Home Makeover - Lakeside Edition!

New showers! Up this point, the place I'm living at has only had two showers: one of which takes 15 minutes to get any hot water to it and the other which is an old cast-iron bathtub without much water pressure or dependable hot water. As thankful as I am for the place I live, I can't tell you how nice it is to have a dependably hot shower and a shower that doesn't require walking across the entire house and up a flight of stairs to get to. :-)

The one with the glass doors is what the other two that he'll be putting in will look like. It looks so sharp. He did a great job! The other one is the 'handicap' shower that we need to have. The entire room is a tile floor, with the wall tiled in one corner and a shower curtain (that's not up yet) to go around the shower area.

My housemate get's creeped out by it - not a 'real' shower - but I actually love it. But that's alright, cause he loves the other shower with the glass doors - the 'real' shower. So we're both happy I guess. :-)

Spring's In the Air

[I'm having a hard time concentrating on school work this afternoon, so I've decided instead to write several blog posts that have been on my mind. I'll spread them out so there should be a new one every two days or so for the next week and a half. Enjoy!]

Spring's coming! David, our Irish-American Liaison here at Lakeside (RE: house maintenance, gardner, and all-around handy man), pointed out a tree to me in the yard today. It looked like the edges of it were glimmering in the sun - like little droplets of water were hanging on the edge of the tree. It was flower buds!

Evidently, this tree's flowers come out before the leaves and is a good indicator of when Spring's coming. It's the picture above with the 'white' flower and the blury branches in the background.

Over the year's David's planted a grouping of white flowers in the shape of a swan - the symbol for Lakeside - that's coming up out in the front. You'll see it above in the pictures. As you might notice - and so did David - it may have lost it's head, so he might need to plant more.

Also, David's planted nearly 400 tulips around the compound and the leaves of those are coming up - so I can't wait till they're in bloom. Don't worry, I'll take pictures! Then there's the rose garden out front with 100 rose plants, the daffodils coming out already (in the pictures above), and the hyacinths. Spring here should be gorgeous!

On top of that, the weather's warming up and the sun's out a lot more - it's beautiful! :-)

A Day With People

From Photos for Blog

This is the group that was over for Settlers and the huge board. From left: Julie, Melissa, Daniel (that's how he looks normally, he's pretty sensitive about being teased for it :-), Seth, David, and Mary.

Yesterday was a blast! A long day and a day with a bunch of people throughout the day, but a lot of fun. In the morning, 6 friends came over and we played Settler's of Catan. We 'experimented' with putting two boards together for 7 of us to play. Crazy! Chaos! But, we still had a lot of fun! (Tip: If you ever try it, leave the goal at 10pts, 12 is almost/is impossible :-).

After the game, they hung around and we threw a frisbee and football around in the back yard. David just cut the grass on Friday. The fresh-cut smell was wonderful!

Around 3pm, another set of friends showed up and we did brinner (aka 'breakfast for dinner'). French toast, pancakes, bacon, eggs, fruit salad - it was amazing! :-) After that we sat around and played Uno for a while, watched the Pittsburgh vs. Philadelphia ice hockey game (there are three Canadians in our group so they were glad to get to see it). After that, we caught up on this week's episode of Burn Notice and then everyone headed home on the bus.

It was really a GREAT day! A lot of fun to keep getting to share this wonderful place with people and have them enjoy being here.

Well, I'm off to church in a little while. I'm doing powerpoint tonight, so I gotta go early and make sure that's all good to go.

Blessings and love to you all!

It Snowed, I Got Conned, and God Provided

It's been one heck of an end to a week. It snowed this week. I got conned and scammed last night to the tune of $863. God provided a free microwave, saving me £40. What a day!

God Provided
A few weeks back I burned a bag of popcorn in the microwave. It was so bad that the kitchen was filled with smoke and, after a week of scrubbing the microwave and using every internet how-to suggestion I could find, it still smells bad.

My mistake, I didn't feel right about asking JBU to replace it - although several people argued that they were going to need a new one anyway. It was my mistake and, therefore, my responsibility to shoulder the cost for the fix to the problem I created.

I meant to order the new microwave at the beginning of this last week. Typical of my procrastination, I kept putting it off. I planned to go into town this morning to pick one up.

Where God's provision come in was through Jim, my second housemate. He and his son had a house they were going to rent, but they've changed their minds and now are going to sell it. Inside that house, is a microwave they recently bought for it. Jim's going to pick the microwave up and donate it to Lakeside...and won't let me pay him for it.

I Got Conned
You know the old saying, 'If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is'? Well, if it sounds good (but not too good), you're probably talking to a con that's pretty good at their job. Which is what I spent an hour last night doing, but didn't know till after I'd hung up.

