Home in Hungary

I have safely returned to Hungary!

I arrived last Friday and have been trying to settle in since then. The Bazis had a little make over while I was away: we have new pergo floors in the bedrooms and they painted the walls! It looks so much better than before. I also got to upgrade rooms. Now I have what used to be Tracey's room, which is actually two rooms! So I have an "office" and a "bedroom/living room" that is all mine! The bathroom is also slightly larger, but oddly shaped and there fore it doesn't really matter that it is bigger, but I still appreciate the space.

Since I got back I have gone to Tesco 5 or 6 times, IKEA once (with a second visit scheduled for today) as well as a few other random stores to try to get things that I need like hangers, shower curtain, and other household items to keep me organized, etc. One thing has definitely dissappeard off the shelves though... those plastic hooks that stick to the wall/door with double sided sticky stuff. I bought some last year for my bathroom to hang stuff up and they worked great, but I can't find any this year. Maybe they will reappear later in the year.

Yesterday I started taking Hungarian lessons. It has been interesting so far. As far as speaking ability goes I take the cake. When it comes to grammar... I drown. I don't know any of the grammar words so that has been challenging. I can say things correctly most of the time, but I don't know why it is right. Today we were learning the difference between transitive and intransitive verbs. And then we had to conjugate based on some words that I do not understand... and so I kept messing up because I don't know what the teacher wanted. It is a lot of fun though to speak Hungarian with non-native speakers because they are actually pretty good, but then they make funny mistakes that I understand because they are translating directly from English. I find the class amusing. Hopefully I will learn a lot in the next 8 days of class.

The weather here has been quite hot. Then it rained last night. I got caught walking home in the rain and was pretty much completely soaked by the time I got home. And there was lightning. It reminded me of when Trace and I wateched a special about lightning on CNN last year... and then we were both freaked out about being outside during a lightning storm. The problem is that were I live there is no where to go if you are stuck out in it. You just have to keep going and pray that God will not smite you.

The other big project since I have returned has been budgeting. No one ever taught me how to do that. Last year I kept running out of money like five days before my next pay check... and then wondering what I had spent that money on. So... this month is evaluation month. I have kept all of my receipts, I made an excel document to enter the breakdown of what things were for, etc. I need to find out how much money I spend on groceries, personal care items, eating out, school supplies, etc. Then I can figure out how to save some money so that I am not broke. Wish me luck. (I hate money... I think it was an invention of the devil himself to tear the world apart and to distract us from God. Unfortunately "Money makes the world go round.")

Well.... that's all for now!

Please keep me in your prayers as I reconnect with my Hungarian friends and prepare for the school year.

Grace and peace-
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