Happy Things

• Being moved in and settled into my new apartment, as much as being living room furniture-less and bedroom curtain-less will allow (trust me, living in a curtain-less bedroom requires creativity of furniture stacking and personal movement)
• The location of my new apartment: corner store two doors down and a little restaurant in my same building, a car wash across the street, a stationery shop just down the street, and friends within short walking/driving distances
• The prevalent smell of incense in my apartment building from a neighboring apartment
• Nice things in my apartment
• First loads of laundry in my new washing machine
• Friends who help me paint my apartment
• Trip to the capital with friends for Friday fellowship!
• Meeting new friends at said fellowship
• Bath & Body Works in the mall with my favorite fall-scented wallflower refills on sale! Ha! People here must not appreciate the smells of pumpkin and autumn and caramel apples. Their loss is my gain.
• My job. Even though I'm temporarily doing admin and not teaching, I'm loving the admin.
• A fabulous staff!
• New classes starting today! New students!
• People who have dreams, like the man who came in and wants us to teach blind students because his brother is blind
• Dreaming about how to make others' dreams a reality
• Being able to eat leftovers for days because of the food given me after visiting one friend
• McDonald's waffle cones
• Calls from a friend who wants to check up on me
• A reformatted phone with a new battery that now works like it's supposed to
• Cold water
• Ice cube trays
• Crystal Lite To Go packs from Andrea's parents (But I go through them like there's no tomorrow, so if you are reading this and were thinking of sending me some, please still do.)
• Big cups to put my Crystal Lite and cold water in
• Taking the trash out
• Language classes, especially when I have time to study in between
• The guy in the souk who speaks good English, yet still spoke Arabic to me the last time I checked on paintings in his store
• The value of relationship in accomplishing things
• After eight months of follow-through, my blender is fixed.
• Blackcurrant Tropicana Fruitz: it's like sherbet punch without the sherbet (and the corner store two doors down stocks it. How lucky am I? Hmm. How tempted am I?)