It's always Autumn in England

Christmas trip

autumninengland — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 01:47:24 +0000

I realise that I kinda disappeared from the blogging world. To some extent that has been purposeful. I’ve missed it. I’ve also had a lot going on, and several things in life have been frustrating and I haven’t wanted that to take over my blog. I’ve been journalling (yes, with a notebook and pen) again a lot more. This has helped me get some of my thoughts in order and I feel a little more like if I decided to blog about them, they would be less of a rant and more thoughtful for the sake of my readers.

Anyway, moving away from that subject, but don’t worry, I will come back to it at some point…

Evan and I are going to Kenya. To Nairobi and surrounding areas in December/January. We need to book tickets this weekend, but we plan to leave December 26th and return January 10th. This came up at the last minute, because there was a trip going and several people cancelled, so my boss asked Evan and I to go.

It will be a great trip. E91 currently supports a couple of projects in Kenya, and we will get a chance to see two of those. We will also see a number of other projects that we do not currently support, and so this trip is a number of things for E91. It is a chance to see the outcome of some of the money we have sent over, and a chance to consider new projects.

Here are two things I am excited to see:
The CMF Hope Partnership -this is work taking place in the Mathare slums in Nairobi. An area of less than a square mile with more than 1million people living in extreme poverty.
The second is a remote village, Mbita, that will take a day of travel to get to, but there is a school and orphanage that E91 gave $1500 to renovate the school for the children. These kids were sitting on a dirt floor, getting bitten by bugs day after day, just so they could learn. Simply giving $1500, they were able to put in cement floors, so the bugs can no longer get in through the dirt and each child now has a desk and chair to sit at while they do their work. The school was also able to build a kitchen to provide better meals for the children. We now want to establish a way for them to become more self-sufficient by providing a chicken coop and chickens for the eggs that they can eat and sell to other local villages.

Evan and I need to raise around $3500 for this trip. We are also taking over childrens tylenol and vitamins for the orphanges we will be visiting. I am excited. Not just because Kenya has been on my ‘to visit’ list for a long time, but because I have been hearing about these projects for the last 18 months, and I can’t wait to see them first hand. And now, I definitely want to get a Digital SLR Camera for Christmas! Hopefully, I can save enough before we leave to buy one!

blog slacker

autumninengland — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 12:25:55 +0000

I haven’t blogged for a while, and I have missed it. I’ve thought about it, logged on, and it just never went any further. I have found a new time waster, and if you are my friend on Facebook, you what what it is: www.mylifeisaverage.com Three days running, I have laughed until I had tears in my eyes. They aren’t all funny, but when you find one that is…

Also, next Thursday, 5th November, is Bonfire Night in England. Evan and I are going to have a party to celebrate, with lots of English traditions (or at least as many as I can come up with). If you live around here, please feel free to join us, we will start around 6pm. We will have snacks, but you might want to eat something before you come.

Birthday Bash

autumninengland — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:50:13 +0000

Last Wednesday I celebrated my 28th Birthday. I grabbed a few friends and family and headed to Dave & Busters. Go HERE for some fun pictures of the evening. Thanks to everyone who came, I had a great time hanging out with you all!

Kaiden update

autumninengland — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 01:50:25 +0000

Saw an update on Evan’s counsin’s facebook. Her 2 month old Kaiden has been in ICU for 2 weeks, but they got good news today!

Kaiden Update: They retested Kaiden for RSV…he has CLEARED… However, he is still on the vent…and their hope is for him to come off hopefully by Monday. We will see… will keep you all updated. Thank you all for your prayers and support. ♥ We love and appreciate you all.

OH MY WORD!!!!

autumninengland — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:20:58 +0000

Is it wrong to pray to win a competition? I am seriously about to pass out at the possibility of winning this scrapbook storage system:

This is called The Workbox and can be found on The Original Scrapbox website: http://www.theoriginalscrapbox.com/

One of the blogs I read on a regluar basis is running a comptetition to win one: http://lifeaslou.blogsome.com/2009/09/28/who-wants-to-win-a-workbox/

I don’t have time right now to enter the competition in all the ways described, but over the next few days, I will be following up!

