Meme?
So, I have been selected to tell you about myself.
Four jobs I've had in my life:
Receptionist at the only hotel in the barely-a-city of Gingoog, Philippines.
Waitress.
Fiberglass casting technician.
The most random: personal chef and assistant for a 26 year old lesbian.

Four movies I can watch over and over again:
Like Water for Chocolate.
Monsoon Wedding.
The Sword in the Stone (yes, the cartoon.)
Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown.

Four places I have lived:
Oh, on Painter, four streets up.
Three places in the Philippines.
La Habra.
Here, on Greenleaf.

Four TV shows I love to watch (on DVD):
Arrested Development.
Friends.
Will & Grace.
Just Shoot Me.

Four places I have been on vacation (or just a trip:)
Tegucigalpa, Honduras.
Kashmir, India.
Andalucia, Spain.
Nasuli, Philippines.

Four web sites I visit daily:
Actually, I just run through every family member's blog each day, then sometimes:
Craigslist, or... Actually, that's about it.

Four of my favorite foods:
Pho.
Stawberries.
Sushi-- eel and avo-- and sashimi.
BREAKFAST, almost any way, and espeically with a good latte, sourdough toast with butter and strawberry preserves.

Four places I would rather be right now:
At the beach, especially one far away, especially where I can stay for a few days with Jeff.
At Mani's Cafe on Fairfax, for breakfast, of course.
At the Hollywood Bowl with friends and a picnic.
At the Friday morning farmer's market in Uptown.

Four people I am tagging:
Gretchen.
Erin.
Heidi.
Luke.

Home, Free!
So the biggest news in our world is that I have (finally) been weaned off of working. A few weeks ago, after yet another very frustrating day of work with R, I started talking to Jeff about not working anymore. We started praying a lot about whether or not I could just quit, and this is one of the first times in my life I was actually ready to just QUIT, cold turkey. I ended up working from home for the couple of weeks after Christmas (most of the time that we were praying about this,) and the next time I went to work, R fired me! This is definitely a first for me, and I had a hard time not smiling as it dawned on me what was happening. She had decided that the position I was filling had been designed based on needs that weren't accurate (i.e., it was too stressful to have someone over at her house three days a week, and, my guess, that it was way too much to try to be nice to that person all day.) She felt bad for letting me go right now, since I am showing and probably couldn't get another job, so she offered me a month more of employment. I went home and told Jeff, and we decided that I would just work one more day (so I could get my ice cream maker back.)
I am now officially "at home," and I am so happy about the timing for transitioning into motherhood. Plus, I have so many doctor's appointments--three this week!-- that it is so nice to have the flexibility to go to those. I also need to tell you that God has been so good in all of this. I feel like He has slowly been trying to tell me to stop working, not to try to take care of myself and pull my weight in life, and it has been a tough lesson to learn. This is actually the fourth strange employment situation in the past year as I have felt Him redirecting my focus and pulling me out of work. Jeff and I had been praying earnestly about whether I could quit, mostly because of financial reasons. When I called Mom to tell her I'd been fired, she said, "Oh, that's so great! God knows you can't seem to quit, so He just did it for you..." Within a week and a half, Jeff got a supplemental job that he is really excited about. He will be interviewing people with disabilities and writing reports on their care. It is so perfect, he was saying this is something he would love to do without getting paid, but how wonderful that this is God's provision for us. Another thing is that we realized that we were putting away a rather ridiculous amount of money each month into a retirement account of Jeff's. It was so neat to realize all of a sudden,that God had helped us conceal some income, then brought it to our attention when we needed it.
It's really exciting to see God providing for our needs as a family-- blessing us with pregnancy, moving us (quickly!) to Whittier to be near family in a bigger apartment, then whisking me out of work and providing for the missing income. Isn't He good?

Who is it?

In the next couple of weeks, we should find out the gender of our baby. The fun thing for us is that we've already settled on a name for little person, and once we know WHAT the baby is, we will also know WHO he or she is. We're excited about being able to talk about the new family member by name. I think it will also help with the psychological preparation for having a child. It all seems so abstract to me right now. Every time I open the closet where we have the baby things, I think, "Why do we have all of this baby stuff? We don't have a baby!" I'm laughing as I realize that every time we get something that is baby-related, it just goes straight into that closet and we shut the door. Denial?

