Ask and ye shall receive

Remember this post I wrote last September? Well, in the time since I wrote down my Christmas list I have gotten five of my six wishes. Imagine! If you would have told me the results of my list four months ago I'd never have believed you. Here's the wishes that have been fulfilled and how long after I posted the blog I received them:

• #4. Warm water for my showers - electrician came to fix the heater a week and a half later
• #3. Books - found large supply at the Cradle of Love apartment a 30-second walk from my cottage mere days later and discovered a fairly good bookstore in Arusha a month and a half later
• #2. A safari trip - went on one with three other volunteers three weeks later and another this month
• #1b. To see my family - traveled to Cairo, Egypt during Christmas to visit Bryn nearly three months later
• #1a. To see Jonathan - he randomly and very surprisingly showed up in my office three and a half months later

I am so blessed. Jonathan surprised me by traveling all the way from snowy Maine to burning Tanzania for two weeks. We went on a two-day safari before he whisked me off on a trip to the coast and Pemba Island in the Indian Ocean. And there he proposed! So, in four more months wish #1a will again be granted and I'll get to see Jonathan again. And at a yet-undecided date this summer I'll be privileged enough to be able to see him for as many years to come as God sees fit to give us together. I'm hoping it's decades!

(Because of the five granted wishes, I'm almost wondering when wish #5, the trampoline, will arrive :)

Wishes fulfilled

Who knew, when I wrote down my Christmas list a few weeks ago in the blog post below, that I'd get two of my wish-list items more than two months before Christmas Day! About a week and a half after writing the list an electrician came to the campus and worked on my shower so now I have warm water.  Yay, it's so nice to at least have the option of a warm shower! And then, this past weekend, I was able to go on a three-day safari with three of the volunteers at Cradle of Love Baby Home (which is located on the ADRA campus). It was a wonderful experience, but I won't write about it on here. If you want to know more, you can click the link above or check out some pictures on Facebook (but be patient with that...the internet here makes posting too many pictures pretty difficult so it might take a few days to get all the pictures I want to post up on Facebook). I still can't believe I actually went on safari. Now, I wonder which of those other items I'll get in the near future... ;)

Christmas List

It's a tradition. Every year I start my Christmas list in September. I've been doing it for as long as I can remember writing out my own Christmas list. My methods have changed through the years (from paper and pencil to computer with word processor) but the outcome is still the same; a list packed with things I'd like (clothes), I'd love (books), and I definitely don't need (a trampoline...seriously, I write it down every year). I guess I really don't NEED to write down my list of wants and wishes anymore; my close friends and family members know me well enough by now to have a pretty good handle on what I'd appreciate for presents. But I just can't help myself. Like I said, it's tradition. And I love [most] traditions.

What's really weird is that if I haven't started a Christmas list by around September 25, something inside me just starts feeling just a little off. And this feeling compels me to once again write a list. So today I started my 2010 version. But this year the start of my list looks a little different:

1(a).  To see Jonathan
1(b).  To see my family
2.  A safari trip
3.  Books
4.  Warm water for my showers
5.  Trampoline

Yeah...some things never change :)

Top 5

Several summers ago, while driving home from a quick work-related trip to Vernon, a city 40 minutes to the north, my brother Tyler and I started talking about our favourite things. We each tried to narrow our lists into a Top 5 after establishing some ground rules (mainly not being allowed to include things like air, food, water, etc. or ideas like freedom that nearly every human being appreciates). This was solely based on the unessential items we love, not the necessary ones.

This weekend my siblings and I went camping with three of our friends. Yesterday, while we were sitting around the campsite talking, Ty and I brought up our Top 5's. I'm pretty sure our original lists had at least a couple favourite food items on them, but not anymore. Here's Tyler's current list. And here's mine:

1. Wind
2. Bodies of water (large enough to swim in: rivers, lakes, oceans)
3. Mountains
4. Books
5. Aurora Borealis/Lightning (too close to just pick one)

So, what's your Top 5?

Orange list

It's been my absolute very favouritest colour since I bought my first orange item with 15th-birthday money. Before that I liked green but, because that has been my mum's favourite colour since she was a little kid, I wanted something more unique, more individual. And so, my post for today is devoted to thinking of and naming all the orange items that reside alongside with me in my apartment. Ready for the list? Here we go!
-jacket
-sweatshirt
-a pair of Smartwool socks
-three T-shirts
-toque
-fuzzy Walmart blanket
-furry Walmart pillow
-tea towel
-oven mitt
-toaster (which is still yet unused since it's made a burning smell every time we've tried it)
-colander
-mixing bowl
-plastic stirring spoon
-plastic spaghetti server spoon
-measuring spoon set
-shampoo & conditioner (no, I did not buy them simply because of their colour, although that did have just a little bit of sway between two different types of the same brand)
-toothbrush (my mum put it in my stocking this Christmas)
-three pens (two write in orange and the other writes in black)
-notebook
-several push pins
-a used gift ribbon that adorned my Christmas gift from Jonathan

There's probably more stuff but that's what I can think of at the moment. That's a pretty hefty list of orange stuff. Call me eccentric if you will, but having orange stuff around makes a person feel pretty cheery. Try it sometime.