go figure

this may sound like a stretch to some of you, but here's the way i see my week: God will provide.

after returning from europe, paying bills, and balancing my checkbook, i realized yesterday that i had $38 to make it til september 9th with if i don't plan to use my credit card. this is all good until you realize that i drive minimum 100 miles a week (church is 25 miles each way, school is 6 miles each way and i have to be on campus most days) and usually more, that i haven't bought food since i returned from abroad, that i have 3 friends coming this weekend, and that our clothes dryer is broken (and even though i don't mind letting things air dry, my roommates will want it fixed sooner).

this was made slightly better when my mom forwarded me a few birthday cards that had been sitting at her house all summer, but $38 + $24 = $62 is still cutting it close for 2 weeks of time.

so basically, here i am wondering where in the world i'm going to find money for food, for gas, and for entertaining my friends who are coming when lo and behold, i realized something.

for my birthday, i asked mom to buy me a textbook i need this fall that costs nearly $200. it's out of print, and hard to find. i think i got the last one that the site i ordered it from had. ironically, my mom paid for one, we only got charged for one, but somehow the company sent me 2. (i think they couldn't find it at first, asked an affiliate to send me a copy, and then found their own copies and sent me one as well without communicating with the affiliate, because they came in two different boxes about a week apart).

don't get me wrong, i tried to be honest and wrote them about the problem, commenting that i don't have the cash flow to mail it back to them, nor do i know where to mail it back, but i just wanted to be honest so please advise. they wrote me back that they would send me a prepaid mailing envelope to return the extra book in, but alas, no such thing ever happened.

so, i tried to be honest, but still have this $200 book in perfect condition in shrink wrap that i'm not going to use since i already have one that's in equally good condition.

so what to do? i'm picking up eric from the airport in an hour or two when he returns from time in vegas... he's taking that same class as me, and hadn't thought about getting books yet... when i suggested he buy it from me at amazon.com price, he said he'd be glad to, especially as amazon says it's a 1 to 3 month wait for shipping now (the book is high in demand, very low in supply).

so to summarize, i got a free book i tried to get rid of honestly earlier this summer, but with no luck. now today, eric's gonna cut me a nearly $200 check to get this book, and i will suddenly have more than enough funding to make it through the next couple weeks.

this is good right? :)

and the only explanation *i* have for this goof several months ago with the book is: God foresaw the money issue i'd have this month and was planning ahead for me.

God is good. :)