Quick Update.
It's been a while since the last post, so I thought I should update. We just painted the living room and dining room of our apartment. Previously, the walls had been a mauve color that really brought out the BRAND NEW brown swirly carpet! It looks much better. Unfortunately, our camera is busted, so no pictures available. But the dining room is a buttery yellow, and the living room is "seaweed" green, or an avocado. The bedroom will turn light blue soon. I am just excited to finally be able to put stuff up on the walls, and already feel more at home. It's amazing how much color can affect you. The mauve was so depressing to me, and I felt disappointed every time I walked in the door. Our hallway is still that color... But it could be handy to keep, just to show people how much better things look in contrast!
On another note, we will be leaving for Oregon on Thursday to spend time with Jeff's family and to see Joy and Chris. We are so excited, a little anxious about the freezing weather, and glad for a change of scenery (and to be away from the paint fumes!) We have really enjoyed having family all over the place to go and visit-- though I have to confess I'd much rather have you down the street! Guess I can't have everything (everyone.) I am just thankful to be closer to the ones here, and the great fortune of actually being able to travel and see everyone. So wonderful!

Installed!
It was swift, almost painless. At 2 p.m. on Saturday, friends began showing up at our South Pas apartment, eventually making twelve, including strong, ambitious nephew E. By 3:30, all seven cars were loaded to the max, and it was about 4:30 or so when all of our belongings landed in our new territory. It was actually pretty shocking for a transplant to just happen that quickly. We're still trying to catch up-- like jet lag with moving. Move lag? Anyway, I have said a few times that it was really kind of a "warm fuzzy" way of moving into a neighborhood-- having all of our new neighbors so happy to have us there that they would actually physically make it happen! Aunt Robin really enriched the experience by baking and sending over a HUGE batch of chocolate chip cookies. I almost felt guilty handing them our to our moving friends, since it looked like I had actually spent time baking cookies for friends in the middle of packing. I quickly denied it, explaining that my aunt must have just known what we would be needing at this point in the day.
As I said, we are still trying to figure out what happened, and what to do next. Jeff is thrilled that his bus trip to school and back will be quite a bit shorter. We have great views of the Whittier hills from our apartment. I am looking forward to doing a little gardening around here (I have been confined to pots up until now!) We had M&M over for dinner last night, and it was such a nice experience to have neighbors over for a meal, and wonderful to know that these times will be much more frequent than we could have dreamt of while living in Pasadena.
More on the actual apartment next time. Maybe I'll even figure out the photo thing.

Getting Schmoozed.
We took a trip to Palm Springs last weekend. I know, you ARE supposed to be over fifty years old to enjoy the city. But there are other ways. I recommend going to a time share presentation. It is educational, an adventure, and you will usually walk away with something. We went to a fairly painful one in Tarzana a few months ago, and the "90 minute presentation" turned into about three hours of getting passed from person to person in an effort to wear down our resistance, while the price seemed to get more and more reasonable. We obviously didn't buy anything, but walked away with vouchers for two tickets to Disneyland and hotel accomodations for a couple of nights in Anaheim and more for Big Bear. There are a lot of conditions that make these difficult to use, but they were free, and I think we'll make it hapen.
Then they called us and invited us to "try out" one of their resorts in Palm Springs. Two nights accomodations would be fully paid for, and we would recieve $60 in vouchers we could use at various places, including a gas station and a few restaurants. Unfortunately, we booked at a pretty busy time and got moved to a so-so "resort." But it was absolutely free! We attended a practically enjoyable tour of the other resort, and they really stuck to the promised ninety minutes. We were kind of amazed. They really didn't try too hard to make the sell, and if we had been trying to get the price down by waiting, we would have missed our chance altogether. I was thinking about how nice our salesguy was, and have a theory that the difference in presentations may have been cultural. The LA experience was almost theatrical, most of the staff there were pretty pushy and kind of creepy, trying so hard to make that sale, to get ahead. In PS, our "tour guide" was pretty interested in who we were, where we were from, found lots of common ground, and seemed to really enjoy himself. In the end when we said no, he kind of nodded and said, "It's probably not the right timing for you too, huh?" Almost makes me WANT to move to a retirment city. Not really, but I think you understand.
Anyway, we had a very nice, relaxing time. Plus, we were able to look forward to getting away for a while, which is part of the fun. Oh, we also walked away with another voucher for five nights accomodations in Oahu. No airfare, so that is a bit impractical, but the company proved themselves properly thankful for our time. Anyone else have any good stories about one of these?

