I am wonder woman.

At least that is the general feeling I have today.  My dearest friend in the whole world called me today and said, "Come over for dinner!  It's chicken pot pie!"  How can you say no to that!!  Seriously.  But I remembered that Hubby wanted to go out in the woods tonight after work and put up deer feeders.  So I told her I would have to check with him and call her back.  Sadness.  So, I had a BRILLIANT idea.  I called hubby and told him that I would go out into the woods today and put up the feeders for him, IF we could have dinner with said dearest friend.  Needless to say we are having chicken pot pie for dinner tonight and I just spent the last 2 hours out in the woods strapping large PVC pipe feeders to trees.  Then lifting 40 lb bags of corn over my head to fill them.  But it is done and they are in clear view of the hunting blinds but still a fair distance from them.  I even knocked over 2 dead saplings (taller than me mind you) to make sure there were clear, unobstructed views.  I AM WONDER WOMAN.  Oh, and as an update to my last post.... the kitchen has been clean since that day and the new rule is that all dishes must be at least in the dishwasher and the kitchen clean before bed.  No excuses.  It has REALLY helped.  And I have managed to check one or two little house projects off the list.  Today life is good.  And I am happy.  Have a happy day and good hunting.

Spiralling

Have you ever had one of those days?  A day that just seems to keep spiralling down.  The house is a wreck.  Partly because I have been lazy and partly because I have been busy.  The laundry and ironing is piled up waiting to be done.  The kitchen is literally FULL of dirty dishes.  I am half finished working on the wood burning stove project and it NEEDS to be finished soon.  The bathrooms need to be cleaned the floors need to be cleaned.  And there are a ton of little household projects that need to be done. (Hang a coat rack, fix the washer/dryer closet, reroute the vent that blows under the dresser... etc)  And I haven't even gotten to the piles of boxes that still haven't been unpacked from moving in throughout the year.  And on top of that I have been procrastinating working on a big activity that I am supposed to be helping to plan for church next month.  (It is coming up way to quickly now!!)  I feel like there is this HUGE weight of to-do's pressing down and crushing me.  And my instinctive reaction when that happens........  ignore it all, curl up on the couch and play video games or watch TV.  I know that it doesn't make ANY sense.  It doesn't help the situation AT ALL, but that is where I go.  It just makes for one huge out of control downward spiral.  When the kitchen is a wreck, I don't want to cook... when the house is a wreck I don't even want to work on craft projects.  I just want to veg.  I guess it's my way of shutting it all out and escaping from it.  Or something.  And so I have to force myself to look at it all, organize it and decide where I am going to start.  But even that can seem SO overwhelming.  And another ridiculous quirk I have.... it is hard to be motivated by myself.  So when Hubby is away at work all day, I have to make myself do things.  Once I am working or crafting or DOING anything, it isn't too bad.  But getting moving and getting started seems to take SUCH an effort.  I don't understand WHY I am that way.  It's just the way it has always been.  And so, today, is a downward spiral day.  And I think it is starting to make me depressed.  I can't let that start either.  Come on me!  I can do this!!  Let's go load the dishwasher and the washing machine.  Then I can get the little saw out and finish the trim on the floor.  I CAN do this.... I WILL....  Wish me luck.  I am off to fight against the current.

I'm back.... and I WILL do better.

I know it's been ages since I posted last. And the closest thing I have to an excuse is.... I didn't want to blog while Roy was still in Africa and I was living in the country alone. But he's been home for almost 5 months now, so that excuse doesn't hold water anymore. ~~ SORRY ~~ I am going to try this again. But I make NO promises. I am going to try for at least a couple of postings a week and hopefully with pictures.

