the Graham Cracker House

Again, here is my anecdotal tribute to the true nature of the Graham family.

I locked us out of our apartment last week.  The funny thing is, this has happened two or three times before, all within our first six months of marriage.   The firs time, Bjorn was on his own.  He called the Landlord, who was quite annoyed and was very unimpressed and unhappy but did unlock it.  The next time it happened  the Landlord was "off-duty"  she is out of the office by 2 pm every day and didn't return our phone calls.  I sat on the grass and cried as Bjorn figured out a way to break into our shed (with a hairclip, if I remember right), then use his tools from the shed to pry open our bedroom window.  I was exuberantly grateful at his mad "man skills" and he said he was a little tricky, we probably wouldn't be able to break in that way again.
Imagine my disdain when a month a later we locked ourselves AGAIN, on the way to church. I was fumingly upset but we decided to just go to our meetings and worry about it when church was over.  My sweet husband knew how stressed the whole situation made me, so he left Priesthood early to come home and fix it, using the same techniques as before (luckily).  I came  home to our unlocked apartment.
I vowed, after this adventure, to get a spare key (no matter the cost!) and keep it hidden in Bjorn's truck.  I coughed up the $2 at home depot later that week and wondered why I didn't do this earlier.  The key stayed safely hidden in the truck, only being used to help surprise party guests be a surprise.  After that party it somehow must have gotten lost, because when I went to look for it after realizing our dilema last week, the key was no where to be found.  This time it was completely my fault we were locked out, it was getting late, and I felt bad.  Luckily I had just gone inside to get Bjorn's phone (we were trying to do some home teaching) so with that he called a friend and just asked to borrow butter knives.  Once again, Bjorn was able to break into the shed (with the knives), then slowly pry open the window.  He had forgotten which tools worked in the past (it's been almost 2 years!)  so it took a while, but we made it.  Lucky for us, Bjorn's 22 year old truck now starts without the key (don't share this info. please).  We maneuvered it around the back of the house to give us some light while breaking in to our apartment.
*sigh*  The stress was short-lived, ANOTHER replica key was made, and we hope next time this happens we will be in a home of our own!

Our goliath this month is named Calculus.  Calculus has been around for quite some time.  (As has Goliath- see the similarities).  In fact, I had my encounter with calculus over 8 years ago.  I somehow survived, but just barely.  Now, it's Bjorn's turn.  This is his very last class to take his very last semester at LDSBC.  We are almost  to the next step in our journey for higher education.  Only one thing stands in the way- calculus.  Bjorn has been dreading this class FOREVER.  He had some sort of mental block caused by little gremlins telling him he can't pass- and he believed them!! pfhswah!  Bjorn and I (and the gremlins) had quite a few stern talks about Bjorn's amazing abilities to learn and do anything.   We had family night lessons on Goliaths and how they were conquered.  We likened the scriptures to ourselves and discussed tactics we can use to beat our own Goliath.  Slowly but surely, Bjorn came around.  The positive attitude has started to shine.  He has so many talents and can, without a doubt, pass this class, it just took him a little while to come to that realization.  Now that we are a week into the semester, the possible is looking even more do-able.   He knows (as I have known for a while now) that he can DO this!  


That's all the exciting the news in the Graham household at the moment.  Thoughts and prayers for Bjorn to pass Calculus are appreciated.


House hunting has been slow recently.   We did put an offer on a short-sale house a couple weeks ago. It could take up to a year for us to hear back about it, so we're not holding a breath.


We're slowly getting ready to say good-bye to summer.  Our apartment pool has closed, we spent our first and last day at the lake on Labor Day with a friends boat and family members jet ski.  We're fitting in our last mountain biking escapades, and shopping the ski sales to prepare for winter.
Life is Good.