We're Back!

Obviously, it’s been a while since our last post. Since I’ve recently been asked three separate times if I am ever going to post again, I figured I should catch-up on the last (almost) two months before it becomes hopeless…

Unbeknownst to us, when we woke up the morning of July 7^th we wouldn’t have more than two or three 2-hour naps for the next 56 hours (we didn’t get to bed until about noon on the 9^th—Almaty time). Our flight departed on Wednesday, July 8th at about 3 a.m. which meant we disturbed Addie at about midnight and although we tried to keep her asleep, she was as awake and alert as ever. She was fascinated by the headlights of the other cars on the road, loved walking around the airport, and went to sleep rather easily once our flight began to take off. We’re pretty sure she thought it was all a very realistic dream!

Blurry, dark, and out of focus, these pictures show two things:

1-Chris capturing Addie after one of many runs around the lobby, and

2-Michael Jackson tributes were everywhere--even the Almaty airport at 2 a.m. I snapped this picture of the ending credits for the Thriller music video (I’d never seen the full video before and it’s actually kind of… creepy…)

Although Addie went to sleep rather easily, she stirred at the slightest motion of being laid down, so we were stuck holding her the entire seven hour flight to Frankfurt where we managed to survive the six hours wait for our eight hour flight to Dulles (where we again held her the entire flight). When we finally arrived in Dulles we were anxious to get through customs and see family. As we collected our baggage and walked to the customs area I became profoundly grateful to be an American. While our citizenship comes with many wonderful blessings, the one that hit me instantly was that we wouldn’t have to wait three hours at the back of the non-citizen customs line! (When I first saw the line I thought we DID have to wait in it and nearly cried.)

After speedily making it through customs we found my dad waiting for us and learned that the rest of our family who had driven up had come earlier in the day to go to the temple too and although they made it to the airport in plenty of time… they went to the wrong airport! ;D Luckily the wrong airport wasn’t far from the right one, so we were soon joined by my Mom, brothers John and Josh, and Josh’s wife Caroline and children, Kelsy, JJ, and Petey. Petey was one of the two little ones born while we were in Kazakhstan so it was exciting to meet him! We went to Generous George’s Positive Pizza & Pasta Place for dinner and met up with my Uncle Greg and his wife Ann. Although they didn’t drive all the way from Louisiana to see us arrive from Kazakhstan, they knew they would be in DC the day we flew in, so we were able to have dinner with them and meet my “new” Aunt Ann. (They were married about a week before us) Next, we hit the road and drove down to Virginia Beach! We arrived home at about midnight, but it took me another two hours to settle down (and stop talking) enough to actually sleep!

We were able to enjoy being with most of my family Thursday evening at a little barbecue at Josh’s home. It was fun to be surrounded by family and to see nieces and nephews doing new things. We handed out some of the souvenirs we purchased too! (These are my brothers John and Eddie in their Kyrgyz-style hats.)

On Friday morning we flew to Utah for the first-ever family reunion for Chris’ immediate family. Soon after our arrival we were able to meet our two new nephews! We had a few days before the reunion started, so we were able to finally make it to the temple (it’d been TEN months!!!), do some more wardrobe-replenishment shopping, and see some of our much loved friends that Saturday and Sunday. Although we neglected to use the camera we brought, it was great to catch-up with our friends and we were grateful they were able to take the time out of their day to come and visit us!

Our family reunion began Monday at a cabin in Heber and man was it fun! We ate great food (including way too many desserts!), shopped at the Park City outlets, took at least one run too many (ok, so maybe most of us only went on one run…), laughed ourselves silly in the hot tub once the children were asleep, and so much more! It was great to be with everyone and get to know them all a little better.

The original nuclear family:

The silly face picture with all of us (Chris' family does this every time they take family pictures. Does yours?? My family has sometimes done it, but definitely not as regularly.)

Our family reunion came to an official end at the extended reunion for Chris’ grandparent's family (dad's side). Grandma P has ten living children, seventy-five grandchildren, and (as of July) 44 great-grandchildren. With those kind of numbers this was a reunion that would overwhelm any in-law—thankfully, the entire family is really nice! An interesting fact about Grandma P's posterity: at the beginning of 2008, there were just EIGHT great-grandchildren— within the last year and a half, that number has grown to 44, with more already on the horizon!

