Tonight, Kenny and I finally broke down and brought home seven new friends to share our house with.  Six tetras and one algae-eater.  Fish, if you are a little behind on your lingo.  The tetras are little but gorgeous and we just wanted to have something pretty to look at.  We wanted to get a pet but seeing as dogs are a little high maintenance for this point in our lives...we decided on the easy to manage fish.  This is what they look like:  (It's impossible to get pics of the real little guys....they're just too dang fast!)

We have three of this guy... 



And three of this guy...


And an algae-eater that I can't find a decent picture of because they're are too many varieties.

So it'll be nice to have them to watch when all else fails....hopefully they make it through the night.  But if they don't, we've got a 72 hour warranty.

In other less silly news, Kenny has orientation for his first year of grad school tomorrow.  This means that he is back to work and I am back to being home on my own.  But that's okay, I think I'll get by.  After all, I do have another quilt to make.  I bought the fabric with my sister-in-law this weekend.  The weekend was great.  Kenny's brother and his wife and kids came for the weekend.  Nothing like a house with three kids running (or crawling) around like crazy.  I got to have my girl time with my SIL  and she got to have some girl time without the kids!  Overall, a great time was had by all.  Although I must admit...I am kind of sad to miss the Cedarfest fireworks this year.  Oh well, I love it here!

After a very long of Saturday of cleaning, packing and some unpacking, we're kind of half-settled in at the house.  We have a lot of work to do yet, but it'll get done and we'll be settled enough before Kenny starts school.  It's so nice to have a place of  your own.  A place that you can make what you want it to be.  Up till now, I have always lived in a rental.  It's so nice to be able to paint the walls now!  I can't wait to get to the point where I can actually decorate more.  I have plans for making curtain for pretty much every room in the house (the ones that are here were homemade...but you can tell.  Uneven seams, uneven lengths...drives me crazy).  It's also really nice to have Kenny home all day with me.  It's only been two days since he finished his job but I'm already just thrilled to have my man home with me all day, every day.  I haven't had this luxury since Christmas...and that was just a few days.  I love that his school is on quarters.  He'll have all of December off.  

This weekend begins a difficult task for us - finding a new church.  We have never really enjoyed "church shopping" because we find multiple wrong places before we find the right one.  Pray for us as we find a new place of fellowship.  This is a real burden on my heart right now.  I want to find a good church that we can get involved in, grow at, and that has people who are at the same basic point in life as we are.  It's hard to go day after day with no other person who understands what it's like to be in your shoes because they are there right now, or at least have been very recently.  We shall see what the Lord brings across our paths.  For now, I just pray for guidance.

I hope you all are enjoying the last part of your summers, as I know that most of my friends who read this are students. Much love!

Like many, many other people (record numbers of other people as I have been reading), I saw The Dark Knight this weekend.  It was a very well made film and it was also very powerful.  In the midst of an action movie you have the exploration of what it means to be a hero (seriously now, not the glossy way Spiderman kind of did it) and how beastly people can be when all the chips are down.  Hands down, it was an ensemble cast.  Yes, Heath Ledger was the biggest presence in the movie, he had to be for that character to work.  But each character worked in perfect sync with the others creating not only a realistic feeling to character relationships but when things happen to different characters, it rocks everyone.  Christopher Nolan did a wonderful job directing and he and his brother wrote a really thought-provoking (yes, I just used that word in reference to a Batman movie) script.  From the minute the Joker appears, the feeling of chaos and dread just pervades the script as people are starting to crack.  Any scene with Batman and the Joker talking to each other....wow, just wow.

The standouts (I use the term loosely, see my comments about ensemble above):  Heath Ledger and Aaron Eckhart.  Yes, Christian Bale and Gary Oldman (whom I personally have come to admire as an actor after seeing different examples of his work) were great as always.  But these two newcomers to the franchise really surprised me.  Heath Ledger scared the crap out of me at every turn.  The Joker was very well-developed and it was clearly that all he wanted was to turn the world upside down.  Aaron Eckhart was a pleasant surprise.  He played DA Harvey Dent, a man of high morals and a high sense of justice who is not afraid of the mob, as genuine.  It is so hard to play a part that is that almost perfect in character without coming off as either cliche or fake.  Eckhart did it and that makes the events later in the movie even more powerful (if you know Batman lore like I did going into it, you know what happens to Dent).  As a side note, I was also very pleased with the change of casting concerning the character Rachel Dawes.  Maggie Gyllenhal (sp?) played her with the strength of will and mind that was always lacking in Katie Holmes' portrayal.  Plus, she is just simply a better actress.

