We have been heaped with blessings over the past few days. It is quite overwealming! We are almost assured at having a house back home. It's a nice place near the schools and everything. It has a better heating system then our old house and is near all of our friends. I think we would be quite happy there. I was stressing a bit about the money for our deposit but our Church came through for us again and is sending us the money for it. What a huge relief and a huge debt of gratitude we owe the local congregation.

Then, I spoke to a woman in Mt Shasta who heads up the local chapter of Americorps in Siskiyou County. She says she was impressed with my qualifications and may hire me as a family resource advocate for the South County. Basically, that means I'll be working on fund raisers and social work stuff to improve the lives of kids in my hometown. What a dream job for me! Then, to boot the lady tells me she is Armenian and she wants to get to know her and her family. She said she is excited that there are other Armenians in Siskiyou County.

I also spoke to My Armenian brother, and Georgie and her family. They are all excited about us coming back and are looking forward to cookouts, fishing, camping, etc etc. Oh God! it is so nice to have friends such as these. It made me feel real special. I am very much looking forward to going home.

We went back to Church today after several weeks of not going. I miss the spiritual life that the Church offers. Today as I watched the great procession I was stunned with a feeling like I was looking into another world. The feeling that there is grace beyond our present sensibilities. It is a good feeling!

After Church the wife went back to work at her job that I hate. We need the money right now and her employer was willing to let her keep working despite the fact that she'll be leaving at the end of the month.

I saw an interesting program today on the Discovery Channel about Roman Gladiators. It talked about what their lives were like. Some startling statistics included that the vast majority of gladiators survived fights in the arena because it was too expensive to have them killed. Fights were not to the death most of the time. Now of course when the reigning emperor was watching then they were to the death. Another interesting fact was that training gladiators ate beans and barley as a their only source of food. Go figure. Maybe they really killed one another with flatulence instead of with a sword.

Lastly, I came to the conclusion today that I do not think George W Bush will win his bid for reelection. It's not based on anything but a gut feeling. I am an independent voter so I do not follow party lines in the least bit. I just think that this years election will be an upset. I guess we'll find out for sure in about 9 months.