The Apartment

The day is still young and yet we have accomplished so much! After the walk we cleaned and put the finishing touches on our newly renovated apartment and, in my opinion, it looks great. After the last renters moved out about a month ago we decided the time to redo the flooring was long past. So, we made a family effort to lay new laminate flooring all throughout. Needless to say, it was a HUGE improvement to the former outdated carpeting. It is currently up for rent, but won't stay that way for long. Yesterday, three families came to see it all within a three hour time block! Before those three, on another day, an older couple came to see it. This older couple have been my favorite thus far, but that may be because mom was away when they came so the responsibility of showing the apartment to them fell upon me. I thoroughly enjoyed pointing out the apartment's strong features such as the beautiful large bay window and the lovely fireplace and the wonderful open floor plan, just perfect for having guests over. If the job market for Physical Therapists collapses I may look into becoming a Realtor! Anyway, here are some pictures of the finished product. I don't have any before pictures, but take my word for it, it was awful!
Anyway this one is of the living room, kitchen, and toward the left is the dining area.
Here we have the fireplace and very, very large closet in the living room.

This is one of the two bedrooms.

And the spacious kitchen which includes stove, refrigerator, and a dishwasher. Above the sink the wall is cut out for a wonderful view of the entire living room.

Otherwise today has been uneventful. After the apartment we spent a bit of time cleaning our own house and are now "on a break". As you can see, I have spent my free time wisely as usual! We are all excitedly planning for our Fourth of July camping trip out to my aunt and uncle's lake at Norris. It looks like most of the family will be there which is always something to be excited about!

Midterms

Today is a great day for rejoicing! After having had a beautifully long and restful night sleep I am ready to conquer the world. This morning started out with a lovely cup of coffee (always a good sign for the day) and a good chat with Mom and Ryan. They didn't pull in until 11:30 last night when I was deeply asleep so this morning was our first time seeing each other since last Friday and we had alot to talk about. As far as I can tell, their trip was a complete success. Dad even cleverly tricked Rachel's dad out of taking the bill for when they went out to eat. He told the waitress to give her dad a fake bill and my dad the real bill. In the end it worked out splendidly as the regular arguments over who gets to pay were avoided.

As for the rest of today, I am planning on leaving early for school to study with Melissa Heinold, one of the three Apostolics in the PTA program with me. She is such a sweet girl and if any one person were to have credit for my success in this class it would be her. She is a very good study partner and a lovely friend. Due to our diligent studying throughout girls camp I have every bit of confidence for this test. Never the less, prayers would be appreciated.

Girls Camp and Steve

Well, I must say, I have wanted to start a blog for a very long time now. I love to write! If I could pick any other career besides PTA and would be guaranteed a job it would have to do with writing. And, what better topic to write about than my own life? It took me a long time to get to the point of actually creating a blog because I was mainly worried that people would think that I am trying to get some kind of attention for sharing my life online. I assure any one who might be reading this that my main purpose of having a blog is to record the things that go on in my life in a place that I won't lose it. Well, anyway, I went ahead and created a blog despite that silly voice inside my head telling me not to.
I just returned from High School Girls Camp a couple of hours ago and it was unbelievable. Girls Camp is a church function where girls from all over the place (37 churches from 9 different states and 4 different countries this year to be exact) come together to the Old School Center in Farmington Illinois for three days of cram packed fun. It is such a wonderful opportunity to get to know other women of the Faith and worship with them. I can't help but leave feeling full of the good news of Jesus Christ and the love of the sisterhood that formed under His precious name! It was truly a blessed weekend!
As great as this weekend was, however, I am glad to be home. As I had discussed with one of my counselors at camp, I am a home person and I don't believe I enjoy any other place on earth as much as my home. Anyway, I had a certain someone waiting for me that I was very anxious to see. Steve is an orphaned white-tailed deer that had come into our live just a couple of weeks ago. He was found by Justin and Katie Herman who weren't able to keep him so they passed him on to us. Since then, I hesitate to admit, I have become quite attached to the little guy. It seems he has claimed my room as his den and me as his mom. As a result, I couldn't stop worrying and thinking about him for the past three days that we were apart. I know this sounds ridiculous as he is only an animal, but he was at the Sauders house and they have two "ferocious" huskies. Can you blame me for worrying? Well, when I arrived at their house and approached his pen I couldn't stop from picturing some horrible scene of him sick or dead. I called out his name and I was extremly pleased to see him bounding out of the tall grass toward me as fast as he could. He greeted me with such great enthusiasm that I actually felt my stomach fill with butterflies at seeing him. When we got home and walked in the front door, Steve ran around like the clumsy little buck that he is, glad to be where everything is familiar and safe. I'll admit I felt a bit like running and jumping myself. It is indeed good to be home. This is a little video of Steve a week or so ago.

The house is actually empty for the time being as Mom, Dad, Ryan, and Steven went to visit my aunt Rachel and uncle Sandor Davidovics in Rittman, Ohio, and Anni stayed at my Grandma's lake to hang out with the cousins. Now I must get going on studying. I have two big midterm's to study for and I do not feel in the least bit prepared.