So I have 30 minutes to sum up everything that has happened since I last wrote (and I can't remember when that was). So this will not be a thorough update of everything you need to know about everything. It'll be as much as I can give in the short time allotted.
So Megan was sick as a dog on her birthday. That's about as depressing a thought as you can imagine. We think it might be some bad coleslaw she ate the night before. I can't think of a worse way to spend your birthday than throwing up. When we got up on Saturday morning, she was pretty much wiped out. I went to the store to get her some Alligator Helper, which I gave to her and closed the bedroom door so she could rest. About a minute later I heard her faintly call my name. She was so weak from being sick, she couldn't open the bottle. So physically, Megan was having about the worst birthday anyone could ever hope to have. I really felt bad for her.
Saturday, in addition to being Megan's birthday, was our niece Jane's baptism. All of Megan's family that lives here in the valley showed up for the baptism and we all went to the park and had a little picnic afterward. Some of the brothers-in-law and I got a game of Bocce (see also: boulles, petanque, bowls) going. Aside from Megan still feeling a bit under the weather (she did feel better as the day went on) it was a lovely day and a good time was had by all.
Paul and Carrie spent the night at our place (in separate rooms on opposite ends of the house) on Friday night. They were in town so Carrie could do a dress fitting and try some hair styles (Paul ended up borrowing my Dave Barry book to keep himself entertained that day). Anyway, I think it was funny that Carrie didn't stay with her brother because his kids were all throwing up and she can't stand to be around people who are throwing up. So of course Megan was throwing up all night and morning, which thrilled Carrie I'm sure.
Megan's car has been acting up lately and I officially need to stop thinking things that begin with, "Well, at least..." Because just last week when I was pondering our various financial troubles I actually thought, "Well, at least we aren't having car troubles." So now Megan's car won't start if she doesn't run it for a while first. So if she tries to run an errand, she has to plan on staying for an hour or so. It's a pain and I would let her take my car, but she doesn't know how to drive stick. So that's fun. I honestly need to sit down sometime and tally up all the things that have added to the degree of difficulty in our current predicament.
There is hope. Megan has been getting some more sub jobs and she got a call back from one of the jobs she applied to recently. She'll be doing a phone interview, which we're pretty sure is just a pre-screening, but it's more than we've had for a while. So there's still hope.
We've got our Christmas tree up, and it looks really nice. I bought a fake tree for the apartment last year and I'm glad I did. It fits our house a lot better than our apartment. Between Megan and I, we had just enough ornaments to decorate it. We have some presents under the tree. I know what all mine are because apparently I'm hard to shop for and it's easier if I just hand things to Megan and tell her it's something I want. Most of our gifts are coming from Bookman's where we have a nice chunk of credit built up from trading things in. So this will probably be mostly a secondhand Christmas. That being the case, we're far from the first couple to have a small and inexpensive Christmas their first time out. This will be my first time apart from my mission where I spent Christmas away from St. Johns.
Well, that's about all I can fit in that amount of time. I wish I could write more and do it in a non-stream of consciousness way, but whaddaya do? The end.