A Little Update

Nothing much has happened over the past month. A few doings here and there but nothing terribly big.

School has been keeping Mom and Mandy busy. Dad and Seth are also staying busy at work. And I'm still doing housework and playing guitar, but this week I've started writing my own lectures for world history. Our evenings during the week have been pretty hectic. On Monday evenings for the past few months, our church has been competing in a men's softball tournament with other churches; we haven't done amazing this year, but I have to say that Covenant has the most loyal, loud-cheering fans this side of the Chattahooche River. On Tuesday evenings, Mom, Mandy, and I go up to Cumming for a world civilization history class. On some Wednesday evenings, we go to Cumming to meet with one of the prayer meetings that meets there every week. On Fridays and Saturdays, we generally have something big going on, whether it be a party, a get-together, youth group, or what have you. And things are only going to continue to be busy around here for the rest of the year.

If you want to know what lately I am up to nowadays, check out my profile on figment.com. This is the place where I have been posting some of my writing. My novel "War of Magic" is being posted, and I've entered two separate contests for kicks and giggles. No, I am not looking for a way to bump up my hearts on the story contests; I'm merely posting the link to my profile so family members can see some of my writing.

figment

Still Here...

No, I haven't disappeared. We're all still here. There's just nothing going on around here. We've been busy with school, music lessons, church events, and other little things, but nothing big has happened in a while.

God's Great Mercy!

This weekend, we Cunninghams once more experienced God's great mercy towards us.

For a few months, our van had been giving us some trouble, with it worsening particularly in the last few weeks. We finally figured out that it was likely a transmission problem, but Mom and Dad decided to take it to the shop on Monday. On Saturday (the 10th, three days before our original shop plan), we decided to go to Ikea in Atlanta to get Seth's much-belated birthday present. Ikea is a neat furniture/ home store in northern Atlanta, and it generally has spartan styles. It also has little demonstrations of how you can fit an entire apartment into a space about as big as Seth's bedroom. We five had a good time looking around, trying out chairs and couches (with often humorous results) and picking up a few odd things, including a new dresser for Seth.

As we pulled out of the parking garage to go home, the transmission started acting up. Because of Atlanta's poor design, we had to take the long way to get to the highway, so we took Northside Drive. Northside Drive is a pretty, forested road, but it has a lot of hills; our poor van became very sluggish, going no more than 20- 30 mph. By now, we were all praying that we could just get to the highway, as the van would do much better on a straight, flatter surface. Finally, we got to I-75, but we pulled the van into a parking lot, as we didn't think we could make it home. Dad almost called someone to get us, but eventually he decided to try and get the van back to the house; if we left the van in the lot, then we would've had to pay a pretty penny to get it back to our county. Still praying, we got onto the highway. Traffic wasn't as bad, and we didn't run into any significant problems. When we got onto the road which our neighborhood is off of, the van started acting up again; but, God be praised, we got it safely onto our driveway. We were all frazzled after we got home, but we were all so thankful for God's mercy to us. Our van could have died in Northside Drive or on the highway, but it miraculously ran long enough to get us home.

Our van's been repaired now and is running just fine, but it's a testimony of God's goodness towards His people.

Nothing Much...

It's sort of hard to post when not much is going on around here. But I'll post a few things.

- Mom and Mandy start homeschooling on Monday the 22nd. It's bittersweet because this is Mom's last year of homeschooling her kids. Mom's also been preparing for her science class that she's teaching to several kids, and she's also been enjoying reading about British history in her spare time.

- Dad's being kept busy at work. Radiant is being bought by NCR, and the transition period is rather hectic and full of unknowns. Plus, one of Dad's co-workers just went on maternity leave this week, and so he's taking her place while continuing to manage his current job. Seth's doing well at his staging job, and he seems to be enjoying it.

- I think our cat Pooky is mental problems. I kid you not, this male cat acts like he's a prissy girl when he meows, sits, and even walks; it's rather bizarre. Lately, he's taken to following people around the house like he's a little lost puppy. This is a joy when I'm trying to clean or do something important and he keeps getting underfoot. I don't know why Pooky is so needful (and way more so than the other cats), but his behavior's getting rather annoying.

- Earlier this month, we determined that I am not going back to GGC... at least for this semester. There were a variety of issues involved in that decision. I'm not sure where I'm going, as I'm running out of job options in the area, so some prayer is much needed. In the meantime, I've been taking to doing more things around the house, like straightening it up more often. This week I also made dinner on Thursday; it was a promising recipe that we'd never had before, but I admit I was disappointed with the results and thought it was rather bland. Everyone assured me it was good, and Mom and I both thought of ways to make it better next time. I'm hoping to make dinner one night again next week, and I'm trying to decide between catfish tacos or cuban grills. At least the poppy seed chicken I made on Sunday for home shepherding group turned out; I was real pleased with that dish. Besides more attempts at cooking and cleaning, I've still been writing. This week I finished my latest novel attempt, and we'll see if I can get it nicely polished up in subsequent drafts.

