Updates All At Once

I feel like it's been awhile since I've updated . . . so here's what's been going on the past couple of weeks:

1. I am finally better after being sick and out of work for a week. I can't ever remember having been that sick! It took everything out of me. I still don't feel like I'm up to full energy, and I have a bit of a lingering cough . . . which is crazy since I got sick February 25th. It's some virus that has been going around here. Even the nurse is telling people that they'll be sick from 7 - 11 days with this. Fun.

2. Rebecca and David came up to visit last weekend (picture to come) and we had a good time of relaxing, watching foreign movies, hiking (which I really had no energy for) and many games of speed scrabble with questionable material.

3. I just spent probably a week and a half of data entry at work. I had to put in all the pledges from the Vision Dinners. It was super tedious and very time consuming. But Nancy down in the Fresno office, who would enter all the gifts after I finished the pledges for each city, was very encouraging, and was the best part of the whole process. She even sent me a card and bag of chocolate on the day I finished.

4. I had my sabbath on Wednesday. It was a really great day to rest and be refreshed. God is so good.

5. Last night some of us got together and made dinner together. I'd been wanting spaghetti all week . . . so it was great to finally have some. (Sadly, any time we have pasta here . . . the red sauce is always a meat sauce, so alfredo is my only option . . . and that's not my favorite).

6. I caught up on a bunch of stuff yesterday . . . like my taxes, a thank you note, paying my student loan bill, clipping my toenails, going through all the mail I had piled up, filing away a bunch of stuff, charging my phone, camera and i-pod, and figuring out my travel plans for next weekend. Ahhhh . . . . it was great. And can I just say . . . God is always so faithful to provide. I have a second student loan that finally kicked in this month . . . and I didn't know if I should just pay the minimum on that one as I am already taking significant chunks of out of the bigger one each month. But I decided to completely pay off the new one, as well as pay what I have been paying on the other one. I have never spent that much money at one time . . . and it's a little scary, but I did my taxes, and I'll be getting a $900 return . . . so that makes my 2 student loan payments a little easier to swallow. But I am thrilled to pay that much off this month! I am so excited to get rid of debt :-) It really does make me happy.

7. Today my old dorm floor is coming up here for their floor retreat . . . so I will get to see some dear Northstar people. It's also the Unite conference which means I'll see lots of familiar people this weekend. Should be fun.

8. In 6 days I will also get to see some of my favorite people in the world for a cabin weekend!!

9. And finally . . . my birthday is a week from today! (and little 4 year old Olivia who comes to visit me in my office, was appalled at the fact that I wasn't having a birthday party . . . and she said I could come over and she'd help me find some birthday candles).