The following Monday morning we were to fly out at about 7 a.m. We planned to leave the house at 5:30 a.m. to give us plenty of travel and wait time. Imagine our horror when Chris’ mom flew into our room at 6:00 a.m. and said, “It’s 6:00 a.m.! Our alarms didn’t go off!!” Thus began our day! We managed to get out of the house in record time, but—try as we might—we were unable to make our flight. Fortunately, there was another flight leaving just 50 minutes later that would get us to our destination. We arrived in Virginia just an hour later than originally planned. We were again greeted by family: my mom, Josh, Caroline, and their kids. We headed to my mom’s house where we feasted on her famous enchiladas and then Chris packed up his things and headed up to his internship in DC.

I stayed in Virginia Beach and over the next two weeks was able to spend time with family and visit many friends. It was great to see so many and catch-up on much that was missed! My mom was amazing about finding ways to give me full use of her car and she also managed to find ways to keep Addie back with her so I could have “girl-time” with friends. Addie and I were really productive in our visits which meant I was able to leave town without a long list of friends I’d “neglected.” Hallelujah!

The last few weeks have been spent together as a family (at last!). We have enjoyed getting a little more settled into our apartment—but we are a long way from being completely “moved in.” We are living in a basement apartment that needed some finishing, so with the help of my brother Josh and the support of his lovely wife Caroline, Chris was able to get a lot done (tearing down walls, rebuilding walls, and a lot of work related to that effort). [To give credit where it is due, I should probably say Chris was able to assist Josh with getting the work done…] My mom, sister-in-law Barbara, and niece Kirsten came to visit and help the day Josh left and we were able to get some various bits of work done around the apartment. I think my mom was most glad to be able to use the double-stroller Caroline handed on to her!We recently received the okay to go ahead and finish the work in our apartment which means putting mud on the walls, sanding, more mud, more sanding, more mud, more sanding... and eventually painting. I am excited to have the work completed, but not as excited to do the work… Since Chris is busy with his internship and studying for the LSAT, I have, naturally, taken the mudding, sanding, and painting on as my project. I have been able to get two layers of mud up, one sanding session, but the rest has come slowly.

We have been able to attend our ward for a full month now and have already received callings (activities committee members). I received a visit from my new visiting teacher about a week ago and received my own visiting teaching route during the week after our first Sunday! And just in case you didn’t already know, play groups are a wonderful thing! I have been able to meet and become familiar with some of the other mothers in our ward who have young children and live rather close.

There is a lot of uncertainty accompanying this new phase of our life, but hopefully you won't think our blog is too mundane as we live the average American life!

We Have A Deal

Some time ago we worked out a deal regarding dishes: whoever makes the meal gets to take a break from cleaning up. I know everyone has their own policy, but this one has brought me a lot of happiness.

The picture below gives a good idea of how Chris feels about our deal:

Actually, Chris is a pretty willing participant, but you can't blame him for sometimes being a little less enthusiastic as I'm the one that prepares the really big meals for guests. Although I normally do pretty well at cleaning as I go, there are always plenty of dishes used for actually serving and eating the meal.

What, if any, chore "deals" or arrangements do you have with your spouse or roomie(s)??

Being A Renter In A Foreign Country

I would like to preface: we like our landlady. Although some of conversations and communications have been... quirky... she is generally willing to work with us on things and responds relatively quickly when there are problems. We know we are really lucky to have a more laid-back landlady, and don't want the following to appear to be a big complaint. Try to view it as a statement of fact as well as an explanation of one way the renting business exchange is done outside the States.

The relationship between renters and landlords is rather different here in Kazakhstan. Based on ours and others' experiences I have come to the following conclusions:

Landlords come to see their apartment at random, and sometimes frequently.

Many of the unannounced/unscheduled visits by our landlady were in the first few months after we arrived. She would stop in and see how we were liking the apartment, or come by to pick up something she had left behind which she realized she needed (kind of awkward if we were using it...). Her visits were then, and are still, generally short-ish.

Of course, there are exceptions.

Our landlady (LL) is friends with some of the neighbors, especially one of the next-door neighbors. She likes to visit this friend, and if the friend isn't home when she arrives, she knocks on our door and wants to essentially "hang out" (and check things out) until she hears or believes the neighbor has returned. These are the times when I feel like she wants to be entertained. Chris has often been home (doing research) during these types of visits, which makes for a tough situation. She wants to talk about anything and everything under the sun, Chris is working, and I don't understand a word she says (okay, maybe I understand one or two words, but seriously, not enough to hold a conversation).

