Generous

I'm pretty sure I have the most generous family on the earth. My brothers came to visit last Friday. We came home from shopping (they had beaten us here) to see two cars in the driveway. One of those cars is ours now! It's a 2000 Corolla. My family had nicknamed it the Bondo, so we renamed it the James Bondo. James drives it to work, so I can use the 1997 Corolla however I please. My brothers not only drove that car cross-country for us; they gave us a new computer! It's a beast, especially when compared to the laptop that's 5 years old and falling apart. Because of those two purchases, there is a very good chance that we can be debt-free by next year. That makes me feel really good.

I finished scanning in ALL of my family's photos! Total count: 2,800. If you include all the photos I've taken digitally: 4,444. That's after deleting all the ones that weren't good and not scanning every single photo either. If I'd done that, those numbers would be double! I finished Brinson's wedding gift (a photo book), so now all I have to do is wait for a few last-minute photos from my Dad so I can finish a giant scrapbook for my family. Whew! I don't mind waiting on the mail, because I've been working a little too hard on this project (like 4 hours a day), so I could definitely use a break for a few days.

My schedule has opened up quite a bit, I guess you could say. My friend Chelsie used to come over every Monday, but she's moving. I've been over to help her a few times, but she is going to be gone by the end of the month. Perhaps I will start taking the kids to the library, even though it's Katie's morning nap. She is progressing toward an afternoon nap only. I actually attended playgroup today (for maybe the second time in a year) and had a great time. I need to get out more. I have no more excuses!

With most of the photo stuff behind me, I hope to put a little more energy into cooking, especially with vegan recipes. I really enjoy cooking vegan foods. Not all are complicated, but I do like adapting my old recipes sometimes. I like a challenge. Today's recipe that I made up is for white enchiladas, so we'll see how they turn out. I hope to eventually have a vegan version of most of the "fancy" recipes I used to make. So far, so good.

Aside from a good friend moving, I'd say life is pretty good right now. I'm grateful to have such generous parents and in-laws. If it weren't for them, we would probably have an additional 10-15K in debt, but we don't! Hallelujah!