Anyway, I am definitely happy to be in the US. It's been almost a year since I left Africa. Time can sure fly sometimes. There have been a lot of adventures since I got back. Most of them involve buying our home and land and getting things settled and checked off our list of "to-do's" and "to-buy's". I really love the property we bought and we are slowly making it our own and getting it set up as a farm (maybe). We do officially own a 4 wheel drive pick up and a tractor! Neither of which are new! I will post more about those later. I never really thought I would be a country girl, but the more I am out here, the more I love it. It isn't the most convenient life, and it is a lot of work. There is always something that needs to be bought, or built, or torn down, or fixed, or looked after, or painted, etc. But it is definitely a satisfying life. One where you can step back at the end of the day and say, "Look what I accomplished today. With my own two hands." I LOVE IT! And hopefully next year we will have a garden in and maybe even some chickens! Who'd a thunk it, ME, owning chickens! HA!! I've done a lot in the last 4 years that I never thought I would do. Crazy how life has it's own idea of how it should go. And it hardly ever matches my original plans. LOL

Well, I have to get laundry going and do the dishes. (I really miss Grace, our old steward.) So until I post again... Love your life!

OH HAPPY DAY!!

You would not believe the drama! Then again, maybe you would. When Roy and I went looking for a new washer/dryer, we measured the old ones, and measured the openings (closet door, the space it will fit in, etc.) We knew we had limited space and mobility getting a new machine in the pantry closet. So we were all proud of ourselves for measuring and remeasuring and making sure that the model we picked fit in those size requirements. But alas.... we didn't check the turning radius with the stupid corner of the wall in the way!!! UUGGHH.


So, my new washer/dryer has been here for 2 days but not installed, because we couldn't get it in the closet. It seriously needed less than a quarter of an inch of space to make it through!! Seriously frustrating!! Needless to say, if I was in my own house in the US I would have already pulled the door frame loose and the thing would be installed!! But the maintenance manager said he didn't want to risk messing up the door frame and would rather notch out the corner of drywall and rebuild it at an angle. I just groaned and said whatever! Luckily for me the facilities group at the office wouldn't approve the cost of rebuilding part of the wall... so this morning, after trying to file the sheet rock corner down enough, they pulled off the moulding and shifted the door frame! (I'm telling ya... I REALLY MISS MY TOOLS!)


And now I have a brand new washer/dryer combo machine that is OH SO QUIET and amazing!! It does everything that it is supposed to! Oh Happy Day!!


And so at least for today I am happy... content even. And I'm not going to let the fact that I noticed that the master bathroom toilet has started leaking when you flush it, and the fitting that connects to the hose that runs to the filter for the washer is totally rusting through, not gonna let it bother me... at least until Monday.

I really could have used a dryer this week...

We still haven't gotten our broken washer and dryer replaced yet. They said it would be delivered by the 1st. That's tomorrow. I'm REALLY hoping they actually stick to what they said this time. (Doubt it's gonna happen though.) ANYWAY... I really could have used a working dryer. On Thursday all heck broke loose in my flat. Mostly because the hose on the water heater in the office broke loose!! There was water everywhere. I was VERY lucky that my steward, Grace, and a maintenance guy were already back there when it happened. In the short time that it took the maintenance guy to turn the water off the office and my bedroom were flooded. If it had happened while we were sleeping or on vacation, it would have been a complete disaster!!

This is the hallway in my flat, specifically the back half of my flat. My bedroom is on the left and there are 2 smaller bedrooms on the right. The front small bedroom we use for the office and back one is guest/storage.


There was water all the way to my bed in our bedroom.


There was enough water that they were scooping it up with dustpans and pouring it into buckets to dump down the drain. They were also using the sheets Grace had just taken off the bed to mop up the water. (Luckily it was clean water, as clean as you can get here, and it was the hose feeding the water heater so it wasn't hot.)

But what worried me the most was all the water in the office.


We pulled Roy's computer up off the floor out of the water. (It was on at the time.) We also quickly pulled the plugs out of the wall, but it did no good. The UPS took over and everything was still getting power.


