my new place

Well, I have officially moved into the McMains. I spent my first night there on Saturday so I've been there about a week. I love it so far. It's pretty much what I expected. I can talk to Kathy almost any time and the kids want to hang out in my room all the time and play with the cats. Since I know the kids will be in there a lot this summer, I've set up a shelf with all my kids books, coloring books, crayons, markers, magnets to play with on the fridge, and some stuffed animals for them to play with. This way the stuff they play with has a central location so they can easily clean up after themselves.
The cats seem to be adjusting fairly well. Callie tolerates all the kids, even when Maggie (4) piles stuffed animals on top of her. KC is hanging out under the bed hissing at the kids and exploring when the kids aren't around. Callie really wants to go in the other part of the house, but that's not allowed.
The house is getting clean. Daniel is doing a wonderful job. So far he has cleaned the laundry room, kitchen, and bathroom. I really appreciate his willingness to clean so much at the house while I get settled at the McMains. I'm thrilled also because I talked to the landlord today and he said that I don't have to paint back over the kitchen cabinets. I had painted them a golden yellow to go with the sunflower theme in the kitchen. I just have to paint the one wall in my room that I painted light pink. I got a really cheap can of paint and I think I'm going to have to do three coats. Right now I'm letting the second coat dry.
Last night I had a bizarre dream. It involved being in Mexico with my mom, my younger brother, some other female family member, and some random people from church and one of Dan's friends. We were there during some kind of revolution. One group was killing off another group. The group that was getting killed off usually got spotted and shot while they were climbing up places, to put up signs I think. Anyway, the most vivid part of the dream was where there was a bunch of people in a swimming pool. The pool was so crowded that people were basically just standing around in the water. My mom and I were out of the pool. Some people noticed a man coming down out of the sky on the kind of rope that army guys come out of helicopters on. Well, one of the revolutionary guys shot him and he landed in the pool. People scattered and screamed as blood dyed the water red (although I don't remember being able to see the body). At that point I looked at the water, turned around, and threw up. There was another part where one of the people who worked in the hotel we were staying at was going to show us the menu for some food. For some reason we had to climb up on this ladder to get to it. I was terrified that we would be mistaken for some of the revolutionary people and be shot because we were climbing up on a ladder. The hotel worker assured us that we would be ok. I just remembered being so terrified. What a weird dream. I wonder what it stemmed from. I didn't wake up super hot last night, so I don't think that was it.
Well, there's not a whole lot else going on right now. Fanny gets in at 2 pm today and Kathy, Sean, Daniel, Fanny, and I are all going to eat at the Gristmill tonight. This weekend is Sean and Kathy's 10th wedding aniversary but they are going to put off their couple stuff till next weekend. Then Saturday is the party and the madness ensues, at least for Daniel. Updates later after the two hello Fanny, goodbye Daniel parties and my few days in Abilene.

recent goings on

It's been awhile since I posted. On the 7th I got really sick. The doctor thinks I picked up a bug in Mexico. I was sick from Saturday the 7th till Friday the 13th. I didn't eat anything during those days either so I lost about 10 pounds. Daniel took wonderful care of me. He took and stayed with me for my two visits to the ER (for IV rehydration and antibiotics), went to the doctor with me, and got me food and prescriptions. What a great brother. My mom came down last weekend just in case I didn't get better. It was nice to have her here even though I was well. This week has been a mad rush to get stuff ready for the move and garage sale. Tomorrow is the garage sale and I'm moving the rest of my stuff tomorrow. Tomorrow night will hopefully be my first night at the McMains. It's all very strange to me. I can't believe Daniel is moving away and I'll be living with a family. It's beginning to hit home though as we go through stuff and make a mound of crap for the garage sale. I can't believe how much unneeded stuff two people can have. I'll post more about my Mexico trip later. Right now I'm listening to Over the Rhine and need to return to pricing dishes. WooHoo!!!

San Luis Potosi trip

My trip to Mexico...where to begin. I had a blast. I went to San Luis Potosi (that is the name of the city and the state, it is the capital of the state. ) for the wedding of some friends that I go to church with. (If you go to http://www.maps-of-mexico.com/ and scroll down to the second box that's headed 'Mexico State Maps' you can click on the state of San Luis Potosi and it will bring up a 16 tile more detailed map. If you go to 3 tiles down and 2 over [from the top left], the yellow blob is the city. You can click on the tile for a more detailed map.) There were 25 people on the bus, 8 of us knew the couple through church, the rest was the groom's family. The trip down there wasn't so bad. We left San Antonio at 7:45 on Thursday night. We took a chartered bus, Noreste bus lines. The two bus drivers did not speak a word of English. Anyway, since we left late most people slept the majority of the trip. We stopped in Laredo to change over our money and we stopped about half way in at a rest stop to fill up with gas. The drive from San Antonio to Laredo was 3 hours and the drive from Laredo to San Luis Potosi was 10 hours. We got into the city about 8 am and were thinking that we wouldn't be able to check in to the hotel until the afternoon. Everyone was famished so we stopped at a resturant called Tokyio for breakfast. It's very interesting to not know what you're ordering for breakfast. I knew some of the words for almost every breakfast choice, but not enough to know exactly what it was. Most of what they had was eggs (huevos) which I did not want. I decided to be brave and I ordered the Echiladas Potosinas. They looked like fried tacos with farm cheese (some kind of white cheese, it was good) and some kind of salsa type stuff inside. It was good, but a little greasy because it was fried. The orange juice was the best I've ever tasted. From there we went to the hotel where the manager tried to charge us a higher rate that what he had quoted Sam and Alba (the bride and groom). Sam did his best with his limited Spanish and the managers limited to English to make it clear that they were going to give us the price they were quoted. When Alba got there she put her foot down. They tried to do the same thing when people were paying and checking out on Sunday. But Alba was there and it did not happen. The manager told Sam that it was only 30 pesos ($3) so what was the big deal. I guess he thinks we're rich Americans. We all could have afforded it but it was more the principle of the thing. Well, I have to get ready to go to work. More to come soon.