Polican Apartment!!

Hello my dear family!!

I know I know Becky I said Wednesday but if you think about it Wednesday and Friday have a lot in common. Both are happy days as Wednesday you are thankful that its not Monday and that you have only half a week to go till the weekend and Friday because the next day its the weekend. As well, Friday has just as many hours and minutes as Wednesday and is much easier to type on the computer or to write since I always forget to insert the first 'd'. All in all, Friday is a much better day to post than Wednesday is.

Yesterday was Women's day and the day before was Teacher's day. Yesterday I went out with some friends and ate delicious Baklava in the rain!!! It was like a torrential downpour!! And the stairs down to where we live were like an ever aboundant water fall. However, the water fall didn't stay just on one side of the stairs but wandered back and forth so one was continually trying to jump from one side to the other. By the time I got to the house I was soaked almost up to my knees!!

I started and finished Persuasion within two days. A wonderful book by the way, but its not as good as I remember it to be when Becky read it out loud.

So here are some wonderful pictures of my house!! I hope that you'll like them!!! I always get it confused and post the pictures upside down so please start reading from the bottom up.

The kitchen! The garbage bag is too small to fit into the garbage can and always falls down so we put it on the ground. But we only have one 'bomb' for gas. Ha ha, I thought that it was called a 'bomb' and laughed everytime i was talking to people who said that they had to get theirs filled. But really the joke was on me because its not called a 'bomb' at all but a 'bomblen'. I'd been calling it a 'bomb' for about 2 years and yes, in Albanian a 'bomb' is the thing that explodes, just like in English.

This is one that Hanna drew. She's an awesome drawer! I love how most of her characters have a Asian look to them! Soo cute. Lili is the little yellow thing, Hanna the girl and I'm the smiling Sun! I think that they are making reference to my big hair here. Oh, and look, there you all are, your nice smiling faces! Someone asked me ther other day: "Did you plan to all where white and black?" To which I had to respond "What??? We are??? How did THAT happen?" :)

Hanna is part of the furniture.

The three of us had a roommate night and we drew three pictures. Can you guess which one is mine? We wrote 1 Thess. 5:16-18 One verse for each picture. Be joyful always. Pray Continually, and Always give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Our living room!

From the entrance into the house here we have our three rooms: living room (left), mine and Hanna's (center) and Lili's (right)

Lili's room/guest room.

This is the front entrance from the view of my bedroom.

I've been thinking a lot about when Jesus says that we need to deny ourselves, our own lives and pick up our cross and follow Him. I love contrast! So I was trying to draw a picture of a man walking away from the world and following the footsteps of Christ. Ha ha, there are many things that I need to learn about painting but I had fun with this. in my mind the man should be a sillouette as he walks towards the truth (the light). But then I thought I already have lots of black in the picture he can't be black. So then I mixed some colours and came up with a very nice pale green. I painted him that but then he looked like a marshon going towards his UFO to go into his other plant. So then he because white. The poor guy, but i haven't figured out how to do any sillouettes or shadows or anything yet so white's the colour.

I've thought about this picture for a long time. Iwas reading Isaiah and it talked about all the trees being cut down (trees of lebanon) but then it gave hope! "A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit." I saw this mental picture in my head of all these trees cut down and it being covered in fog, but then one zooms his eye on a Branch coming up out of all the dead trunks. I mentioned the idea to my friend who is a painter but never thought that I could do it myself. However, after I did that one paiting of the sunset. I thought to myself, "Lynnette, now its the time to do this one." So I sat down one night and did it. I loved to do it!! And I like how it turned out. Not completely like I had in mind but I think really good! God gave me grace to make it beautiful! Ha ha, but the next morning Hanna and Lil both asked me "Lynnette, why are the clouds on the ground?" ha ha, note to self, must practice drawing fog. :)

This one is part of 1 John 4:18. We have some tulips in the hall and I really like how they look! I thought that I'd try to draw one. And the verse that came to mind is the one about perfect love. I thought that when you have perfect love you blossom and are free to be who you are. It doesn't matter about others because you enjoy being who you are. Like a flower that doesn't become something else just because one says its ugly or beautiful.

My art wall!! Hanna drew the one with the hands for my birthday. Gramma made me one of the cards for Christmas (really lovely by the way) And Nicole gave me the other card for my b-day. But the other paintings are what I had a great time doing. The 'sunset' one on the right was my first one. I liked the thought of painting but was too afraid of what people would say or think if it was hideous. So I never felt right to try it. But one morning, I felt that this was part of my worship to God. To let go about what others might think and to paint because I enjoyed to do it. So I did and I really felt blessed by it!

Pictures!! Ha ha, I forgot to take a close up but picture on the far right is one that our team took in Pogradec. Its really funny. We are all in cowboy hats, helio is siting and the rest of us are around him and we are in front of a cartoon house that has a Christmas tree. The best team picture yet!!

This is my side of the bedroom. "My room was clean yesterday, sorry you missed it!"

Hanna's side of our room and the door to the balcony. I forgot to get a picture of the balcony, but I really love to sit out there!!

Thats our house. Minus the bathroom but its just a bathroom and I believe that you've seen one or two of those before. If you haven't ever seen a Turkish Toliet, then you'll just have to come visit me to have the please of using one!

Love you guys tons!!!!

Netty