What? more money ?!

I would have named this post "Money, money, money" but thats what the last one was called, so this is the best I could do. Sorry.

Point is that I dunno whats going on exactly, but suddenly the floodgates seem to have opened on my finances. A few months ago I helped my old pastor in UK to setup his new website. The site is a free resource for teaching materials for home/cell groups. It's good stuff. We didn't agree any price for my work, and I would have happily done it for free, but at the end he said he wanted to give me a gift for my efforts. I was kinda hoping I would get the money before my trip, as it would have gone toward the tickets, but the money didn't materialise which left me owing someone else for the tickets.

I had a figure in my head of £500 which is really a lot of money for the amount of work which I did - I guess I was just thinking that would be a nice sum. I was also adamant that i wouldn't contact him to ask about the money as its a gift, and I just didn't feel right about it. Yet today I came so close to catching him on Skype to ask. I resisted though, and so I'm glad because just a few hours later I received an email fom him, telling me that he's gonna send me £250 in the next week or so, then another £250 next month. That makes £500! God is just too awesome!

So I'll have a lot of money to pay back loans (as mentioned previously), but I also intend to invest a small amount in my music. My band has been waiting to get a bunch of our songs up on iTunes, but to do that I needed money in my UK account. It costs $10 per song (through an internet based organisation) and we have about three songs which we would want to add right away. The organisation takes no cut of the sales, you pay the $10 fee and thats it, any sales you make are 100% yours, and we only need to sell about 10 copies of each song to make back our money. We feel this is an essential step if we are to get a wider audience for our songs, and for the first time it really opens us up to the big wide world, and who knows what can happen with that...?
When the songs are up, I'll let everyone know - don't doubt that! And I expect you all to buy them... :P

My efforts to save some money also began today with a visit to "Menu" cafe for lunch with V, instead of my regular place. She works about 10 mins walk from where I work, and it made a nice change to lunch with someone. Seems we're both on the same quest to find good cheap places to eat in the city centre. And like me she's trusting God for finances big time, and seeing him do some amazing stuff! Its so cool. So we're gonna go try another place next week I guess.

Tomorow I'll be making the call to get my cable package changed to internet only. Then I can get rid of the TV. I've mentioned this to a few other people (V included), and they're considering doing the same! Very exciting times!

I wasn't ready for that

I got home from work around 9:30pm after a pretty long day. Checked mail and FB, emailed JS a few times. Cooked myself some pelmeenid, then watched TV for a bit. I began to realise something. There's very little on TV that will actually enrich your life. Sure there's interesting things, but when you're looking for comfort for the soul, or something positive and uplifting, TV will not help you. In fact it makes the soul more restless. I'm seriously considering cancelling my cable contract. Or at least cutting it back to internet only.

Tonight I had a weird experience though, and one that I'm a little afraid to blog, but I'm gonna do it anyway.

I was in bed, had been watching TV and was thinking i should probably put lights out and sleep. But I became intensely aware that I was so alone here, no way for me to contact anyone and no-one contacting me. At times that can be a good thing, but not right now when I need people more than ever. But there was no-one. And it was deeply depressing, and I was being tempted so much to return to old vices. So much so that I actually had to escape my own apartment. At 1:30am I got up, got dressed, grabbed a bible and a notepad, jumped in my car and simply started driving. I had no idea where I was going or where I would end up. My trip took me out o a round trip into the country which lasted about 1,5hrs. Whilst driving I prayed, cried and did a lot of thinking and even praying for my phone to ring. Nothing. I don't think I have ever felt so intensely lonely as I did today. Someone call me...