When we spoke to the other researchers from Chris' scholarship program we learned that one group of them (living together with a local) had at least weekly visits from their LL. The LL would walk through the apartment and tell them they needed to: sweep, vacuum, mop, dust, etc. etc. She also apparently kept a key to the apartment (not uncommon in the States) and there was at least one occasion in which one of the girls returned to the apartment and found it empty: except for the LL sitting in the kitchen drinking some (of their) tea. No joke.

Repairs in your dwelling may mean your landlord hangs out for a while.

There have been times when work has to be done in the apartment. We usually find out that landlady is coming the same day (at least there's a little notice, right?) the work is being done. LL often comes around the time of the appointment and if she or a friend isn't doing the work themselves, she waits in our apartment for the technician to come and do the work. LL generally hovers around the person doing the work, making sure the job is done correctly and well, so we don't usually have to cater to her much. The only glitch in this situation is that appointment times don't seem to be very firm here... A perfect example of this would be when the Rent-a-Husband came to change our bolt, install the screens, etc. He was supposed to come at about 1 p.m., so that's when LL arrived. Unfortunately, he didn't arrive until about 4 p.m. LL called him periodically, so we knew he was coming eventually, so she stayed and "hung out" the entire time. The work wasn't finished until about 5:30 p.m. To say that the visit was a little awkward and over-extended, might be an understatement.

Visits = Commentary

Regardless of the reason for her visit, when our LL stops in she likes to have a look around. She often notices some of our things which are unique to the area, and will talk with us about them. Early on she noticed our cloth diapers, diaper covers, the Moby carrier, our bouncer, etc. In our conversations we will tell her what the object is, and she often has questions about it's usefulness, durability, cost, etc. She often comments with her dis/approval of an item, her thoughts on how much we paid for it, etc. Recently, she has begun to ask for some of our things. We aren't using the bouncer any longer and when she was leaving from one of our last visits (Chris wasn't here) I was able to understand that she wondered about it and wanted it for her niece's baby. It's not available. She has also mentioned that she would like one of our snappis. On her last visit she kept complimenting a pen we had, which she used. It's a standard Bic type pen from a hotel. I'm starting to think/realize that the compliment comes before the request. I'd be happy to give her the pen, but we're rather short on writing utensils as it is...

Other frequent commentary is often related to how we are doing things. Windows should be shut, as wind is not good for a baby (a common/standard belief here). We are using too much detergent in our washer (causing LL's nose to run). One of her extended visits here was just after we were trying to put Baby down for a nap. Our attempt was unsuccessful which meant Baby was upset. LL took her from Chris and told him that he had "deeply offended" Baby.

Going Batty Becomes Operation Sparrow

Humor me for a moment, will you??

Once upon time, not too long ago, a little family of three moved to a faraway land. They lived in a nice little Soviet-era apartment with new windows with screens that didn't fit. After the mom and baby were attacked by mosquitoes (fourteen bites on just one of little baby girl's arms), they spoke to the landlady about installing those screens...

The weather grew cold and the mosquitoes disappeared.
The window guy scheduled and scheduled, but never appeared.

Then one day, the landlady called.
She would come by and apartment problems would be solved.

Rent-a-husband came and installed a new bolt.
He then fixed the screens and I felt a thrill in my throat.

The air grew warm and our spirits were high.
We opened the windows with a wonderful sigh:

No bugs could come in!
From my lips came a laugh and yes, even a grin.

The next day:
We scurried and hurried and rushed all about,
There were things to be done, we each had to help out.

The guests arrived, a sleeping baby in arm,
The good husband handled it all with such charm.

In another room dear sweet Syeva slept in the crib,
While we ate and Baby A sucked on her bib.

Syeva awoke and we had such great fun,
Then Syeva spit up, and to the bedroom hubby did run.

He grabbed the cloth, yelped and banged,
For in the room there was a creature... we feared it was fanged.

Through the door window we watched, wondered, and thought.
The tea was soon ready, we each chose a flavor, and brought out the pot.

We talked and talked, was it a bat or a sparrow?
The options were few, but still we couldn't narrow.