And of course the UPS was on the floor between the 2 desks. I had to pull the desks apart enough that I could lean in and hold the power button on the UPS to turn it off. What I didn't notice at the time was this.


This is a splice in the cord that runs from the UPS to the power strip that everything plugs into. IT WAS IN THE WATER!! The entire UPS could have discharged into the water on the floor if it had shorted out. We were VERY lucky that it didn't happen.

This is the offending water heater.


The space beneath the water heater is about 6 inches deep... it was full of water AND my flat was flooded. They had to scoop the water out of the hole with a cup and then we had to mop the rest out. Now we have a fan blowing in there to dry it out. (I really hope that it didn't leak into the flat below ours... sorry if it did!!)


Anyway, we found out from the maintenance manager that the flexible hose they used to hook up all the water heaters and toilets is "substandard". The fitting on ours had completely rusted through and the hose broke loose. (The building isn't quite a year old!!) So we asked him what the plan was to fix them since they know about it. And he said "We will replace them as they fail." I'm really glad Roy was there. (I had called him as soon as it happened and he came straight home from work.) I was FLOORED!! I didn't know how to respond to that answer. We were standing in water hoping our computer wasn't ruined and he had the nerve to say, we will replace them when this happens again. Roy immediately told him that was unacceptable and that they needed to schedule replacing every single piece of flexible hose in our flat because we were not going to do this again. (Isn't he a wonderful hubby.)

Once it seemed that things were under control as far as cleaning up the water and getting all the electronics where they could dry out, Roy went back to work. The maintenance guys were still working on getting the water heater repaired though. For some reason, they decided they needed to completely disconnect the water heater and empty its contents in the sink in the bathroom. That normally wouldn't be a problem, but the guy didn't check to see if the power was off to the water heater first. IT WASN'T. When he put his screwdriver to the screw to remove the power... well you can guess what happened. He was standing on a wet floor... He was very VERY lucky that he didn't die. He did however get a big shock and scared the crap out of all of us. There was a huge flash (lit up the whole closet.) He dropped his screwdriver and jumped/flew out of the closet. He was ok, no permanent injury. That was when he decided to make sure the power was off. This whole incident scared the heck out of me. I am deathly afraid of electricity. I don't even like to hook up the jumper cables to jump a car. Scares me terribly. So I was REALLY shook up when that happened. Even dreamed about it that night. Ugh...

But it seems everything is ok now. The water is all cleaned up. The closet is drying out, slowly. All the flexible hose got replaced on Saturday. And it seems that everything that got wet, dried out ok. We were VERY lucky this week. Just thinking about everything that "COULD" have gone wrong with this adventure, makes me want some tomato soup or some mac and cheese!! Anyway, as I said... I really could have used a dryer!! Wet towels... rugs... sheets.... Maybe we'll get it tomorrow. Maybe.

CARNAGE!!

Yes... sadly this is my kitchen. Oh, the carnage. And even more sadly, I made most of the mess myself. We had guests over for dinner today. I made yummy Cuban pork. And thank you mom for the advice!! After leaving it in the crock pot for about, oh, 14 hours, it was fall apart tender!! (Meat here can be a little tough.) And it was quite delicious. We used Lebanese flat bread to make soft tacos or wraps with it. Lots of fresh veg... (which means soaking it all in Milton to sanitize anything that isn't cooked thoroughly.) Anyway, we took a piece of flat bread and layered up the Cuban pork, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, avocado, olives, cheese, salsa, and ranch dressing or sour cream. Then folded it all up and ate it like a soft taco!! DELICIOUS!! I will have to blog the recipe later with a picture! We also had homemade refried beans, Spanish rice, and jello with fruit. Also I made a dessert. I took a boxed white cake. Made it according to the directions. Then scored the top and took a can of raspberries and blended it all up and dumped it on the top and let it soak in. Then I spread a can of chocolate fudge frosting over the top of it. Raspberry chocolaty goodness without too much work. But I think by the end of dinner, every piece of silverware was dirty, most of the cups, most of the knives.... etc. And now the kitchen is CARNAGE!!

