely gone. There are other financial needs, but God continues to graciously provide (and my husband continues to work!) and day by day, everything is taken care of and more. I’m really thankful for that. It’s a beautiful, sunny day. It’s just about the perfect temperature. I need to read more. I love reading but I don’t really have the motivation to do it. My favorite time to read is around bedtime, snuggled under the covers. I really need to just grab a book from Rick’s office upstairs and start reading it. That’d be fun. Part of me wants to start selling things, maybe books, on ebay and make a little extra cash, but the other part of me thinks that’s too much of a hassle and there’s no guarantee I’d end up with any profits. I used to blog about theology and then I got excommunicated. I wonder why I don’t blog about theology much any more…
Well, first of all, I guess my life is a lot different. I really find myself wanting to talk about my ridiculously gorgeous daughter with the adorable personality that creates all sorts of bloggable moments throughout the day. She’s also quite photogenic and I’m sure people would rather see pictures of her than read boring theological posts. Besides, as much as I love theology, I’m more interested in charity, unity, compassion, etc. I guess that comes from my theology, though. Huh.

I spent $72.07 on groceries today. They should last over a week. They also included non-food items such as dishwasher detergent, bathroom tissue, and soap. So do you think I did I good job or a bad job? I have no idea what the normal family of three spends on groceries.

I came up to the school to do my usual checking of mail, blogs, etc. and completely forgot about the pictures I have on the camera. One of these days I’ll get ‘em posted.

I saved a bunch of money grocery shopping by simply writing out a complete menu of all our meals and shopping accordingly. I was surprised to see what a difference it made! Now, if we can just stick to the plan…we’ll start saving money every month on food. That’s a very good thing.

Kyrie’s happy. She got Cheerios today (we had been out for a while and she was eating peas instead, which she likes, but you know). She’s currently tearing up Rick’s office so I’d better cut this short.