Hooray for warmth!

Can I just say I am sooooo thankful that we no longer have to sit outside to use the internet (unless of course, the library is closed). We found out that I can come in and use it whenever I want! I just have to have this great little pink card with me. That makes my fingers veeeery happy.

So Ian is having a great week of orientation. He has gone to a few of the postgraduate things and was able to matriculate today.. That means he has an official St Andrews ID card so he can do all the things privileged students can do - like freely go in and out of the library as well as check out materials, and the one he's really excited about - using the gym! I'm beginning to realize just how bored he was the past few weeks we've been here (aside from all the exciting things we did, obviously) because he got his first syllabus and proceeded to do something like 1/3 of the work for the class.. Oh hubby :) He was made for school. Needless to say, he's excited for classes to start. He will have 3 modules a week. Two of them are in Stirling which is about an hour (hour and a half?) away and that's on monday. So he'll be gone basically all day on Mondays. Then, once he decides on the other class he wants to take, he'll have one more either on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday.. And in case that's not enough, he's considering taking a basic logic class just for fun (it's not required). He has also toyed with the idea of getting a part time job, but we'll just wait and see how busy he is with classes first. I'll have him post an update regarding what his classes are actually about for any of you that might be interested later.

As for me, I have been working (the US job, no job here yet) and painting! Yay! I thought I'd never get to. I've also been doing lots of laundry and sometimes getting confused by the washing machine... That's right folks, even the washing machines are confusing :) To save money I hang our clothes to dry until they are mostly to alltheway dry and then dry them in the 'dryer' (it's the same as the washer) for like 10 minutes so they're not all scratchy.. It works but makes for clothes being everywhere! :) We love Scotland!!!

My goal now is to learn how to cook a whole chicken. I've got a few recipes because we found out that it is way, and I mean, way cheaper to use a whole chicken than to buy chicken breasts all the time. The breasts are over one pound (we're talking moo-lah here, not weight) each, so I bought a 'cheap' bag for over 6 pounds and it had six small-medium breasts in it... Then we were at Tesco the other day and found a '2 for 5 pounds' deal for whole chickens. So we're doing it! As far as other meat, much to Ian's sadness, it is all really expensive. To buy lamb here costs about as much as it cost us to buy hamburger meat at walmart, so we're forgoeing beef and becoming lamb eaters.

I know I keep talking about saving money and it makes me laugh right now because I really have no idea how much anything costs. We have yet to get any kind of bill (most are sent only every three months) so I just keep assuming that whenever one comes it's going to be really expensive so that we are as smart as we can be (any tips are much appreciated). I'm secretly hoping though that it's not as much as we expected so I can actually use the dryer with no feelings of guilt :)

Whoa - another big change - students! There are students EVERYWHERE... I never considered that when the students come back it basically doubles the population in our little town. And, sadly, we're finding that the castle tavern (the one across the street) does attract students, however, they don't seem to stay really late, so it hasn't affected our sleeping patterns yet. And, I figure once classes start, it can only get better because they have to study sometime, but maybe I'm just continuing in my optimistic ignorance.

One other thing.. I think it's harvest season for those potatoes! We've seen huge truckloads of them drive past our flat.. you don't see that everyday :) And, a few weeks ago a truck went by with hay that was piled as tall as the top of our second story window - not exaggerating (usually from our window we can look down on the tops of the semi trucks, so that was some tall hay). Our location is really funny because there is actually a lot of traffic on North Street. The funny part is, everyone uses it, tour buses, local buses, semi trucks, taxis, farmers (i.e. tractors), regular people.. everybody. I get nervous sometimes and just sit and wait for those semis to crash into the side of our building as they try to turn from one narrow road onto an even more narrow road, but no one has crashed yet.

I almost forgot! Don't you love it when God provides for you in ways that you know aren't really needs, but just things you were kind of hoping for? I do :) I don't know if I mentioned how there is nowhere to store anything in our bathroom, but there isn't. I was really hoping we could find something so that we were a little more organized (I think I fluctuate between type A and type B, but when it comes to being organized and clean, I'm finding that at this point in my life I am pretty much a type A - I think Ian wouldn't mind if that changed at some point :) ) and I was pretty much ready to give up and try to convince Ian to buy something more expensive than what we wanted to spend. Then, we went into a charity shop (the last one of the day) and found a little 3 drawer dresser for 5 pounds!! Unbelievable. I still can't believe it. On top of that, I found two screws in the back of the laundry room door that something (more shelves maybe????) can hang from today so that we can actually put things away instead of keeping them in front of and on top of the washer and moving them around when it's time to do laundry. So there you go. God provided more abundantly than I could even bring myself to ask - I felt a little sheepish :) He knows me so well!

I suppose that's really it now.. more to come...