Happy Things

• My friends' house maid wishing me a belated happy Valentine's Day! Unbelievable how much this meant to me in a place that eschews Valentine's Day. It's hard to explain to them how sweet Valentine's Day can be, even without romantic love. Jenina just made it sweeter.
• A Valentine's message from Lisa.
• An outing to the local hypermarket with my local family. You know you've been here a while when you get invited to go on an outing to the hypermarket (like a super supermarket--even better than Super WalMart).
• Game time and dinner and talk time with my local family.
• Meeting a new neighborhood family on one of my local walks. Their two big questions? "When do you pray?" and "Why do you dress that way?" Well, since you asked . . .
• Seeing my landlord's daughter again! She did henna for me before I traveled for Christmas, but she's married and lives in a different neighborhood, so I didn't know when I'd see her again. But I bumped into her coming out of her dad's house on my way to my apartment this evening.
• Buying a new phone, on the advice of several people who thought that my "grandmother" phone (my students' words) wasn't quite suitable. When I realized that my friends' house maid is using a far nicer phone than I am, I realized they were probably right.
• And not just buying any new phone, but a really nice new phone, because someone told me they'd pay half if I bought quality.
• And a phone-savvy student who located a super nice used phone for exactly my target price . . . in less than 12 hours of me merely asking his advice.
• Pricing cars here with my boss and deciding to stifle the gasp at the prices (because the oldest used cars you can find on the lots are 2008s) because I choose to believe that a loving heavenly Father can provide a car for me here if He wants to, even though I've never owned a car newer than 12 years old or paid more than $2700 for a car in my life.
• Anticipating going to a former student's house for lunch tomorrow.
• Anticipating going to a current student's house for lunch in a not-close city on Friday.
• Anticipating visiting another current student's family in a different not-close city next week (and seeing the ocean again)!
• A new, semi-permanent roommate arriving tomorrow (even though I miss my two temporary roommates)!
• The sound of children playing and their mother yelling at them next door (at 11:17 PM). Maybe not a happy thing if I were in bed.
• My mom sending me good recipes!
• Texting Alyssa.
• Internet working better.
• The price of gas.
• Food in my fridge leftover from a meal with my local family earlier this week. I've eaten it for two meals now, and there's enough for two more.
• Dr. Pepper. Evil or no, he's my friend.
• My next door neighbor friend offering to help me replace my watch battery.
• My friend Esther calling out of the blue this week, after a couple of days I felt lonely.
• Finding out that there's a nursery in town! A plant nursery--I'm not in the market for the other kind yet.
• Something to do, people to love, things to look forward to.