Our dinner was ended, our guests flew the coop.
As for us, we were pooped.

How did it enter? What was it? Who knew?
We went to our neighbor, our favorite guru.

"A bat? It's not likely. Why, it's a sparrow of course.
Don't you know, there's a nest under your back porch?"

Ah, and so there was.
We laughed, we nodded. Why? Well, just because.

We returned to our home, and got ready for bed.
Then off to the bedroom which we did dread.

We opened the door, but there wasn't a stir, not even a flap of wings.
We searched, poked, and prodded, but found not a thing.

It was late, we were tired.
We went to bed, and as we were about to expire...

"What was that? Did you hear it?"
The hubby got up and peered into the slit.

Between the wall and the shkaff we heard a small stir,
The husband poked and the next bit is a blur.

There was a flurry, wings were heard, and yes even seen.
We wanted it out, but didn't want to be mean.

We tried and tried,
But alas, "It's hopeless!" we cried.

The bird was well-hidden all efforts were fruitless,
It was very late, we were tired, and the room was now a mess.

We finally went to the window and opened it wide.
"Please just leave, you don't have to hide."

We had a short sleep and then began a busy day.
Off to church we went, you know of one thing for which we did pray.

We later returned to our home, not sure what we'd find.
"Please be gone, please be gone," I said in my mind.

Together with guru we searched and removed.
The bird seemed to be gone, but it had to be proved.

As they began to move the shkaff,
I had to hide my laugh with a cough.

No bird, no flitter nor flutter.
Grateful, I thought of the last night with a shudder.

Method of Madness

We have been married for a year and a half. We have lived in three different residences in that time. We have done our laundry differently in each place we've lived.

Method One. If you aren't familiar with The Chronicles of Our Apartment Part I and II and the ensuing, though thankfully short-lived, madness that resulted from our upstairs neighbors doing laundry in their sink, then you may not have realized we didn't have a washer or dryer. We most frequently did our laundry at the dorms at W&M. Since many of our clothes aren't dryer friendly and we didn't have a laundry room, we had to become rather creative when hang drying our clothes. After doing laundry our living room often looked like this:

(Although not visible, my favorite was probably the hanger tree... drape an article of clothing on one hanger and balance a hanger on either end (each also draped with an article of clothing), and place hangers on each end of those hangers... you get the idea.)
Method Two. A month after Addie was born we moved into the basement of some family friends in the DC metro area. They had both a washer and a dryer. Although it was a temporary living situation, and thus a temporary convenience... Doing laundry was heavenly.

Method Three. Our washer is as deep as a stack of 3 large Papa John's pizzas (man, that sounds soooo yummy!). I know you think I'm joking, but I really can't stress enough how small and shallow our washer is, and even though it hardly seems possible, they do carry/sell smaller units. But I digress. You see, to dry our clothes we sometimes do this:


It's not a bad method. My mom used to do pretty much the same thing during the summers of my childhood, and I still recall with fondness the smell of those line-dried clothes. The pitfalls of line drying in Almaty are: 1-Hanging out of a window four and a half stories high, 2-Dropping the item rather than clipping it to the line like you thought (it means your husband has to go down 4 1/2 flights of stairs to pick it up from the ground), 3-Having to plug your nose when you dress in said line-dried clothes, because although said clothes are clean, they don't smell good. There is not really such a thing as "fresh" air in a city of this size. I'm so completely serious.

Method Four. Wait a second. Four methods? Yes. You see, once the weather changes there comes a point when you can't hang your laundry outside. It's around the time when your apartment is freezing and you are anxiously awaiting the day when the city turns the heat on. Conveniently enough, the water heaters which warm your home then double as clothes heaters... Stack and heat until dry.

And in case your apartment is too dry, this works well as an alternative to a humidifier. Just what you always wanted, right? ;)

**Please note, this is post should be read as informative rather than whine-y. While handling an individual article of clothing up to as many as six times from start to finish of the laundering process is not my idea of a party, it's not THAT bad either. And I am learning, it could always be worse.**

Our Living Room & Bedroom

I know it's been a while, but I never finished showing our apartment. There isn't really too much else to see, but here's the rest of it:

The living room:
Things to note:
-These Soviet apartments do not offer closet space, so we have two shkafs (a wardrobe). The big entertainment center in our living room doubles as a shkaf. We keep most of Addie's things in it, along with some of our coats, and our "stock" of hygiene products that we brought from the States.

