be jubilee!

I moved! Yay! This was Kristi's birthday present to me, and it's hanging in our stairwell at the moment. Tomorrow's plan? A Wii party. We have no furniture in the downstairs - well, there's one bookcase - but that leaves plenty of room to canoe without smacking anyone or anything. Come visit! If you continue reading this post... you'll see that's a definite plus for me.

I also bought new rain shoes in Texas that are super-dute cute (but I can stand it). Last year, it was pink heels (which I still wear) and this year, it was blue plaid rain shoes. Much more grown up than my pink rain boots, and much easier to carry around if I need to bring a second pair of shoes with me, like when I'm pretending to be old.

Peru update - fundraising has gone splendidly. Thank you all for helping me out and praying for me and my team. I'll remind you before I leave (August 28) but all looks well. They increased our expected trip cost by $200, but you guys covered above what I asked and thus my savings will cover the increased cost. Thank you, thank you! On August 15 at 1:00, Veritas (my church) is having a Missions Lunch - I'll be giving a little 5 minute talk about my upcoming trip and a few other missionaries at Veritas will be talking too. This serves as your official invitation. No, I won't make you eat guinea pig.

I made this: Pesto Meatballs and Orzo Recipes - Pasta Main Dish Recipes - Meatball Recipes and it was tasty. I haven't made anything else spectacular in a while. I am craving some intricately-decorated something though. I'll let you know what I come up with.

Lastly, the reason that I just want to wrap myself up in protective gear/ bubble wrap/ why my 9-months-pregnant friend pitied me and suggested that I get a day to just recuperate... I have had a week of minor injuries. All of them fun to talk about, and none of them terribly painful (until today's.)
1. Last Thursday - I got stung by a bee. Or a horsefly. The last time that happened, Molly took me home from Kristi's soccer game - which means I was probably less than seven.
2. A week ago Friday - I walked to DQ for a Nerds blizzard (Calah, I thought of you) without socks. My shoes have over 500 miles on them - they should be broken in, right? No. The walk ended with a blister and me bleeding through my shoe. But the Nerds Blizzard made it home.
3. Later that day - I stepped on a teeny-tiny piece of glass. It came out, but I had to hop on one foot out of the crawl space, up the stairs, through the kitchen, and into the bathroom so that I didn't drip blood on the white carpet.
4. Today: I promised (emphatically) that I would catch my little swimmers' heads as they swam backstroke.
"DO NOT turn around," I said. "I will get your head if your head is going to hit the wall."
Swimmers 1 and 2: turn around about halfway down the pool.
Me: "What are you doing? I said not to turn around!"
Swimmers 1 and 2: giggle giggle. Oh, hey! Look at Swimmer 3!
Swimmer 3, in a dramatic change of events, is SPRINTING across the pool, head-first, aimed right at the wall with no shot of having an arm hit first, about three giant steps from me. I then SPRINT two of the three giant steps - slip on step 3, wonder in the air if I'm going to need mouth-to-mouth, land somehow on the corner of the pool, with my leg on something painful (the corner of the pool, I'm guessing), one hand blocking Swimmer 3's head from hitting (successfully, I might add) and my other arm sprawled on the other wall of the pool. If it hadn't been the corner, I would've been in the pool. 
I'm pretty sure I bruised my shin bone. The actual bone. Swimmers 1 and 2 immediately said "that's why WE turned around!" to which I grimaced a smile out and pretended not to care that my leg was stunned. It hurts to walk on it... but the swelling went down after I iced it. It currently has about a 6-inch red bruise line running the length of my shin, accompanied by small swelling (just iced) and hopefully, a deep blue bruise as of tomorrow. As much as it hurts, it would hurt me much more inside if it were this painful and showed no outward signs of it.
I don't think that will be too much of an issue.