Overall, I admire the work everyone did on the movie and it was wonderful.  But I can't say I enjoyed it, and if you really pay attention to the deeper levels of the movie, you probably could say the same.  The action is great but it's good to see filmmakers who actually want to explore human nature, even in a summer blockbuster.  This movie deserved to set records this weekend and deserves to win some awards too.  However, I will only be seeing this movie once a year.  Emotionally, I don't think I could handle too much more than that.  I know these thoughts are really vague but I don't want to ruin the movie for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.

What did you think of the movie when you saw it?

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On a personal note, Kenny and I are getting ready to move this coming weekend.  I am so excited!  It has been so hard staying weekends at the house working on it and then having to come back to this apartment.  His family is coming up from Tennessee to help and see the house.  I have so much cleaning and packing to do yet but I haven't even started.  I'm also have a small job of hemming a bridesmaid's dress for a friend before I move.  The kitchen at the house isn't finished yet but the walls are completely painted.  That's a big step in the right direction.  I am so excited for this next step.  I can't wait to see what God has in store.

If someone wrote a story about my day today, it would probably be called "Adventures with Vertigo."  All night I tossed and turned because the room wouldn't stop spinning.  Then I woke up this morning and between feeling dizzy and nauseous and awful, I called Kenny and he came home to take me to the doctor.  It didn't take long for the doctor to tell me what the problem was.  Apparently, my allergies have been really bad this year, not that I've noticed.  I have fluid problems in my semicircular canals in my ears (the things in charge of balance).  The vertigo comes from my brain being confused because my canals are all screwy.  His solution to this....a shot in the "upper thigh" (new experience let me tell ya....burned like the dickens) and medicine commonly prescribed for motion sickness.  Yay!  The best thing about this is having Kenny home all day and being able to sleep for a few hours (the antihistamine in the shot knocked me out).  Yeah...quite the day.

The landlord is replacing the roof right now.  Why he didn't wait till we move out at the end of the month when he'd have a few weeks before the new tenants move in, I don't know.  But this constant hammering is getting annoying.  We're going to the house this weekend to hopefully finish painting the kitchen.  So excited!  We have only three weekends until moving day!  Yay!

Hope you all are doing well! Much love!

I feel like I'm in a sort of limbo.  I cannot begin to describe the feeling of loneliness I feel during the day.  Don't get me wrong, I love being a housewife.  But lately, I've not had any decent human interaction.  What I really need is a girl's day...a day to go out and forget about this apartment and just sit and have meaningful conversation with a good friend.  Part of not having that is because I am ashamed of this apartment so I haven't been inviting people over.  But even when we move to the house, I'm afraid that I won't be able to make any real friends.  I have this habit of making friends with people who need me.  I want to help people, nurture them and oftentimes that means that after a while, I become the opposite of a fair-weather friend, the kind of friend people only come to when things get rough.  Please don't think that if you are my friend that this is the case with you.  I'm just kind of spilling my guts here to get it out of my head.

Last night, I stayed up crying my eyes out because I am terrified of moving on to the house.  That I won't be able to make true friends.  My only real hope in making friends is to find a good church, because I won't be able to get a job outside of home because we only have one car.  I don't know, I know most of this doesn't make sense.  I guess I just want to feel like I'm doing something with my life.  I do things now, my housework and sewing and my walks, but I feel like I'm not doing things that matter.  And I know all those things do matter because if I didn't do my housework it would burden Kenny and it is a pleasure to make a relaxing environment for him to come home to after a long, hard day at work.  But I'd love to make friends who understand where I am in my life and we can strengthen each other's walks in the Lord.  I'd love to get involved in a good, strong church again...I miss ministry so much it hurts. 

Right now, in this limbo stage, every day (with the exception of when my fantastic husband is home) feels empty.  Well, as empty as it can feel when the Lord is by my side.

I know none of this makes a whole lot of sense and I don't really expect anyone to read it.  I just need to get it out there.  I needed to type it out and see the words in front of my eyes.  I guess it's my way of facing my fears and my heartache.

God has me in this stage of life for a reason and He will lead me out of it.  I just have to remember to rely on Him to get me through and provide the things that are best for my life following Him.  It can just be so hard sometimes.