-The couch is a pull out--it's not like the hide-a-bed we're used to in the U.S.--when you pull the bottom of the couch it pulls out like an accordion. You use the cushions for the mattress.

-Behind the big curtain is our patio.

The bedroom:
Check out our wardrobe. When you don't ship stuff to your location and you don't pay more for extra baggage (or extra weight for that matter) you pack light. For all you ladies out there, you are looking at all the clothes I brought for 10 months on the 3rd, 4th & 5th shelves on the left. In case you are wondering, that amounts to: 3 skirts, 2 pairs of jeans, 2 pairs of slacks, and roughly 8-10 shirts for each climate/temperature: warm and cold.

We have this big bed, which doubles as a couch! (Most beds here do) We have never actually had ours in couch form. We stuffed the unnecessary cushions in our shkaf and realized when we did some rearranging that the bed part doubles for a storage area. Anyone interested in some old magazines and books??

What? No Turkey?

Nope. We were unable to locate a turkey, so we decided to get a whole chicken and some chicken pieces. Thanks to my friend Susan's amazing brine, the chicken was quite tasty! We also served: meatloaf (practically standard at our dinner table..), corn, green beans, mashed potatoes, dressing/stuffing, sweet pumpkin casserole, bread, cranberry sauce, and apple pie.
Because I think it's worthwhile information... the origin of the dressing/stuffing goes something like this:

Wednesday we shopped at RamStore. One purchase happened to be a tea Chris had enjoyed while in Turkey (the country). He was really excited for it because the tea is the actual dried leaves (packaged in a ziploc bag). It's about as natural as you can get. Well, so we get home and he steeped a pot of this tea and served some up for us. I was not a fan and told him that it tasted like chicken. He proceeded to tease me for my lack of enjoyment of this Turkish "delight" and finally said the name of the tea in English: sage tea. Jessie, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure sage is a very common, if not prominent herb in poultry seasoning. I was very excited to realize this as I hadn't been able to figure out how we would manage to season the dressing (or the chicken for that matter). So, the sage worked wonderfully, but now Chris is feeling a little queasy about drinking chicken tea. ;)
Our party! Mike on the left, Chris, Aundrey, Stacia, Anya, Addie, me, Sam, and Asiyat.
After dinner we asked everyone to say what they were thankful for, and while the majority of the group mentioned family and friends (in meaningful, non-rote ways), I was really grateful for Asiyat's contribution. Asiyat works for the US State department and is the contact here for the Fulbright scholarship recipients. She mentioned that she was most thankful for the opportunity she has to work with the Fulbrighters, young adult Americans who come to her country not to teach about their own, but to learn about hers, and then return to America and teach other Americans about her country.

We often get a lot of questions about why we are here. We are here for Chris to do research, but the grant doesn't exist to enable research on his specific topic. The purpose of the Fulbright program is to promote mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the peoples of other countries. The Fulbright program provides the opportunity for participants to learn about other cultures and bring that knowledge and experience back to the States. [Bet'ch didn't know that this blog is actually helping to fulfill the purpose of the grant money... ;D]

In all seriousness, it was pretty amazing to realize how much the program means to her, a Kazakh who is aware of the program's purpose and sees its fruit. I have really enjoyed being here. I can honestly say that I love this country (with all its quirks) and I hope those we are acquainted with grow to love it too. Before I knew Chris, I was ignorant to the Central Asian area of the world, but have quickly become intrigued by these countries, these cultures and these peoples. I am so grateful to be a beneficiary of the grant and this experience.

If Three is Company...

Then what is eleven??

For starters, it's the number of mouths we fed one night a little more than a week ago. At the time there were nine (now there are twelve) missionaries here for paperwork regarding visas and immigration cards. We decided it would be fun to feed them. I know, what were we thinking...

What you see here is one meatloaf, eighteen stuffed (packed is more like it) peppers, mashed potatoes, boiled carrots, tomato & cucumber salad, and two of three purchased loaves of bread. With one sister and eight elders we wanted to make sure we had enough to feed our guests! We finished off with some fresh baked chocolate chip cookies. Dinner took a little while, so I literally stood outside our door with a plate full of hot cookies on napkins to distribute as the missionaries left. I think they were most excited about the fresh-baked cookies... none of them have had fresh, warm chocolate-chip cookies since leaving home (and they have all been serving for 6-12 months).

