Blessings

I've been poor this semester. Like, super-poor. Like, will-I-be-able-to-pay-rent poor. My only steady income has come from my twice-weekly visits to the plasma center. The following is a list of the unexpected ways the Lord has helped me through to the point where I now know I have enough for next month's rent and I was able to spend forty dollars on groceries.

1. Sold a painting to a professor couple in town.

2. Reimbursed for a school library book I thought I lost last semester but which I found two weeks into this semester. Usually they would have purchased a replacement, but they hadn't, so they were able to pay me back.

3. Checks from Mom and Grammy.

4. Free potluck dinners (ward activity, Brit Lit reunion).

5. Sold my old peacoat.

6. Won first place poetry, honorable mention poetry, and honorable mention creative nonfiction,  which apparently come with cash prizes, at the English department's Pre-professional Conference (didn't know that when I entered).

7. Generous friends and roommates (thank you, Liz, Sarah, Julie, and Lauren).

8. Bank teller flubbed a deposit; gave me thirty extra dollars (I didn't notice until later, and as it was a cash deposit, there was no way to "correct" the "mistake").

9. Dish duty for three roommates, at 2 dollars per week per roommate.

10. Practically everything I've wanted to buy has happened to be on sale when I went to buy it: canned beans, cucumbers, potatoes, cottage cheese, eggs, cauliflower... even my own particular brand, variety, and scent of deodorant (usually $4-something, yesterday $1.79).

It may not seem like much, but most of these occurrences came at times when I was just about at the end of my rope. So I feel very well cared for, indeed. And I am so grateful.