lunch at Jeni’s

We’re on the way home from Carmel and we stopped, of course, at Jeni’s in Dublin. Having some first-timers with us this time made it even more fun.

After pointing them out to the handlebar-mustached young guy behind the counter, they were handed samples of Salty Caramel, the most popular flavor.

We all sampled various flavored and made our selections.

I’ve always wanted the ‘One Night in Bangkok” sundae, but have never been able to stand the heat from the cayenne pepper in the peanut ice cream. I gave it another try today and didn’t think it was too bad, probably due to my increased intake of Buffalo wings of late…

The added peanuts, caramel sauce, banana and whipped cream help to tone it down. You even get a fortune cookie! My only regrets: not ‘trying’ Salty Caramel’ and ‘Wildberry Lavender.’ I know what they taste like, but no trip to Jeni’s seems complete without them.

I CORRECTLY predicted that the newbies would be boring and stick to ‘plain’ favors. Indeed, Abigail got a vanilla and chocolate cone, and Carolyn and Ben shared a ‘Mock Turtle’ sundae, which features vanilla with pecans and caramel and chocolate sauces. At least they liked them.

Andrew got a favorite, Whiskey and Pecans, in a fresh-made cone.

On the way out, we spied a leg lamp in a shop window…

a list

1. Long time no type. Buried in schoolwork and life. Not necessarily in that order. Attempting to force myself to come up for air.

2. Chemistry is hard. Like, fail-out-of-class hard. (Not me, but you know what I mean.) I knew there was a good reason to fear it back at Penn State! Anyway, I’m doing alright, but a recent bombed quiz has shown me I need to devote more time to Chem and less to Anatomy.

3. In all my busy-ness today, I decided I needed to make bread. That’s so like me. Why? I had to “revive” my starter that’s in the fridge. And have I forgotten about the GAJILLION things of bread we brought home from our Thanksgiving trip? (No fewer than 1.5 loaves of rye bread, 10 bagels, 8 onion rolls, plus crackers.) Our house is carb central!

4. My Thanksgiving pumpkin pie was the ugliest thing ever (thanks to my impatience with store-bought crust), but tasted great. Get the recipe here.

5. Speaking of recipes–I just managed another blog post for the co-op. It’s about cranberries and I included the cranberry brisket Andrew loves so much. Read it here.

6. I am now “officially” a New Yorker; I took care of getting a new license and registering the car. License should be here in about a week! It’s kind of exciting, in a really anti-climactic sort of way. I think if we’d moved into a house we were excited about, everything would feel different. Instead, everything still feels very temporary. But, nonetheless, it’s still neat to see the Pilot with its new yellow and blue license plate.

7. We named our plants. Well, I named our plants. Andrew just went along with it good-naturedly. My dear friend, Emily, inspired me. She has such beautiful, healthy, vibrant house plants. I am so jealous. She and I recently traded some plant clippings and she mentioned one of them was named ‘Stella.’ Now, I’ve heard of people naming their plants before, but I just never have. I mean, mine don’t normally last that long…it was never a good idea to get attached. However, I do have one that has lasted FOUR years now! Andrew and I were in disbelief when we realized it. So, on the way home from our Thanksgiving holiday, I used my phone to look up names and their meanings (again, such a ‘me’ thing to do–we’re talking the significance of the names of HOUSE PLANTS) and we decided to call the big, four-year-old one “Gerard” which means ‘hardy.’ (We’ve been calling it ‘hardy’ since I hadn’t killed it yet, so we figured why not?). I have one other plant, an orchid Andrew bravely got me for Valentine’s Day this year. (I don’t know what he was thinking.) Anyway, it did alright for awhile, then the blooms fell off, then I panicked until I found out that was normal, and just when it was growing another stem and bloom, one of the movers bumped into it on our table and broke it off! I was heartbroken. I looked up ‘long-suffering’ and ended up with “Patience.” She’s been through a lot, that one, and just the other day I noticed a tiny bud getting ready to sprout from the moss–hurray! And now, I have Emily’s purple one to re-pot, who I have been calling “Stella 2.” Between the animals and now anthropomorphic plants, we have one full house!