We didn't even have enough chairs to go around! Two of the missionaries sat on the arms of the sofa-chairs! And we had to borrow 3 sets of silverware from our neighbor!
The two Elders in the back dished out all of our plates. At the end of the meal they both managed to sneak to the kitchen and start doing the dishes too!

Our Kitchen

I thought we'd give you a quick tour of our kitchen... The first few pictures are a quick scan of the room, and then I will focus on some of the fun Soviet style details of our kitchen.

This is what you see when you are walking to the kitchen... That's our kitchen table, and behind it is our fridge. The fridge is set up a little differently than the average American fridge, but nothing so spectacular as to justify a picture...

Next you see our big window and our tiny trash can...

Followed by our stove!
This is our sink. It doesn't stand very tall and it is extremely shallow. That's our brand-spankin' new filter on the left. It has helped to remove the need of daily grocery shopping! We no longer have to buy 6 liter jugs of water everday!
This is our washing machine. On the floor in front of it is the power strip we have to pull over from the fridge to use not only the washing machine, but also our oven, the oven's overhead light and exhaust fan, and our toaster.

What you cannot see from our picture is how deep (or shallow) our washing machine actually is. About ten inches. No joke.
Our kitchen table. We have two more stools stowed away on our balconey, but I think they are more for replacement purposes... Also take note of the cloth stool covers. When Chris' family moved to KZ the children (especially the girls) were told not to play/sit on the ground because its coldness will make you infertile. Chris thinks that's the main reason for the stool covers.
Let's go back and get some perspective on how tall our stove truly is... If Addie is just shorter than 2 feet tall... this baby (the metal oven) has to be about 3 feet (possibly a little taller). It is also very narrow. The burners are practically on top of one another, which makes using multiple burners something of an adventure.
Let's not forget our dishes drying rack! I actually really like that it is stowed away. I will say that it's definitely on the small side, that big blue pot taking up tons of room is not very big...

On Our Bathroom & Hot Water

The view of our bathroom from the doorway. There are a few things to notice in this picture:
1-Below the black travel kit is a little door with tile on it and barely visible to the left of it (on the tub) is a door to the tub. There is actually one more door on the far side of the tub. I believe the doors on the tub are for maintenance and the door below the sink has a gauge on it which I assume is to track our water usage. We are charged for both our cold and hot water usage... both come from the city. That's right, no water heater for us, the hot water comes from boilers somewhere in town. (And more on that later...)
2-Our sink has no water faucet.
3-See the knob on the top of the toilet? Pull it up if you need to flush.


I'm not sure if the pipes are purposefully built in this way for this purpose, but the hot water pipes are commonly used as towel warmers (Chris says it is on purpose, so there you go). My favorite feature of our Soviet bathroom.

So, I'm not sure if this a generational thing or Soviet thing, but if you look at the top picture and then check this one out again, you'll see why there isn't a faucet on the sink... the faucet for the tub and the sink are one and the same... just rotate that to the ceramic bowl (sink or tub) of your choice and you are set to go!
These may not be landmark discoveries here in KZ, but I've been really interested to see the differences in a very familiar room.

Anyone for the rest of the story on the boiler issue?... well. If you're "in" for a story read on...

The first few days after we arrived here we woke up at about 3:30 a.m. ate leftover dinner, got settled in (ie. unpacked/cleaned/etc), then napped, walked around the city (to a grocery store), went home, made dinner, dropped like flies in our bed by 7:00 p.m., you get the idea. Well, the Thursday of our first week was probably the point when our schedules really started to normalize. We woke at a normal hour, ate breakfast, the usual. We were busy doing things around the apartment that morning and I took a late shower around noon. Lucky thing! That afternoon when I went to do some dishes there was no hot water. We called our landlady to make sure the bill had been paid and she said there was some kind of problem with the boiler(s) for our area. Friday we asked our neighbors (had to make sure we weren't just gullible Americans) and sure enough there was something wrong downtown/uptown/somewheretown and we (and everyone else for probably a 12 block radius) wouldn't have hot water until Monday, possibly Sunday evening.