Long-story short, I bought a holiday package for Florida, having been told by Holly, Victoria, and Karen (sadly enough, I think Victoria was one of the few who knew they were involved in a scam) - that it could be returned within 30 days. Two mistakes: spending money I didn't really have and good intentions. The good intentions were that I had hoped it would enable friends and I to have an affordable vacation. The money I didn't have was...well, money I didn't have.

Having spent the hour asking the questions I thought I needed to to make sure the package was genuine, I Googled the company, after hanging up, looking forward to finding out about the good experiences people had had. Instead, the second thru tenth hit that came up - under the company's website, which was first - were all scam alerts. So, I immediately called my credit card company and called the scam/travel company back. I'm in the process of getting the money refunded....unfortunately, the company doesn't have a great reputation for refunding.

Thankfully, the Florida State Government has two laws that protect me: statute 559.933 and statute 501 - entitled 'Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices'. I'm not too worried. Between Bank of America's muscle and the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services, the refund should come back - hopefully sooner rather than later.

It's one of those days where I've become really thankful for government laws and regulations, such as these, to protect citizens. It's also got a fire burning in me to make sure people that run scams like this don't get away with it. Makes me want to go into government law. Argh!

It Snowed
Lastly, it finally snowed this week, which has been a lot of fun. It snowed late Wed. night and has stuck around since - although it's now a frozen sheet of ice. There's more storms coming in tomorrow, so maybe it'll stick around for a while. We'll see! :-)

TV Commercial from here

Today's a long day of cleaning the kitchen - oh, and I've got two more bedrooms to fix up because of more people added this morning. I'm taking a lunch break and this commercial came on TV. I thought it was both very European and fun, so thought I'd give you a taste for TV over here. Enjoy!

Pictures

Bedrooms and bathrooms are cleaned and ready for the group, so all that's left is cleaning the kitchen tomorrow. It hasn't had a good cleaning since we moved in, so it'll be a full job tomorrow, but no worries.

Realized I hadn't posted these pictures from my recent trip to England - the archives, Kew, and London - so here you go. :-)

From Kew & London Trip Jan 2009

One of the first things that caught my attention when I landed at Stansted was this beautiful little stand in the check-in area. Krispy Kreme has great memories for me - from a dad who would bring them home as a special treat to an aunt and uncle who would buy them for us when we were on furlough from Kenya. They weren't the same as the US, but they were sure good!

From Kew & London Trip Jan 2009

From Kew & London Trip Jan 2009

This is where I spent Tues, Wed, Thur, and Fri. all week. The largest and most efficient archive in the world - but still, after nearly 40 hours of pouring over documents, you're still glad to to leave in the evening.

From Kew & London Trip Jan 2009

This is one of the streets that I would walk back to where I was staying at in Kew. A really beautiful and cool little town/village.

From Kew & London Trip Jan 2009

This is #11 High Park Ave where I stayed. A 100 year old Edwardian house owned by a lady who has two teenage kids - really nice family and a good experience.

From Kew & London Trip Jan 2009

The Starbucks in Kew - the first morning I was in town was the day of the US election, so I popped in here for a morning cup of tea and a newspaper.

From Kew & London Trip Jan 2009

Saturday morning I went into London a few hours before I needed to catch my bus back to the airport and walked around the Regent Park are for a while. Came across this hotel, simply called 'The London'. Anything that can name itself that has gotten to be a really expensive, posh place. Looked really nice from the outside. :-P

From Kew & London Trip Jan 2009

Before heading to the airport, I walked around Regent Park. A beautiful park, built mostly in the first half of the 1800s, but finished up in the 20th century. This fountain was in the middle fo the park and caught my eye. I'm sure in Spring the park is gorgeous with flowers and trees in bloom.

Mini-ERP

(These are pictures of the five rooms that are ready for the group this weekend. We're ready to go! :-)

I spent the day today cleaning rooms and making beds. Brought back great memories of last June and ERP, JBU's Early Registration Program they host every summer. Three days of making 400 beds with a great crew of friends. Man, what a great time! ERP and the events last year were the best part of my job - although the long 15-18 hour days wore me out, I did them because I loved it and it was worth it for me. But, never could have done any of them without the team of students and staff that I had to help me. Would have loved their help today! :-)

I only had 5 rooms to clean and ten beds to make, so it was a totally manageable day. Although, I certainly would have loved to have any or all of the team around. Last year I had the opportunity to work with an incredible team of students from all over the country, with all sorts of personalities, and strengths. It was a great year and they were a great team.

Most days I realize that education is a better place for me to be financially and career wise, but most days I also struggle with the huge desire to just go into the hospitality sector for life. Run a hostel, a B&B, or a guest house - there's so much that I love about hospitality and jobs that are centered around this kind of work and service.

Most days I dream about retirement and the chance to do something like this. What an incredible opportunity it would be to raise a family in a setting like that. It's kind of exciting. :-)