End of an era

We have had a cat in our house since I was five years old. We got Buddy from a family friend's farm and spent all day chasing him around the barn before we found him asleep under a trough in the loft. We got Lucky when she was found under the hood of a car at my uncle's Garage. She had been on the manifold of the engine all the way from Barrie and was a little singed and a little unhinged from the experience. For a long time she was very skittish and a little stupid. But she was so pretty that we forgave her weird quirks. As time went on she settled down and was only skittish around strangers. She became very cuddly and demanded attention by sitting on books and sprawling across keyboards. She slept in my bed whenever I was home but settled for my parents bed when I was away.

Lucky has been sick for a couple of months and this past week she died. She was around 13 years old.

Here are a couple of pictures I took of her recently
She is super cute!

We have had cats around for so long that it is weird adjusting to the empty house. There is no food dish by the back door, no sudden movements in the corner of your eye, no animal demanding attention or wanting to cuddle, and no cat hair on your clothes, furniture, floors etc. ( this last part is not really a bad thing...) It will take some getting used to!

It was their home first...

We've had some problems with chipmunks this year. A few weeks ago my mom's car was doing something weird and when we looked under the hood we discovered that a chipmunk has been eating things - spark plug wires and the padding that insulates the hood from the engine. So we have set a couple of traps and have taken several chippies to the forest a couple of kms from our house. We have named most of them - Chip and Dale have made visits to our place, as have Alvin, Simon and Theodore. My parents have been a little frustrated with the infestation but I keep reminding them that this was their home first.

This morning my dad noticed a chipmunk running out from under my mom's car and decided to check to make sure nothing was wrong. The car hadn't gone anywhere yesterday so the chipmunks had some extra time to do their work. They shredded the padding again and this time they left us a little present.

Alvin had babies in the car! The padding was used along with grass to make a nest-type thing and there were baby chipmunks in the nest under the hood of the car.

They have now been moved, nest and all, to the srubs in front of our house. Hopefully Alvin can find his(?) babies now but we couldn't leave them in the car. They might have eaten more wires and that would be bad.

Spam Sucks

No, I did not buy an iphone.
No, I am not recommending some website
No, I am not using hotmail anymore and no, I am not switching to gmail.

I'm glad that most people who got this know me better than to think I would send a stupid email. The whole things makes me mad.

Sorry to everyone who got it. Still haven't figured out how it happened as I don't have any virii. Will keep looking into it.

new opportunities and decisions to be made

At small group on Sunday night we were discussing how we often have to distinguish between the leading of the Spirit and our own instincts, our own voice. I mentioned that my contract was coming to an end at WV and didn't know what was next. I was given Psalm 130 which is basically, wait and hope, hope and wait.

Well I didn't have to wait long! I had a meeting on wednesday morning with my boss about the different projects I'm working on and then he brought up the questions I hadn't really asked yet - what comes next. I now have three exciting options, although none of these is approved or final and I haven't accepted anything. I'm trying to think and pray about these to figure out where the spirit is leading.

Option #1: I have been the junior project officer for Chad for the last two months. There is an opportunity for me to spend 3-6 months in Chad essentially doing many of the same things I've been doing, except I'll be in Chad. I'd also be doing a lot of capacity building and it would be an amazing learning experience and a good challenge. It would also look nice on my CV:) However, Chad is not the most secure country and it comes with many challenges I am not sure I want to face.

Option #2: There may be an opportunity for a placement of 12-18 months in Rwanda starting in October. Of course I am jumping for this placement and would love it so so much!

Option #3: I do both. This has not really been suggested by my boss or anything, but it would solve the problem of trying to decide. I could go to Chad for 3-4 months and then go to Rwanda. It would mean that I may be gone almost two years so there would be plenty of time for people to come visit...

So it is entirely possible that one or all of these options may fall through, but it is equally possible that I will be back in Africa before the summer is over. Obviously I want to take option #2 and return to Rwanda but it isn't as easy a decision as I thought it would be. Chad would be crazy difficult compared to anything I've done to date and if you'd asked me two months ago if I wanted to go to Chad I would have adamently said no. Now I feel like it is something I need to consider so if I am not able to do both I will have to choose between these. So maybe I am still waiting and hoping for more direction after all!