**Let's reflect a moment, shall we?**
The hot water and cold water come from different pipes. That means the hot water must be really hot, and the cold water must be really cold. How cold is really cold, you ask? So cold that it turns your hands red and makes you lose feeling in them after about 10-20 seconds? So cold that it makes you yelp with shock when you wash your face with it in the morning? YES.

So, by late Friday morning I had become a new woman. I had become... a pioneer woman.

It started when I lit "a fire" (the gas burner), "hauled" water to a big pot on the burner (repeatedly filled a smaller pot with water and dumped it into the bigger one until the bigger one was full), and waited until the water was piping hot. True story.

We were able to get by with cat baths until this girl had to wash her hair. My hair is long enough to put back so I went without washing it for much longer than I care to admit to, but there comes a time when a girl needs clean hair... I'll skip the gory details, but suffice it to say it was something of an ordeal to accomplish that feat (I bet you didn't realize that washing one's hair was 1-an accomplishment or 2-a feat, but it really was).

This incident is directly related to two strong feelings: 1-a great love of warm water, 2-a great need/desire for conditioner (ran out before we left and was unable to purchase more... can't find any here... possibly because I can't read the language and don't know what the word is in Russian anyways). In case you wondered, I don't recommend washing your hair in a tub without conditioner. Combing it out afterwards is actually physically painful. =)

Light Fixtures

One thing I noticed pretty quickly is that the light fixtures here are rather unique. I'm not sure I've seen two light fixtures of the same kind (and we actually saw them hanging in a store/shop too). Chris has informed me that although they may look nice they aren't usually very high quality.

The fixture in our kitchen (don't worry, we knew we needed a new bulb before I took this picture):
The fixture in our bedroom:

You may notice that there are only four working bulbs (of twelve). Chris checked them out and it looks like the bulbs are not replaceable. Yep that's right, and it means you have to replace the entire fixture once all the bulbs burn out... (Isn't it interesting to think that some people concern themselves with buying bulbs that last longer...)
The fixture in our living room:
Don't worry, we do have lights in our bathroom and entry, they just aren't very interesting... plain old bulbs sticking out of the wall.

Last Night

Chris worked last night which gave me the opportunity to do a little homework. My online literature class requires a lot of reading... which I am struggling to keep up with. Hopefully that will be remedied soon. I assure you though, that I'm not going to bore you with a study log. There were two things that occurred last night that I thought worth mentioning.

If you've read our blog about The Chronicles of Our Apartment, consider this an amendment to it. Last night, as I sat reading William Wordsworth, I could hear the ticking of our clock... and something else. Water? Could it be? Yes, it could; and it was. I decided to check our bathroom and sure enough, I found a nice little waterfall coming from our vent almost above the toilet. If it were a few inches back the water would have landed nicely, and cleanly into the toilet, but of course, it was splashing all over our bathroom. I got a plastic container and put it in the bathroom and then went and knocked on our neighbor's door. It took a while to get someone to come down, there was a small flurry of footsteps before they came down. They were doing laundry in their sink (Hmmm...THAT's interesting) and either forgot about the laundry, or forgot about turning the sink off. When they heard the knock they figured something must be amiss--they found the sink running and apologized profusely. It was, of course, ok, and I told them so... when I came back inside our apartment I found another two little drips going in our bedroom doorway, got a container that would reach both, and returned to my reading. When Chris came home he thought I had made cookies or something, as he could smell something sweet. Personally, I thought it (the water) smelled like ginger. We may have to ask our neighbors what laundry detergent they are using...

BABY PEA: When I think of the baby I always call him/her Baby Pea, I suppose it's because I can't help but imagine that he/she is like a little pea. Chris seemed amused when I related this to him last night and said something about me being a pod... So I guess it is pretty appropriate. Well, as we were talking about Baby Pea, I could feel some definite movement. I was pretty sure I'd felt it during the day at work, and I think I first felt it about 2-3 weeks ago, but not really much at all since then. We were pretty excited about it. We've done some reading and we are at the stage when the baby starts to hear things going on outside me... It was pretty amusing to us that it was when we were talking about Baby Pea that he/she decided to make him/herself known to us. Almost like, "Hello! I can hear you out there and I know you are talking about me!!!" Chris got to feel Baby Pea too, which makes it soo much more fun! This baby must be strong! We couldn't believe how powerful some of the kicks/movements were!