BUT... I have a wonderful husband who saw how tired I was after all that prep and told me to sit down and rest.


I think he is just planning on loading and running the dishwasher. But as you can see by the size of it... it's going to take SEVERAL loads to clean up this chaos! (But, isn't he wonderful!!)

New Haircut

I am still figuring out how to fix it and discovering ways that I can style it, but so far I really think I like my hair all cut off short. I think I was deffinately ready for a change. What do you think? (I appreciate brutal honesty... if I know it's broken or bad, then I can fix it, otherwise I walk around lookin like a goob.
OH... and next week I should be able to post pics of the whole new look... I am losin the glasses!! LASIK on Thrusday baby!!

I know this is a silly thing to post, but I was proud of myself!

Today I successfully french braided my own hair. Never in the history of me have I been able to french braid my own hair. I have done french braids thousands of times for sisters and friends, but never on my own head. Woo hoo me!!


And it stayed all day! I took these pics in the evening after I had been out all day long and it is still up... nothing fell or slipped out!! Woo hoo me!!

How do you move a mountain of dirt and rubble?

If I was in the US, I would expect to see an earth mover of some sort. Maybe a front loader, back hoe, a ditch witch maybe. But not in Nigeria. Here it takes 5 earth movers with shovels and buckets!


I watched them stand around for a while, I think the guy in the white hat was just supervising. The guy on the far left was shoveling straight into the truck, but only about half the dirt was actually making it into the truck. And then the guy on the right with the shovel would fill the pans with dirt and the guy in the blue hard hat would lift them to the guy on the blocks who would hand them up to the guy in the back of the truck. It takes so many people to do anything here.

FYI... I was standing in my tub taking this picture out the bathroom window. I'm sure I looked pretty funny!!

Another look at Nigerian life...

I have taken several pictures this last week of things that you don't normally see in the US...

We will start with Staff Busses.

I know that this one isn't the best picture, but both of those are semmi type trucks that have had the trailers modified to "carry people". They just stop on the side of the road and people run and climb into them.
This is also a staff bus. I guess seat belts laws don't apply if there aren't any seats.

Roy and I weren't exactly sure what to make of the phrase on the back of this bus...I guess this guy wanted to have God as his mechanic??

These are some workers that we saw out our apartment windows.



The fellers on the left are mowing the grass there on the side of the road. They don't have lawnmovers. It is hard to see in this picture, but they are cutting the grass with machetes. Then they gathered up the cut grass into piles and burned it. The guys on the right are working WAY off the ground on this huge billboard that has been going up for about 3 weeks. Notice the safety gear they are using/wearing. Oh wait you can't see it either!! Exactly there is NONE. They are several stories off the ground with no safety ropes or harnesses or anything!! Crazytalk!

This next picture was just funny and very typical for Nigeria.
The green sign in the middle of these fellows says "OKADAS (that means motorcycle taxi) No waiting, No stopping, No parking, No Drop-Off" And it was SURROUNDED by Okadas just waiting for their next rider!

This next picture is the state of the road on the way out to church. Once we turn off the "highway" the road quickly deteriorates. They say it will be filled in after rainy season. But these really are becoming car swallowing holes and the road is ALMOST impassable. (In other holes on this road they threw in bags of quickcrete to help fill them in some. Now they are just huge holes with bag shaped boulders in them!!)

And lastly... This picture is for my mother who keeps telling me that I need to learn where the locals shop and go there.I think I will keep going to the meat counter at the supermarket!! Thanks anyway!

Time to fill you in...

I have been having a GRAND vacation and I have so much to tell. So I am going to divide it into sections and get it all caught up!!

So not been in the mood...