On the Move...
So we are moving to Whittier the first weekend of December. The apartment Daniel and Bethany used to llive in opened up, and at about the same price of our current place, only with two bedrooms and plenty of other perks, and we are going for it. I am looking forward to knowing people in my neighborhood again, and having people over for dinner without asking them to drive for a an hour or so in return.
The other big reason is... that we’re having a baby(!) in June, and really want to be closer to friends and family for such an important and probably very challenging time. We were planning to move to Oregon this summer, but that will just have to wait another year. It has been really nice to be out in our own neighborhood in South Pasadena for the first year of our marriage, and it is hard to close that chapter. We LOVE it here, but community is more important now, and we are thankful to have one in Whittier-- so many friends and family members that enrich us so much. Here’s to more frequent and sustained enrichment!

A paid culinary education.
More gratitude for my job. I am really being challenged in my cooking skills. As implied earlier, this was a pretty tough job at first. I have felt pretty confident in the kitchen previously, and am not shy about cooking for other people. It came as a big disappointment when I realized that R and M were not exactly amazed by my kitchen skills. Cooking is a big way that I like to bless and give to people, so it was hard for me to not take this personally. I don'’t think I was making BAD food, but I do think that we have pretty different taste buds. Then there is the limited diet: no gluten, no grains besides rice (but not too much of that, or it could trigger an allergy,) no dairy, no sugar of any kind, including fruit, no eggs, no soy, and then some random items like mushrooms, kidney beans, etc. I recently decided to start cooking almost strictly from recipes, rather than experience, so that when something bombed it was the recipe that failed, instead of me. That has worked out pretty well, and I am enjoying branching out and trying new things. The other fun part is working with someone else'’s (quite ample) food budget. I am preparing lamb and cornish game hens, buying fresh coconuts and kafir lime leaves. It feels good to learn to cook new things, and to get paid to try them out. I may not cook as enthusiastically at home these days, but, honestly, I probably cook better.

A change of heart at the roll of the dice...
My job has vastly improved in the past month. A big part of this has to do with Yahtzee. At lunch every day that I work now, R., M. and I sit down and eat together over a game of Yahtzee, with a new tournament each week. We play two rounds,which takes about an hour or so, the second round requiring some of our “secret weapon"-- some dark chocolate. My scores go up right away. Another bonus is that if I made enough food, I also get to enjoy a very nourishing lunch with them (otherwise, it’s plain old yogurt.) I think it is wonderful to have an outlet for my competitive love of playing games, and I can’t believe I actually get paid for this! I was really having a hard time with the job for a while, but the turning point was the first day we played Yahtzee and R. offered to pay me overtime (yes, time and a half!!!) to stay and play one more round. I realized, “This is a good job. A ridiculously good job. Ariana, no more griping." And that was pretty much it. I am quite content.

The beginning of a new season. So today I began my new job. New job? Yes! It seems that my new role in life is mainly domestic. I am working for a girl close to my age, taking over her kitchen as a "personal organic chef" and assistant/ care giver. She is recovering from cerebral meningitis and from the treatments for the infection that were really hard on her body. My main duties include meal planning, shopping and doing all of the cooking for her and her girlfriend. Other tasks include assisting her with some detox therapies, physical therapies and, yes, some recreational therapy-- most likely some cards and ping pong. I spent a long time today investigating her dietary restrictions, loves and dislikes. I also took a complete inventory of ingredients in her kitchen. With each new job, I realize more and more what a compulsive organizer I am! I will be making a permanent kitchen inventory so I can reference it as I plan meals and shopping lists at home. I think it will be a really enjoyable, fulfilling job. I have to laugh, though, because a friend called today and asked if I would be willing to give her some sewing lessons. She asked if that would be okay even though I teach cooking lessons every month, as well. I think I need to start cross- stitching, crocheting and learn to play the piano. Then I will be a truly accomplished young woman.

Now that every member of the family, not excluding cousins, has a blog, I have been feeling like a -no, THE stubborn party pooper. Although I cannot guarantee the regularity of my posts (I don't have internet at home yet,) at LEAST I can comment on everyone else's Blogspot blogs. That's better than nothing, right? Part of this has been made possible by Baker Elementary School where Jeff works. They had given him an Apple i-book G4 last year, which we shared. This year, they gave him a new one, but didn't take the old one back. So now we each have a GREAT computer, absolutely free! Maybe we'll get internet at home one of these days, but the South Pasadena library is pleasant enough and close enough to walk to.