the swine flu

so we're mostly settled in our new house now. i haven't taken our "after" pictures yet, because there are a few finishing touches that i still need to do and there's no wal-mart to run to, so it's taking longer than i want it to. but hopefully tomorrow and thursday i'll finish things up, take pictures, and post them so you can see the wonderfulness that is our new house.

in other news, the swine flu has hit beit sahour. well, maybe. it's hard to tell what's real and what's made up, because the news really only travels through word of mouth - which is pretty unreliable - and in arabic, so word of mouth in a second language is a little sketchy. but the rumors are that a couple families in beit sahour have it, some kids have it, and some kids spread it at a summer camp. so for today, all of the summer camps in bethlehem, beit sahour, and beit jala are closed. we also just started putting hiba in daycare a couple mornings a week, but that's not happening this week either. hopefully we won't get the swine flu. i'm not too worried about it - i think stories get exaggerated a lot here. but that's the exciting news of the week.

it's been surprisingly cool the last few days. when i say cool, i mean like 85 degrees or so, but the evenings have been great. and 85 sure is better than 100, so i'll take it. it's still too hot to do anything productive during the day (at least in my opinion), but at least i don't drown in a pool of my own sweat just sitting on the couch.

that's about it right now. i'll try to think of some good stories to share and maybe one day i'll get the house done. we'll see. this afternoon i'm going to sit in front of the fan, so that probably won't bring about good stories or house pictures, but i'll feel good. :-)