8. I’m supposed to be working on psychology homework. Must hurry!

9. Hadrian has been down for the count all day today–GLORIOUS! I’ve been so productive. (In case you’re wondering, any time he returns from ‘puppy camp’ he sleeps 24/7 for about two days. Totally normal.)

10. We have 7 pints of ice cream in our freezer, plus the remnants of two Jeni’s that Emily and Dan brought us, plus a tiny bit of homemade Jeni’s vanilla. SEVEN unopened Graeter’s and Jeni’s pints. That’s like $45 in ice cream (hey, don’t judge my expensive taste in ice cream!). My brilliant plan: tiny scoops, both to make it last and keep it off my hips. I’ll let you know how it goes, but I’m not terribly optimistic…

devastated

Well, we thought we’d found THE ONE.

In fact, we’d all but moved in and painted the walls already.

It feels like someone came in and stole it right out from under us.

For those who don’t know, here is the short version:

Just as we were about to throw in the towel last weekend and ‘settle’ for something, Andrew found an amazing house that wasn’t even on the market yet. It was PERFECT: a 1900s farmhouse on 3 acres with a barn and room for a garden, a small front porch and pear trees. A beautiful, spacious, updated kitchen and enough bathrooms and bedrooms. Wide wood plank flooring. Attached two-car garage. A quiet country road just a couple miles outside the village. Seriously, we were dying over this place. We saw it immediately, but there were some questions we had for the seller, so we didn’t put an offer in right away. Our realtor met with the owner and we were planning to see the place tomorrow and put our offer in.

Well…we got a call Saturday evening from our realtor saying that someone else was going to put an offer in THAT NIGHT. So, we gave a verbal offer ABOVE ASKING PRICE over the phone and spent the next 18 hours praying fervently.

We know God heard everyones’ prayers, but he didn’t grant them; the other people got the house. This has happened to us TWICE now! And in this market, too. I think it just means we have excellent taste in houses…

Before I get too far, we know God has a plan and that His best for us may not seem like it at the time. But it doesn’t make this any less disappointing. Even our realtor was pretty upset for us. We got the call after church–I shed a few tears and Andrew spent the afternoon in bed, curled up in the fetal position. (Seriously, he did.) I threw myself into school work, laundry and online retail therapy (I need warmer clothes!!); Andrew watched the Bills defeat the Patriots–at least that gave him a boost.

I don’t know why God didn’t give us the house, but I do know there is a reason. And I’m OK with that. We just need Him to provide a place to live, at least temporarily, AND FAST. That’s the thing folks, we don’t have anywhere to go. In about a month, our time here at the hotel will be up, and while we can extend a bit if we’re under contract to buy a house, that’s looking more and more unlikely to happen. Sooo…we have to figure something out, and apartments that allow giant dogs are slim to none. And we don’t really want a year-long lease if we’re still going to try to find a house…

While I’m still very disappointed, I know in my heart that God has a plan. And that really, this is not that big of a deal. I mean, if Sara can go on praising God after a Stage 4 lung cancer diagnosis, and Susy can have hope after her sister’s Stage 4 brain cancer, and Heather can remain joyful while being a single-parent to Maggie while Silas is at pilot training….we can surely get through this. Surely.

We ended our day with a walk to the little ice cream place near the hotel. For the last month or so I’d been telling Andrew that that is where we were going to go to celebrate when we got a house. Well, today was its last day being open for the season, so we went to celebrate the “better” house God has for us instead. Not that we were in a mood to celebrate (I didn’t even want ice cream this afternoon–how crazy is that?!), but it was nice to get out and get some fresh air.

And here’s both of us… Can you tell Andrew was not into documenting for the blog tonight? I really need to figure out how to use the timer function… (I was doing my best to put on a sad face.) Pray for us!