Thursday, May 28, 2009

Really and Truly---I'm still here, but there's still no news from Tula




Hi everybody!
Thanks for all of the good wishes. We just still don't have any news from Tula. Apparently the head of the MOE is on vacation following the May holidays, and may not be back at work until sometime in June. (Nice vacation!)


That is not to say that nothing is going on here. We're ok, and mostly resigned to the "God's time" part of this for the moment. Our Sarah graduated from college a couple of weekends ago with honors (Magna Cum), and also (thank you, God) has a job. She's going to be the dietician for the WIC program. That's her with proud papa above---by the way, will somebody be kind enough to explain to me how to get the photos to show up anyplace but at the top of your post? Do you have to post the photos first, and then type? I can't get the photo to cut and paste once it's posted here on the screen! Sarah is off now with her roommate on a backpacking trip through Europe--fun! Makes me a bit jealous!

Last weekend we made the journey down to Little Rock to the Riverfest (fun! They had corndogs, alligator, funnel cakes, and Kris Allen sno-cones--red, white and blue!) We went especially to see the B-52's. They can still do an amazing concert! They sang "(Little) Rock Lobster" for their second encore. It was such fun, but we were TIRED the next day.
Right now, I'm working on doing all those things I said I would do when school was over. Mostly, that's clean and purge my house (and Kristine, there is WAY too much to take pictures of!) Most of my winter clothes, books to discard/repurpose, etc are on the dining room table ready to be moved someplace else. My office already looks better, but there's still a LOT to do. I'm determined, though---I'm going to make a huge dent in the chaos and extra "stuff"! I've got a bunch of Russian history books that are duplicates of ones that I already have (part of the joy of being a teacher is that you get "free copies" of books if you assign them for a class). If anyone is interested, I'll let you know. Perhaps I will post of picture of them, once they're all assembled.
The other BIG news is that I started on the Jenny Craig program around May 5. As of this last week, I have lost a total of 8 pounds. I am very happy about this, since it is something that I have control over--with Russia being out of my hands right now, it is good to have a "focus" that I can work on. Plus, I really need to lose some serious weight.
That's what's up for now---I'm sure that I've missed some details, but that's the important stuff. Thanks, all of you, for hanging with me--please pray that once the Tula MOE is back in business that we get moving soon!
Much love!