My Living Room

I got a new ceiling fan and it's actually installed! I'm so excited. It was as good as getting a room painted. Before, there was a very old, ugly fan there, whose "globe" was broken and missing. Allister picked out the fan. I think he did a pretty good job. The only thing I don't like about it is that I wish it had more light on it. That room is pretty dark--no windows.

I thought I'd throw in a picture of part of our living room. I'm curious. I'm taking a vote. (I'll see if I can figure out how to put a voting poll on on blog. I'm not really planning on painting this room. The walls are like wooden planks (as opposed to paneling). Allister would KILL me if he came home and those walls were painted. So, anyway, I'm curious as to whether or not you would paint the walls if this were your house and your husband didn't care one way or another. I recently heard someone say that you can tell a lot about a person by what's in their living room, so there's my other reason for showing it to you. What's in my living room? A chest of toys, a basket of library books, some knick-knacks (not a lot--I'm not really a knick-knack person.), a tv, art and photos on the walls, fireplace, a stereo, lots of cds and a books, books, books. So, what does that say about me? I'm thinking that we can throw out the tv and fireplace since that's probably in just about every American's house. So, we have art, books, toys and music--kids, education and the arts. Yep, that just about covers it. I'm pretty boring.

So, here's what's going on in our neck of the woods. We've been hanging out with the neighbors a lot. And actually, they've been initiating it. It's kinda weird to me because I've gotten used to just seeing people occasionally and usually I have to initiate it. Monday night, we went on a double date with the neighbors. We ate at this restaurant in town that has it's own brewery. (This is the same neighbor that likes to drink.) He knows the bartender, so he LOVED it. They do have a honey pecan salmon salad that rocks my world. Then, we tried to go to this coffee/wine place, but it was closed on Mondays, so we went to another coffee shop (the one where we meet for church on Sunday nights), which happens to have alcohol (otherwise, I don't think he would have agreed to go there). His wife sounds really interested in going to the church that meets at the coffee shop. I think she might visit this week. Sunday night, we are going to have the group over for hamburgers after church. There should be a couple of extra people (at least) because Allister is having a musician friend come play with him.

We've got some new neighbor now. M's friend moved away and they are renting out the house to a family of 6. They have a 8 yr. old boy, 7 yr. old girl, 2 yr. old boy and a newborn boy. The dad is about our age (maybe a little younger) and the mom/stepmom is only 22. Yeah, 22. She just graduated from nursing school and has her first nursing job at the same hospital as Allister, but a different unit. So, anyway, I went down the street and met them yesterday. I would never do that if it weren't for my kids. When your kids want to play together, you have to meet the parents. It's a good way to know your neighbors actually. Knowing your neighbors can really come in handy. I like knowing the neighbors. So, anyway, today I was thinking about how cool it is that we know our some of our neighbors now and that God could use us to minister to them. I was also thinking about how God is actually using our kids, too, because we wouldn't have met most of them without the kids. That's really cool to think that God is using your kids. Even cooler than thinking God is using you.

Today we went to a factory that makes water bottles and cardboard boxes for a field trip with our home school group. My neighbor heard we were going to a bottling factory and thought that sounded really cool and asked me what they bottle. Ha. As if a Christian home school group would take their kids to the beer bottling factory. Please.