..my work is done, almost..

Today as I was feverishly working on my senior sem paper I got the best text message ever...

Hailey was excited for her 3rd Thanksgiving!
I laughed so hard when I got this. Man I love that kid!!

Well the paper is done and I did quite well for 4 days of writing and research. I guess my professor will decide that though :)
My topic for my paper: The power of positive thinking and hope’s affect on the quality of life of women with breast cancer
It was pretty interesting to write and hopefully he enjoys reading it!
So in honor of Melissa, here is my to-do list and some stuff checked off :)

*Math test tomorrow morning-X
*Group meeting for board room presentation with executives from Disneyland on December 2-X
*Lots of prep for the above meeting
*20 page senior sem paper-XXXXX :)
*Journal entires for dance-X
*Journal for senior sem
*Group dance for Theatre Dance (Chicago-All That Jazz..at least it's fun!)
*Paper for theology
*Paper for theatre dance
*Finals in consumer behavior, analytical inquiry, and theology

I got to see Cerissa, Dave, and James Riley this weekend..I will post pictures soon Cerissa! He is adorable..thanks for sharing him with us for a little bit :) And I can't believe he is walking all over the place!!

..hate..

Hating school at the moment...pray for me. This is going to be a long 2 weeks!

*Math test tomorrow morning
*Group meeting for board room presentation with executives from Disneyland on December 2
*Lots of prep for the above meeting
*20 page senior sem paper
*Journal entires for dance and senior sem
*Group dance for Theatre Dance (Chicago-All That Jazz..at least it's fun!)
*Paper for theology (only 8 pages..not bad..hahaha)
*Paper for theatre dance (only 2 pages...even better)
*Finals in consumer behavior, analytical inquiry, and theology

That might be it..hope that's it..all need to be done by December 5th except the finals :) Can she do it? Let's hope so!

..calmed down..

Well the air is much better now and the fires have calmed down. They definitely left a path a destruction and extreme sadness. Continue to pray for all the families that lost their homes, it is about 1000 homes.

Somehow I managed to get sick starting Sunday evening. How? I have no idea. I was alone all weekend and stayed home working on homework. I missed most of my classes on Monday and Tuesday. I am starting to feel better though. Just that achy, headache, stomach ache, fever thing going on..hate it but I slept it off I think...for the most part.

Jesse and I will be heading to Santa Clarita this weekend to try and find somewhere to live in 6-8 weeks :) Exciting but a little bit scary..hope we find somewhere nice that we like. I am happy to be moving but not looking forward to packing up everything :)

AND I am graduating in a little over 3 weeks...yessss!! That means I get to see my family in 3 weeks!!
My senior thesis is due in less then 2 weeks..I just started it yesterday. Procrastinate much?

..firestorms..

It seems like basically all of SoCal is on fire, or at least everything around us. The air quality is pretty bad. The pictures that are in the previous post with the smoke, I can't see the mountains now and the sky is a light gray color. The fire moved quickly last night and attacked a number of cities. Here is a map of the locations that have been affected. We are the A and B has recently caught on fire.

..we've got smoke..

Here are some pictures I took from my balcony of the fire in Anaheim Hills, Brea, Yorba Linda, Corona...not sure what this smoke is exactly from but I am thinking Brea. It is the closest to us. At about 23 miles away.

It's too close for comfort even though it's still far away...I have been watching too much of this stuff because I just burst into tears on the phone with my mom talking about some of the people they have been interviewing..time for a movie or something. We have no cable so we only see the news right now and it's on every channel..all 7.

..sylmar fires..

Please pray for the wildfires happening right now in SoCal

I was up till about 3am watching the news and the situation in Sylmar (That is Jesse's new work city). The wildfire started in the foothills right behind Sylmar and then moved quickly inland and jumped 2 freeways. The homes lost is in the dozens right now but I know it's more...a whole mobile home park with 600+ residents is gone. Horrible. Simply horrible. The hospital in Sylmar lost power last night and their generators stopped working. They were bagging patients and moving NICU babies out of the hospital as it was approaching. I can't imagine having someone in that hospital...you think people are safe in the hospital. Horrible.

