Our beige house

For those of you back home we thought we'd finally put some pictures of our furnished home up here. What I've realized after putting all these pictures on the computer is that our home is very beige. I guess we are the kind of people who need to be more adventurous with color.

Up until Saturday (2 days ago) we lived in this house with no blinds or curtains. We put a navy blue sheet on our bedroom window the night we moved in and just left all the other windows uncovered. I had thought that covering the windows would be a priority - we planned to do it right after buying the appliances....but somehow it just never seemed that important. We loved the windows and they brought color into our place a little. I just ignored the fact that the neighbors could see straight into our home. I really didn't even think about it.

Well we finally broke down and got temporary blinds on Saturday. We had wanted to get blinds before we left for Christmas but we weren't ready to buy real ones yet. All this time we had been resisting buying temporary ones because we couldn't stand the idea of spending money on something disposable. Finally, we decided to use a Home Depot gift card we had gotten for buying an energy star refrigerator and we got the temporary shades. They cost $60 total for the whole house. Yes, we're that cheap. I don't know why we didn't do it sooner. We'll leave these up for a good long time to make that $60 worth it!

So now we have privacy but our house is even MORE beige and I miss the windows and the color and light they brought.

So here are some pictures of the house before we covered it up with cheap ugly temporary blinds.





And if you want to see even more of the beige-ness, here's an album full of house pictures.

Our house

We get to meet her in a couple of weeks...

Our newest niece: Sophia

Sameer makes me laugh

The other day Sameer sent me an email that said only this:

"You've never seen a burrito as big as the one I am about to eat. Pray for me."

The humor broke the monotony of a very dull day.

As it turns out, he survived the burrito.

Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence

Let all mortal flesh keep silence,
And with fear and trembling stand;
Ponder nothing earthly minded,
For with blessing in His hand,
Christ our God to earth descendeth,
Our full homage to demand.

King of kings, yet born of Mary,
As of old on earth He stood,
Lord of lords, in human vesture,
In the body and the blood;
He will give to all the faithful
His own self for heavenly food.

Rank on rank the host of heaven
Spreads its vanguard on the way,
As the Light of light descendeth
From the realms of endless day,
That the powers of hell may vanish
As the darkness clears away.

At His feet the six wingèd seraph,
Cherubim with sleepless eye,
Veil their faces to the presence,
As with ceaseless voice they cry:
Alleluia, Alleluia
Alleluia, Lord Most High!

from the Liturgy of St. James (4th century)

Taking advantage of the University

Last night we went to hear Handel's Messiah at Duke Chapel. Thanks to my parents who played recordings of this quite often during my childhood it is very near to my heart. It is also extremely long and after it was over I had to promise Sameer that in the future we will only go to performances of "selections" or "highlights" of the Messiah.

In spite of the uncomfortable pews it was a perfect way to begin the Advent season. I couldn't find my CD of it this morning but thanks to the world wide web I am listening to various performances of my favorite selections online.

"Worthy is the Lamb that was slain, and hath redeemed us to God by his blood, to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing. Blessing and honour, glory and power be unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb, for ever and ever. Amen." Revelation 5:12,13