Abundant Blessings

Today was an incredible day. Its incredibleness is most of the reason I haven’t blogged until now–much past my bedtime. Being blessed is a position–something we already possess whether we know it or not–but on certain days, it’s obvious. Today was one of those days.

It started with an email.

My husband wrote to say we have an apartment. He’s been searching for the last week, and his success was mixed. Although the very first apartment he sent pictures of made us all want to move right in, having walked through it, he felt it was just too small. He held out, and in the end the apartment he found exceeded all our expectations, and met every qualification the kids and I had for it on our dream list of features, which included the following:

• Western toilets
• a bathtub
• two bathrooms
• balconies (Sprout’s request)
• a nice-sized kitchen
• storage, if possible

The apartment he found has it all! I’m overwhelmed! We all are.

This is the stack of money he paid for the apartment. Chinese culture lesson #1: you pay your rent advance, usually every six months.

And the day just kept getting better. Here are the blessings I’m counting today

120. We have an apartment!!!
121. Our apartment is everything we could have wanted and more.
122.  The landlord is providing us a refrigerator. The refrigerator has double doors! (Our previous refrigerator in China was relatively small. This one won’t be.)
123.  It’s strawberry season in China, and my wonderful husband is going to buy some and freeze them for me. You’d have to understand that there are very few berries sold in China. You can’t buy them frozen, so you have to buy them fresh when they’re available. We get strawberries in February-March, mulberries (yum!) in June, I think. (I can’t quite remember). And blueberries for a very short while at the end of the summer (they’re expensive). I usually try to freeze batches so we can enjoy them longer. This goes very well with the fact that the refrigerator is larger. I’ll have more capacity for berries! I was concerned we’d miss the season, but JavaMan was already thinking of me. Isn’t he wonderful?

124. I am making headway on the bins. Still trying to focus on the positive and believe I’ll make it all fit.
125. I found out we may have the chance to visit with friends while we’re on our 12-hour layover in Hong Kong.
126. We had a bit of a financial mix-up last week that meant I was short some money. But we were blessed unexpectedly today–very well-timed for some of those last-minute purchases.
127. I had a chance to teach my daughters this week about needs and wants and how to make wise purchases. 128. I have wonderful children.
129. I have a wonderful husband.
130. I am so blessed to have such trust in my husband that he can be half a world away and I know all is well and he is thinking of me and his children.
131. There was a bit of a snafu with JavaMan’s visa. However, it looks as though the situation will be quickly resolved, and without too much extra hassle or financial repercussions.
132.  There are only [fergcorp_cdt_single date=”March 12, 2012″] more days until we get on a plane and go!
133. I seem to be recalling lots of Mandarin, and I think I won’t have too much trouble getting my stride back in the language when we get there
134. JavaMan is feeling better about his language abilities since we had the chance to invest in Rosetta Stone last year. It’s wonderful to hear his confidence in the language improving. (When we lived there previously, I had more opportunities for practice than he did, since in his interactions with his colleagues, he mostly used English.)
135. It’s wonderful to be in a small town for this bit of our waiting period. I received some wonderful help on my last-minute-quilt-finishing-up as well as some help with knitting this week. Neighbors and small-town business owners are wonderful.
136. I’m grateful for several opportunities to reconnect with friends before we leave. I had a lovely chat with a friend this week.
137. Made another little schedule change and have been really enjoying homeschool since I decided to relax about what we achieved before we left. Packed away the Math books today.
138. Sprout has been making great strides in reading lately.
139. She’s also doing better with her lisp. More on that later this week!

See what I mean? Overwhelmed.