the beauty of friendship

I remember several years back when Jessica was moving into a new apartment. My mom and dad bragged about how fast and easy the moving experience was because she had so many friends from her small group that came and helped. I remember thinking at that time that I wished I had a group of friends that would do something like that for me.
Well, my wish came true. This past Tuesday our bible study group offered to come over to our house and help us out with some 'fixing up' things that we needed to get done.
To back up a little bit, Jason and I are about ready to put our house on the market. We are going to try and sell it so that we can move closer to where he works. Right now he is driving almost an hour one way because of the traffic, so the closer we can get the better. The location won't affect me as much because of how early I would have to leave to get to work on time along with the fact that I would be traveling the opposite direction of the heaviest traffic.
So...we had mentioned to our friends that we were going to try and get the house on the market as quickly as we could and we told them what the realtor had told us to do to get it ready to sell. They just offered to give up their evening to come and help. We have the best friends ever! They came over a little after six that evening and we got started by around seven. Before 10pm we had almost everything done on our list! It was awesome! We did touch up painting (which also involved completely repainting one whole wall because the color we touched up with ended up not being the right one), fixing the hole in our ceiling that had been there almost a year, handing curtains and curtain rods, updating 3 faucets, trimming a tree branch that had fallen down, replacing the hardware on our back door and decluttering every area that I wanted to get to except for two! We got SO much done! We had a yard sale today with the help of Jason's family and managed to get rid of some more junk. We are having new carpet installed on Monday and then we should be able to meet with the realtor again next week and go from there!

We have been SO busy lately! I actually had the triathlon post done a while ago, but when I went to upload the pictures my computer froze and I was so frustrated that I just went to bed! You know how I feel about technology and I had had enough!

School has been nuts! There is so much paperwork to do at the end of the year it is just crazy! We have 7 more days left and then its over! It has been a FABULOUS year, but it is time for it to be over! Jason has been busier at work than he's ever been which is such a blessing considering the economy. He actually has two houses that are being featured in two different Parade of Homes here in Austin. I hate to brag, but he is good at what he does.

I started training for my next triathlon this past Monday. The race is on September 17 and it is quite a bit longer than the last one. The swim is 800m, the bike is 20 miles and the run is a 10K. I have joined a training team that actually does fundraising for lukemia and other blood cancers. I joined this team because it will be a way for me to help fund research for a cure in honor of the student that I lost last year to lukemia. I will be setting up a website and sending out letters to collect donations in the next week or so. Each race has a set amount that is a minimum for you to collect and 75% of those funds go back to the society to help these families that are affected and to fund the research. The other 25% covers our race entry fees, our trainings, uniforms, etc. It seems like it will be a really neat thing to be a part of and I am looking forward to it!

Well, I hope everyone is doing well. I plan to be in Oklahoma June 17-21, splitting my time between OKC and Tulsa. I hope to see a lot of you and look forward to catching up! Everyone take care!