I called Jesse because he went to Manteca this weekend and they shut down parts of the I-5, 210, 118, etc. Basically all the freeways around his work are closed. He talked to his boss and they had to evacuate their building. The fire was in the trees right behind his building. They are basically pushed up into the mountains.

As I am watching the news, 3 more fires broke out in Yorba Linda, Brea, and Corona. The winds are terrible. 70+ mph. Damn you Santa Ana Winds...

The area we live in is fine, we are not on fire or are in danger right now. These areas are 45 minutes-1 hour away. But these places are completely surrounding this area..it's horrible. They are talking rolling blackouts possibly. It's hot down here right now (high 80's-90's).

Just send a prayer up for everyone down here..Sylmar residents, Oakridge Mobile Home park residents, Yorba Linda/Brea/Corona residents.

http://abclocal.go.com/kabc/index

..mr mraz..

Jesse and I were able to see Jason Mraz in concert. Ohh man, I love Jason Mraz..this was my 4th Jason concert. He is amazing in concert! I was glad that Jesse and I were able to finally see him together..it was a great night!! Enjoy some pictures and then some videos…wonderful!

I'm Yours

Singing some gospel music!

..health care..

My favorite commercial right now...I stop everything I am doing to watch it..why? I have no idea..but it makes me laugh :) And the couple makes me laugh and well the guys facial expressions too.

..rev. andy..

Jesse and I found the most amazing house on Craigslist. We have never used Craigslist before but this house was great. 4 bedroom, 3 bathroom, living room, dining room, den, washer/dryer, backyard (for our puppy we will be getting!), and located about 11 miles from Jesse's new work. Perfect!

I email the guy and ask him about the house. Tell him we want to move to the area and that we want to know if he owns the home, how much for rent, when available, etc. In the mean time I email my mom the link so she can check it out.

I get an email back within 24 hours from the owner. The email has a lot of errors-things spelled wrong, punctuation, just overall bad grammar. I am a little weirded out by it but reply back. The part that weirded me out the most was in the last paragraph. This is what he says: Looking forward to hear from you with all this details so that i canhave it in my file incase of issuing the receipt for you and contactingyou.Await your urgent reply so that we can discuss on how to get thedocument and the key to you or come and see you in person,please we are giving you all this base on trust and again i will want you to stick to your words,you know that,we do notsee yet and only putting everything into Gods hand,so please do notlet us down in this our property and God bless you more as you do this.Thanks and you are welcome call me +2348081342851.
Who mentions God in a business transaction? Soo weird! Ohhh did I mention he is in Nigeria on a crusade. What a great Reverend!! ;)

Well, we reply back and say we want to see the house before we sign anything. I am starting to feel bad about this..well not starting to feel bad, I already was thinking that something was not right. So I call my mom and I ask her if she looked at the house. She loved it too! I tell her about the email I got back. She then says "Melissa, you have heard about the Nigerian scams with banks right?" My reply "Nope" Well she goes on to tell me about them and then to tell me about people finding rental properties online and then posting them on Craigslist with their own information not the real renters info. The people eat it up! They send the check and bam! Scammed!

Well I decided that this was just too weird and started looking into it. Sure enough the emails fit the exact description of other scammers and then the item was flagged on Craigslist! I then found the house on a real renting site for much much more then what it was on Craislist. I knew that sick feeling in my stomach was for a reason, thanks mom for always teaching me to follow my gut! And for telling me about Nigerian scams :)

Now, don't think that Jesse and I would have blindly signed a contract and sent money to a random Nigerian bank..I am telling you about this because who knows what these scammers are capable of! Just be careful when looking to buy anything online and only do things locally! My lesson has been learned!