Roy keeps telling me that I HAVE to write in my blog.... He keeps telling me things to write about.... blah. I just haven't felt like it. I know, I know, how else are you going to know what's going on you say. Welllllll... blah. But today I will break down and write some more. Lets see, last Saturday we were finally invited to go out to the beach house. Everyone always says how great it is there, but no one had ever invited us to go on a day that we actually could. We were really excited to go. We went down to the boat dock (you can only get there by taking a 45 minute boat ride) and met up with the people we were going out with. But there seemed to be a problem with the boat. They couldn't get the engines both running and keep them running. So we waited while they tinkered with them. We got there at 9am and we waited.... and waited... and waited. And when it was 11:30 and the boat still wasn't running we decided to call it a day and took the food back to our apartment complex and had a pool party. Oh well... it was fun anyway. But here's something interesting that I probably never would have done in the US..... I ate goat. Yes that's what I said. I ate goat. We had BBQ'd goat ribs that day. They were tasty, greasy and not a lot of meat, but tasty. And I did have to tell my friend that they were the best goat ribs I had ever eaten!! He was quite amused at that.

Also we just finished a week long fuel strike and 4 day labor stike. The streets have been virtually empty for days because no one had any fuel. We were worried that they would shut off the power as part of the strike, because we didn't know how much diesel the apartment had left for the generators and there was not any new coming because of the strike. Also I really didn't want to have to reschedule my travel plans for next week if anything major happened. But all that ended last night at midnight. WOO HOO! I can breathe a little easier now. We will just have to wait and see how long it takes things to get back to normal again.

Another piece of info... We finally got our sea shipment!! I got out my sewing maching the other day and totally love it!! Alisa you were totally right, it is a GREAT basic machine!! It makes me very happy!! And very sad that once again I have to box it up and wait to play with it till after my vacation. (But I would rather go see all my family then stay and play with it... it will be here when I get back.) And speaking of getting back, I was hoping to be moved to our new flat BEFORE I left, but that won't happen until AFTER I am gone. And I don't think Roy will be in any hurry to move after I am gone, so MAYBE we will moved before I get back. Oh well, at least I was able to get the kitchen all unpacked and arranged fairly well. I really just want to go unpack everything and get moved in, but we are still waiting on them to get those last little things finished. Things like getting the internet working and putting screens on the windows. I really think most of all the MAJOR work is done. I just have to stop worring about it and know that Roy will take care of everything. He is very good at moving.

So there is a quick update. Life in a nutshell.

I can tell we are sisters!!

I pulled up my sisters blog and read exactly what I needed to say... "I haven't written in a LONG time, and I know that. And many many people have told me that. I just always feel so funny about posting with no pictures, and I'm sort of in a camera funk. I hope to get a new one soon, I hope." How did she know?? I dropped our little camera last month and broke it and the big one isn't easy to carry around here and take discreet pictures with. Well, I hope to get a new one soon so that I can get pictures of the strange things that I come across here.

Now that the excuses are out of the way... on to what's going on. Since we got back from our cruise (which was so great) it has been a game of hurry up and wait. We are still waiting to move in to our new apartment (that we were originally told we would move into in mid-April). We are still waiting for our sea shipment. (We were told it was cleared by customs 2 weeks ago... They are supposed to deliver it on monday now. And I am not going to let them postpone it again.) But what is really stressing me is that I am going out of country at the end of this month and will be gone for a month. I REALLY want to get this move done and out of the way BEFORE I leave so that Roy doesn't have to worry about it while I am gone. There really aren't that many things left to finish on the apartments to get us moved in. They COULD get it all done in a week if they REALLY tried. But that is something that doesn't seem to happen here. As Roy says, "People here set low expectations and then fail to meet them." Anyway, I am going over to the new flats today to talk to facilities and try and get a commitment on when we are moving in. I need it to be next week honestly. That way I can get everything unpacked and organized before I have to pack and leave. But we'll see how it goes. Anywho.. my driver is here, I gotta run. I'll post more later. Hopefully it will be better.