Quakertown Apartment

We went and looked at a one bedroom apartment in Quakertown today. It was really spacious and nice. It had multiple large closets including a walk-in closet in the bedroom. It has heat and hot water included. Another neat thing is that with the apartment comes a 4'x6' storage unit at no extra charge. It is nice, but definately a third choice apartment. I heard that that part of town is no very good and a friend told me he knew a pot smoker in that complex... exactly what we are trying to avoid.

I am expecting a call from an apartment complex in Pennsburg that is really nice sometime hopefully early next week. They also have heat and hot water included and the price of a two bedroom apartment there is less that the one bedroom in Quakertown. We would even be happy to get a one bedroom in the complex in Pennsburg and get on the waiting list for the next two bedroom. We will see. We do not want to settle for this apartment, instead we want to find someplace we really love and can be in for the next few years.

Apartment Hunting

Let the hunt begin! We are officially looking for a new apartment. I started from Rent.com and Hannah has been checking out the newspaper listings and we have a few leads. There is a really incredible church in Quakertown that we might consider attending, so we want our next apartment to be near there. There are some nice one bedroom apartments in Quakertown that are in our price range, but we really need two. Regardless, we are going to see one tomorrow.

Also, there are some REALLY REALLY REALLY nice ones in Pennsburg. They are spacious two bedroom apartments that are less than the one bedroom apartments in Quakertown! They have heat, hot water, water and gas included and high speed internet access available! I called and the said they have "limited availability" but that they would give my number to someone who knows more detailed what availability is looking like. So we should be getting a call from them sometime next week. I drove by them today and absolutely loved what I saw from the outside. They are also just blocks away from a beautiful new Super Wal-Mart and a Weis and just two blocks from 663 which leads right into Quakertown. Also they are only fifteen minutes from work!

So we will see what happens, but I hope we can find a good apartment soon. We "settled" for our last two apartments and I am really hoping we can find one this time that we really love so we can be settle down for the next few years.

The Death of Blogging

Blogging among my friends has almost entirely died... and it makes me so sad. Three years ago almost all my friends had blogs and I read them daily and knew what was happening to them and what they were learning in their lives. I felt connected to them and almost felt like I knew some of them better than when I was in school with them. But then something happened- MySpace. MySpace was the first big "social networking" site and all my friends immediately jumped on the bandwagon. But it at least had a blogging capability. Then following the MySpace craze, there came the "Facebook" craze. Facebook allows people to write "notes" but there is no real blogging capability. And as my friends got into the social networking sites, they left their blogs. So now what I know of my friends are a bunch of random one-line status updates and infrequent notes. How were they able to leave blogging so easily? I seriously doubt they all keep written journals, so how are they recording their lives? I want to leave something that my children and grandchildren and great great great grandchildren can read, not to mention my current family and friends. On my blog I can record the everyday happenings of my life, the current state of the world, what God has been showing me and what I have been learning. I know I could never consistently keep a handwritten journal, but I find it simple to keep a blog. In fact, I NEED my blog. I NEED to be able to write and let out my thoughts and emotions, even if no one else is going to read it except me. I would have to say that blogging blows my mind, it is just brilliant. I do not know what it is, but it is so easy to be totally and brutally honest when writing on my blog. I would go so far as to say that my blog is more "me" than me. When you see me, you see what I show you on the outside. You can see my skin color, my clothing selection, hear me speak of this and that; but though I try to be perfectly honest in all parts of my life, it is a game to an extent because we all want to look "good" on the outside. But when you read my blog, you see inside me. You see what makes me me. You see why I am passionate. You see why I care about what I do.

So what is my point? I guess that simply put, my blog is me. And I wish that my friends felt the same way about blogging.

AFLAC

Hannah and I are now covered under AFLAC! I hate the thought of spending more money, but this looks like something we really need. A friend recently went in for quadruple bypass surgery and had a rude awakening when he realized that Walkers has no disability compensation for employees. That got a lot of us concerned and we were told that if we wanted any disability insurance, we had to get it through AFLAC. So the AFLAC people came on Friday to present us our options, then they came today to sign us up. I signed up for three plans:

Accident - Immediate cash given if you go to the emergency room because of an accident, then cash depending on what procedures need to be done and how long in the Hospital.
Disability - Disability insurance which will reimburse 66% of your paycheck for up to 3 months because of a medical disability.
Dental - Cash back for cleanings and dental procedures.

I am glad we signed up for these, I think they will be worth the money.

Philly Trip

Hannah, Riley J, Shane, and I went to Philly yesterday! After living here many years, it was about time to go on a sightseeing trip down there, and Shane was the perfect excuse! I researched everything on the internet, had a perfect itinerary with a map and was all set to go. We were planning to go on Saturday, but Shane's flight got cancelled, leaving him stuck at his layover in Chicago. Luckily his flight was able to get in on Saturday, so we decided to do Philly on Monday.

Well, to start the day off, we went to Shady Maple Smorgasbord near Lancaster. It was incredible! I had only been there once (right before Hannah's dad died) and it was about time we went back. Shady Maple is basically a massive buffet with the most incredible variety of wonderful food you could ever dream of. I had a massive fresh walnut pancake, waffles, bacon, eggs, fruit, biscuits and gravy, coffee... it was wonderful.

Then we headed off to Philadelphia! It was supposed to be about 1 hour and 15 minutes, but of course we hit traffic on 76 and it ended up taking longer.

Our first stop was the art museum. We ran up the famous steps as Rocky did and threw up our hands! Shane was yelling at the top of his lungs, "Adrien! Adrien!" Hannah got a video.

After the Art Museum, we drove down to the historic district and parked near the Constitution Center. We decided to do anything that was free, so rather than paying and going inside all the buildings, we just looked at the outsides. We first went to the Christ Church cemetary where Benjamin Franklin and Benjamin Rush are buried. Following that we went to the Betsy Ross house where our first official flag was made. Then we went to Christ Church, which was the church of most of the founding fathers. It is also the longest continually-running church in the country. They still have weekly services there. I especially enjoy there because we often install rental organs there, so I have been there often. We get to bring the organ in through the "King's Door" which was made for King George to use, but he never came over and therefore never got to use it. I believe George Washington was the only American President to ever enter through it.

Following Christ Church, we got lost and Riley got fussy. So we stopped across from the "First Bank" of the United States and Hannah fed Riley. Then we went and saw Independence Hall and ended our tour with the Liberty Bell. I never realized it was so small... it always looks bigger in pictures.

After that we headed back to the car and set off to find "Pat's King of Steaks" the original and best cheesesteaks in Philly. I did not have directions so I found it on the internet on my phone and went to Google maps and was able to find our way to it. The cheesesteaks were great! It was a perfect end for our Philly trip. Over the course of our day we were everywhere from northwestern Philly to central eastern Philly to far south Philly... I think we all got a very good taste of it.

It was a great day :-).

My Prayer

Come, Lord Jesus! Come!