- Oh, guess what? Sarah H and I may get a few seconds of fame. Celtic Woman is recording their latest show in Atlanta next month, and Sarah and I are both going to see the first night of recording. We're really excited about it. It's 17 days away, on September 6th, and it's exciting because we could possibly end up in audience shots on the DVD. But it's too early to tell, but it's an exciting possibility. I'm still trying to figure out something to wear, and I think I may need to make a trip to Cato soon.

- Mandy passed the six-month mark for having her license. Now she can drive one friend around. She celebrated it this week by hanging out with Bethany for an entire day at the mall. She was ecstatic on Tuesday night and was so excited about it that she started fretting over wearing something cute just for the occasion.

- Music lessons have been going well. Mandy's sort of taken a break with her teacher over the summer, and she'll get another break while her teacher has another baby. Seth's started double bass lessons last month, but he's only had two classes because his teacher is always sick or busy with something else. I've continued guitar over the summer, and I'm still enjoying it. The fingers on my left hand are developing callouses, which is a good thing and will make playing easier. Christie and I took Johnny to the repair shop this week, and I must say he's sounding a lot better than he was before, though I want to say that something still doesn't sound quite right with it. But I'll wait until Monday and see what my teacher says.

- It's been extraordinarily hot down here, with temps getting into the upper 90's during the day. Everything is starting to look brown, and rain has become very sporadic; we had our first rain in probably over a month this week. Thankfully, the humidity hasn't been as bad as previous years. I'm looking forward to cooler weather and, hopefully, more rain as fall approaches.

Formal Dance

Last Friday, there was a formal dance held at church, though several non-members attended. It was a very fun evening, and I managed to record some of the dancing. Here's a youtube link to the video. Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UBour2_4czo

A Week in Florida

Last week, we went down to Cape San Blas along the Gulf coast of Florida, and we spent a week there. It was us five, and Grandma Linda and Bethany G. accompanied us.

Here are some highlights and memories:

- Our little white van was absolutely packed to the gills with everything. We had seven people, their luggage, a bunch of food, games, and you name it. The van rode low the entire way down to Florida, and going over train tracks was quite interesting. It rode low also on the way home, but it was not as bad.

- A family from our sister church owns a rental place about four hundred yards from the beach. They were generous enough to give us a discount. It was a beautiful little place. Mandy and Bethany took over the in-law suite downstairs while Seth and I each got our own room, which has not happened on vacation in years (Seth even had the luxury of a bed, as usually he sleeps on a couch or on a pull-out bed).

- The water was gorgeous. The first day, it was a beautiful blue and calm. However, as the week progressed, it grew choppier and less blue because of frequent storms that churned up the water. It made for some nice body-surfing opportunities.

- We found several shells in the water. It became a game to find whole shells without cracks before the waves carried them away.

- We were smart and put on a bit of sunscreen this year. And we only spent about an hour and a half in the water at a given time. Thus, none of us got badly sunburned. We all came home looking nice and brown.

- We got rain at least once a day, usually in the mornings or at night. It was amazing to watch the big storm clouds roll in and the thick gray line of rain underneath the clouds grow bigger as it approached. On the last night, I watched lightning flash inside a big cloud, which was very neat.

- We didn't do much. When we're on vacation, we don't like going to a bunch of places. We largely spent most of our time at the house watching movies, goofing on the computers, reading, swimming, long walks to the beach, and taking pictures of everything (with the occasional trip to the store for something). On Friday, we went to Crooked Island to find some shells; it wasn't very successful, but it was a nice beach. It made for a very relaxing week, and we lost track of the days.

- We made friends with the local wildlife. There was a little green frog called Spencer who occasionally showed up at night, and his frog cousins Roger and Hyacinth were always nearby. At Crooked Island, we met a crab called Eddie.

- On Friday (our last night) we went to Mexico Beach to go out for dinner. We had the hardest time finding a good restaurant to eat at, but finally we settled in the Fish House Restaurant. It was a small, hole-in-the-wall place. The people who worked there were nice and served us quickly, and our waitress was a hoot. The food was pretty good, though I found the batter for my fried catfish was a little bland.

All in all, it was a good week. Here are some more pictures.