You know it's been a while since your last blog post when your father-in-law, who is
The main reason I haven't posted is that I just haven't had too much to say! Life here in Hamilton has become very routine and I don't have too many fun or interesting stories to share. Also, I've been down and out with a nasty/cold/flu illness for the past week or so and have had zero motivation to do ANYTHING! Matt got sick a little bit on the weekend too and we had to rock-paper-scissors to decide who would go and make our eighth pot of chicken noodle soup. :) I do have to say a big thanks to my hubby for tackling the laundry though! We kind of have an agreement in our humble abode that I will take care of the laundry if he takes care of the garbages. Most would probably think he has the better end of the deal as his job consists of one trip down our 3 flights of stairs to put the garbage in the appropriate bins, while mine consists of 3 or 4 trips throughout the day... but I don't know if I've mentioned the maggots and mold and just general GROSSNESS that is the green compost recycling bin that sits under our sink... I would do 20 loads of laundry before I would touch that little green bin! :)
Matt has been ridiculously busy with school the past week or so and the next two weeks are gonna be pretty nutso too! The end of the semester has really snuck up on both of us I think. I am having a hard time comprehending that he is already at the end of his first semester of seminary! He has two pretty big papers due and then it will be exam week before it all wraps up on Dec. 14. Then he will have a couple days to recuperate around home before him and Eric get in the car for their trek to Alberta. He's not looking forward to the drive very much but I know he's really looking forward to spending time with family! I too am very excited to be going home for Christmas! It was really up in the air for a while, trying to decide whether or not it would be feasible and I'm soooo glad we are able to make it happen. I have been feeling pretty homesick for the past month or so and it's been great to have this trip home to look forward too. I was hanging in there until my second super close friend told me about her baby on the way... Nothing like having your two besties pregnant with their first babies and being 3000 kms away to help cause homesickness. :P I knew these times and moments would come... It's part of growing up and part of the joys of being married to a pastor-to-be/pastor. But I don't think I was ready for them to come so soon!
Last week I had the opportunity to help Matt with his seminary homework... Go figure, me his somewhat uneducated wife, helping him with his Graduate level school work. Well, when he came home and said that he had to make a poster complete with pictures and Greek words, I knew that I should probably help him out! :) He chose to do his poster on different animals so I spent time on google looking for pictures of animals that were present in New Testament bible times while he searched for the Greek wording for them. I then cut and pasted all the pictures onto cardstock and then arranged them on the poster... So pretty much I did the majority of the poster... :P Matt's only job was to copy the Greek words from his dictionary and print them off on the computer... Well, the other day he came home from school and I asked him what mark we got! :) Imagine my surprise to find out that after all the work I did on the beautiful poster, we were only awarded an 80%! I was quite shocked and appalled! :P So I asked him why we lost marks... and he tells me that his spelling of some of the words was incorrect! I then made fun of him and said "you're only job was to copy the words directly from the dictionary! And you did it wrong!?!" It was all said in jest and we both were somewhat amused by the whole deal. I think he was more amused at the fact that I even cared what grade we got. :) I haven't been able to help him with any more of his homework, but that might just be better for our marriage as I seem to take things a little too personally. :)
We have been hearing tales from across the country about the snow and wind and cold and crazy winter conditions... and quite frankly, we think you all must be exaggerating. We have yet to see a single snow flake fall from the sky here... Not a single one! So my brain cannot comprehend the fact that back home, there is a deep freeze. I know our time will come, and we will be whining about the cold weather than, but right now it's nice for us to just enjoy the balmy +10 degrees we've been having. :P Yesterday, I was driving up on the "mountain" (a.k.a the escarpment that runs through Hamilton that everyone refers to as a mountain... but really is just a glorified hill) and looking out over the city and it was a beautiful fall day and I wished I had my camera to take pictures to show you all.
I started my Christmas shopping this past week. I was at the mall the other day and it was PACKED! Could hardly find a parking spot, and had to wait in lines at every store. It made me glad that I started now. Along with my Christmas shopping stories comes a sad story though! I have been trying to listen and pay attention to Matt to see if there's anything I could surprise him with for Christmas. Now he's always complaining about being cold (which has nothing to do with the fact that I'm a little bit of a heat nazi who won't turn the heat above 15 in our house :) ) so I figured that slippers would be a great gift! I went and bought them yesterday and had them hidden in the back of the car until I would be able to wrap them. Well, tonight, Matt is sitting in the room freezing, and looks over at me with my fuzzy red slippers and says "I know what I'll add to my Christmas list... Slippers!!" And he starts logging in to facebook to post it on the Christmas lists for our families... and I panicked! And said "Ummm.... I don't think slippers are a very good gift to ask for" and he said "Why?" and apparently I lost my ability to think on the spot and just said "Ummm... maybe you just shouldn't ask for slippers"... This led to him figuring out that I had bought him slippers for Christmas so his Christmas surprise is ruined. :( So now I think he'll get his slippers a little bit earlier than planned! :)
Well, it turns out that when I get typing you can't really shut me up! :) But I think that's pretty much all that's new and exciting around these parts. Tomorrow night Matthew and I are headed out to a Christmas party that the Students Association at the seminary is throwing. I'm looking forward to it as I haven't really had the opportunity to meet anyone else from the school since I started working. Saturday I hope to get our Christmas tree set up and get this place feeling a little Christmas-y. Then next week I will be there to do what it takes to get Matt through his last couple assignments and ready for finals! What a fun time of year! :P
I/we hope you are all doing well and look forward to seeing some of you soon!
Much Love,
M & J