Home Sweet Home

I think it was Rachelle that suggested (some time ago) that we get a blog. At the time we joked that because we didn't have kids there was really no point to it, though we could definitely write and post pics of our apartment and Chris' moped. So, the blog about and pictures of the moped will have to come later... and I don't have pictures of our apartment to show to you... but! I do have, hopefully for you enjoyment, as much as ours, the "Chronicles of Our Apartment".

I must preface though, by giving 3 bits of background...
1-Marne (Chris' sister) mentioned how they always look back at their first apartment (full of spiders) with fond memories... I think we know what she means... we'll definitely have a lot to laugh about for years to come. All I have to say is I pity our landlord! =D
2-Our apartment: Is fantastic! It's a little one bedroom, built in the 70s and comes furnished with the original furniture (we really need to get pictures up!). We have one of 6 apartments, and our apartment is one of 2 that are 1 bedroom. From the street, it looks like one big house. We have a VERY quite "complex". The landlord(s) are very picky about their tenants to keep it quiet, plus they charge a low rent and could easily get a lot of "riff-raff". We really do love our apartment, it has been a HUGE blessing, as it is considerably cheaper than anything else in our area, and quite cozy.
3-Our landlords: (aka "Mr. and Mrs. B") are a great couple! They are a bit older and their 40-something year old son lives with them as he had to have major back surgery a year ago. He has stuck around to help take care of the place because his parents' health is slowly failing.

The Chronicles of Our Apartment:
-end of September/beginning of October:
Mr. B dropped the fuel can when filling up the lawn mower, he cleaned much of the mess up, but A LOT was spilled. We came home and our apartment, which shares a wall with the garage, smelled like a gas tank. A tank, not a station.... wind airs those out...
I woke up and could practically taste gasoline, yum. Chris couldn't understand why I was so upset about it until we figured out I was pregnant... as my sense of smell was heightened, I could probably smell what he smelt x10 (or so)

-November:
Our water heater stopped working. Mr. Fix-it came and got it working again, but explained that since it was the original it may stop working any day... it would probably need to be replaced. We started to notice things were a little weird pretty soon after that. When I say weird, I should probably say moist, or perhaps, humid. We started noticing salt coming out of our kitchen cabinets, water below the sink, water on our windows. And then we had to do laundry. Most of which we hang dry in our apartment. I think it was still a little damp when, after 2 days of hang drying, we left for Thanksgiving in NY. The water heater was replaced while we were gone.

-December:
Technically the problem started in November. After complaining about the gas and the water heater, we were a little slow to complain about this, but when it gets cold... you can only last so long... Our heater worked. Sporadically. Initially we got heated air about 40% of the time we turned the heater on (or flipped the fuse box to get it working right). At some point in December it got pretty cold and our heater decided to work a lot less often. It blew air, but it was COLD air. The problem was fixed and it turned out that our thermostat and a gage on the heater had to be replaced, both were sending and receiving confused signals. Half the time both our AC and heater were running, the other half it was just our AC.

-January:
Our drain in the kitchen started slowing down. We don't have a garbage disposal, but decided to just be even more careful about food getting down there. Once again, we didn't want to complain. It got really bad. Chris had, at some point, accidentally dropped some macaroni noodles down the drain and thought that was the problem. Macaroni noodles dissolve though... Finally, I caught the sink doing something I thought it had done in the week or so previous. When previously empty, it suddenly started having water in it. Rising water. It didn't get very high, but I knew there was something going on that wasn't related to our macaroni noodles. I told Chris and when we walked into the kitchen we realized that at some point the water had started rising again, filled the sink, and spilled over the counter onto our floor. Mr. B's son came with someone the next morning and worked on the septic tank and our pipes. They asked if we sometimes put coffee grinds down the sink as that can often gunk up the pipes... He noted though that our upstairs neighbors (who also don't have a washer or dryer) have never brought out their laundry... and detergent often gunks up the pipes too.... =)

-Last night:
Chris was vacuuming our living room and working on the entry way to our bedroom when he noticed a dark spot on the floor. Then, he realized there was a drip causing the dark spot. Soon the drip became a stream and then there were two, and then there were two more in our bathroom. It was quite the adventure! Our upstairs neighbor, suffering from some serious jet-lag accidentally left a faucet on... and created a nice little waterfall in both our apartments. It was pretty minor in ours, but I can only imagine the water she had to clean up!