February and March in a Nutshell

So I meant to write two separate posts--one for February and one for March--but all of a sudden it was the second week of April and I couldn't remember what happened in February.  Haha.  Be forewarned that this may be the most random post I've ever written.

The BonFils left in February to go live in North Africa.  Here was a photo we took a few nights before he left.  I marveled as I looked at this photo a few days later.  Through the years, there have been different friends who would come over for game night.  The friends come and go, but the game night seems to remain.  I'm so thankful for this current gang of friends.  God gave them at just the right and needed time in my life.  

You can tell which books are the most well-read in my house by the amount of tape holding them together.  Watership Down has been one of my favorites ever since junior high school.  I have often challenged those who haven't read it: "Read it and if you don't like it, I'll pay you a dollar."  I've never paid out once.  

 I wouldn't trust advice from a philosopher named Lousy.

One of the things our team worked on in March was shutting down the house of our former supervisor, who had to return to the US last fall.  We were sorting things out before the packers came and I found a toy tiara.  Tiaras make everything better, even packing!

While going through the house, we found this cd.  Oh my.

This little one has been so much fun as of late.  She makes the funniest faces when she's mad (on the left), but is still so cuddly sweet when she's sleepy.  We're trying to get her to learn to say my name before we say goodbye this summer.

I received a letter from my Compassion kid on March 7th and was so excited because it was exactly two months to the day before I will meet her!  Yep, I'm headed to Ethiopia next month!  While I've been a slacker blogger these past six months, I promise to blog about that event, so make sure to tune back in mid-May!

In February, we had the winter school vacation for two weeks, so I didn't have to teach any classes.  I spent a lot of time quilting, trying to get ahead while I had time.  I kept telling myself during the vacation that when Monday arrived, it was "back to life, back to reality."  I planned on cleaning my house that Monday.  I planned on going grocery shopping.  I planned on getting back to my normal disciplined life.

I didn't plan on getting hit by a car.

I joked later that it was just a matter of time before it happened in this crazy city where cars drive on the sidewalks and honk at the pedestrians to get out of the way.  Yes, I'm totally fine.  I was about 2/3 the way across a crosswalk when a car decided to park (illegally), and while backing up didn't see me at all.  She hit me once, and I suppose she figured she hit the curb because she gunned it and hit me again.  The first hit was pretty normal and has happened before--a slight tap.  The second nearly knocked me over.  I attribute the fact that I didn't actually fall down to my amazing balance that has developed after years of riding the metro.  Anyway, she got out of the car and began to yell at me for being in her way--in the crosswalk.  I stared at her like she was crazy and then eventually just walked away without saying anything to her.

The Health Fairies brought me a "I've been hit by a car" kit.  I've got good peeps.

But something about being hit by a car makes all plans to clean and grocery shop and be disciplined go right out the window.  I milked that "hit by a car" excuse for a good week.  It definitely threw me off my groove for a good while.

Some friends of mine were in a play called The Mark Experience.  It was an interactive play based on the gospel of Mark.  The stage was in the middle of the room, with the audience all around it.  I didn't expect to enjoy it much, but I was so pleasantly surprised.  It was excellent.  I laughed, I held my breath, I got choked up.  It made the words of the gospel jump off the page into life.  Sooo good.

The Superheroes are visiting the country where I'm going to move in a few months, and were willing to take a bag over for me.  I got word on Tuesday and had to have the bag ready by Friday.  Panic packing!  I ran over to Ikea and bought some vacuum-packing bags.  I put some serious duct tape on the tear seen below, and got that bag full of two (large) quilts, all my winter clothes, and some contact solution.  I sent it off with a prayer.  I figured, if the vacuum-packed bags get any air in them, the duct tape will not be able to hold that bag together.  But packing it certainly pushed me fully into packing mode.  One suitcase down...a whole apartment left to go.  Haha.

My favorite quilt store moved locations.  (I say {favorite} as if there is more than one for me to choose from, haha.)  My friends had told me the general location for the new shop, but I wasn't sure I could find it from their directions.  So I went by the old location hoping there would be a map posted to the new location, and sure enough! there was.  Except that it was taped to the glass behind the metal grate, which was casting a shadow over it.  I took this terrible photo and then...

Y'all.  I've written about the Mistral winds before.  These past two weeks have been one of the longer spells of Mistral that I can remember, and certainly one of the strongest coldest ones I can remember was blowing the day I was wandering around that hill using that terrible photo for a map to the new store.  Once I found it, I just hung out for awhile because I couldn't work up the courage to go back outside in the wind to get home.  BLUSTERY.  Wind-whipped.  Crazytown gusts.

So I went out for tea that night with some friends to warm up.  I'm kinda mad at all my Marseille friends who knew about this place and never told me about it over the years.  It's gorgeously decorated, with sand on the floor.  (You leave your shoes in the cloak room at the front.)  The tea is great.  The atmosphere is so peaceful and intimate.  And it's not over priced for all that wonderfulness.  For all my friends who have come to visit Marseille: sorry I didn't know about this place yet to take you here.  You'll just have to come visit again.

It seems the rain and the wind have finally calmed down, and that deep Marseille blue sky that I love so much has come back.  I've found myself heading over to my happy place multiple times in the past few weeks.  This might be a photo that appears in my Instagram feed again and again over the next few months.

I was at the train station sometime, and there was this art exhibit out on the patio.  Loved it.  Seriously loved it.

Something that I've spent a lot of time doing lately is working on quilts.  However, I haven't delivered any of the ones I've made, so I can't post photos of them.  This is a no spoiler blog.  Haha.  But I've been quilting so much that my machine finally gave up and died.  So I've been borrowing the center's machine, hand quilting, and well, just making do.  But a quilter without a sewing machine: rough times.  First world problems, I know.

And that is February and March in a nutshell.