Edit: I have entered the comp in several ways now!!
I’m also adding tags for The Original Scrapbox, Scrapbook storage, Workbox.

Kaiden

autumninengland — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 19:36:30 +0000

Evan’s cousin and her husband had a baby boy. Jennifer gave birth 12 weeks early, when her waters broke, they did an emergency cesarean. I don’t know all the details of what happened, because I got it third hand, but he was born on July 29th at 28 weeks and 4 days.

Since his birth, I have kept in touch with Jennifer on Facebook, so I feel a little more in the know. Kaiden was able to go home after several weeks in the NICU, but yesterday he had to be admitted to the hosptial. He tested positive for RSV, and has been put on a ventilator and is being sedated to help him rest. There is not much more they can do medically, because he has to fight the virus off. He is receiving breathing treatments a few times a day. Please be praying for Kaiden and his parents, Jennifer and Brian.

favorite aunt

autumninengland — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 22:11:03 +0000

Today I got to hold Isaiah for the second time. My roommate from college (and her husband) just had their first baby. I went to see them at the hospital, and today she stopped by my office. While I was holding him, I whispered to him several times that I am his favorite, non-related, Aunt. He gave me two of the cutest smiles ever! I figure if I tell him enough, by the time he can talk, he will believe it

I am posting this particularly for my other roommate, MN, who refuses to comment on my blog and instead remains anonymous. Hear that? I’m his favorite…and he’s less than two weeks old :)

Cool stuff

autumninengland — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 12:36:54 +0000

Ok, so when I said watch out for change on here, I didn’t mean that I was going to suddenly disapear. However, that is what I did…but maybe I’ll be back more regularly now that my life is settling back into more of a routine.

My mom’s fiance sent me this link this morning, saying it was Sam’s interview with Fox 59!!! Seriously??? Wow, I had no idea my kid brother was going to be on TV. At least I got to watch it online, and now you can too.

Ok, moving on from my bragging…I could upload all the links of when he is in the local paper, but I won’t do that to you. I’ll leave that to my sister.

Now, back to what I said before…about change…well, I finally figured out how to personalise and fix the coding on Blogsome so that I can design my own template. I asked Evan if he could help me, and he said yes. So, I posted it on my blog….then, Evan got like 4 jobs for his consulting business and now suddenly, being paid to design logos and websites for people is more important than doing a free one for his wife. Oh well, I don’t complain at spending the money, so I guess my template can wait for now. But…it will come one day, so just wait patiently with me for it!

On to other stuff. I am finally harvesting veggies from our garden. Not too many, but we didn’t plant all that much. We planted really late in the season, so we were not sure we would even get anything. However, we have had at least a couple peppers per week and about 5 or 6 cucumbers off of 1 plant this week, and lots of tomatoes from our 3 plants. So, really not too bad for a very late planting of only about 8 plants total.

Well, I need to get to work, and then off to the Lapel Football game again tonight.

Lapel Bulldogs

autumninengland — Sat, 22 Aug 2009 16:37:37 +0000

Last night was the first game of the season for the Lapel Bulldogs. This year, my brother is a senior and playing Quarter Back and Safety. The Herald Bulletin ran a story on their WIN last night!

I am excited for this football season. I understand a lot more than I did last year, so the plays actually make some sense to me now and makes the games more enjoyable. However, the weather last night couldn’t have been worse for this early in the season. During the second quarter is starting raining, but by half-time is was pouring with rain. The weather has said a 30% chance of scattered showers. We were prepared for that, not for driving rain for more than half the game. Yuck, we were soaked, and I was very glad to get home and into dry clothes.

i’m just sayin’

autumninengland — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 01:12:07 +0000

be prepared for a little bit of a change around here….

and no, i am not pregnant