Just Stuff

Well in my attempts the first week in the house I was trying to figure out what to make for dinner. I roasted a chicken. I bought this and it was prepackaged. I saw the head but the feet were a surprise. I used a Pampered chef fluted stone pan which I had done in the states to roast this chicken. I did have to cut off the head and feet which wasn't to bad. It was cleaned out in the inside so I was able to slide the empty cavity over the post that creates the hole in the center of the cake. Roasted the chicken and all the fat drain to the bottom of the pan. We had a salad, green beans and backed potatoes finally my first good "normal" meal. It is hard not to eat out when you can get a good meal from the locals for less than (us dollars) 2.50 for their chicken and rice dish to about $6 at the most for more complex dishes (these are at the local food courts, not full on restaurants where you sit and get served). My favorites at my local mall are the pad thai or the green coconut curry with chicken both cost about 2.45 US$ each but a soda cost almost a dollar and they don't have free refills.

Here is a gecko on the celling in the kitchen. The first time I saw one I was doing dishes late at night and it was a black one. It raced out from under a towel and crawled up the wall it just startled me so bad. You see them quite ofter in the house probably at least once a week. They are good to have around because they eat bugs, especially mosquitos which can carry Dun gee Fever. Most cases around here it is the kind were you have extreme flu like symptoms. I here it is extremely painful to, all the way to the bones.
This is the only picture I have of Anna our helper. One of the boys took it so it isn't the best. She comes and helps me clean once a week. She is awesome!!! She is fast and very efficient. She can't understand why I don't have a live in helper. Since I have 3 kids and a whole house to run and take care of. I told it is very common in the states. Here you can't "cheat" on cleaning though. You really have to clean your house good because of bugs, mildew and other things. That means mopping at least once a week (the whole house, thats 3500 sqare feet and 3 flights of stairs, I was doing good to get the kitchen and entry done once a month) and deep cleaning bathrooms at least once a week (remember I have 5 now). So I do really need help. I posted earlier about this but here are some pictures. You have to switch on every outlet you use.
Here is the light switch and the switch to turn of on the hot water for the kitchen and the dishwasher. The dishwasher is outside the kitchen door which is a pain. I ended up buying a basket to keep in the kitchen and fill then carry the basket to the dishwasher once it gets full.
This is the front of our house the tree is in the middle of our "plot" (we have a green awning and our neighbors have a glass or plastic awning over our doorstep). we have very small garbage cans but they pick up the trash everyday. Our neighbors are Chinese you can kind of see their "worshiping thing" (it is horrible but I don't know what it is called). They burn ensense and leave offerings of stacks of oranges almost every day. They have so many potted plants that they have their garbage cans on our land. It's a little annoying when you have such little land. It was dirt but we just had someone put down sod for us and thats when we really noticed how much junk they had on our side. The guy that did our sod just drives around with a truck full of plants to see if anyone wants to buy anything. We bought a bunch of plants including orchids (purple and white), a lime tree and few other plants. He planted the plants we wanted planted for free and came back the next day with sod that we had asked about and some other "filler plants" like Mexican heather. They are very happy tho please you here, customer service is awesome. Something they always say is "can, can, can" as the shake their head yes.

Groceries

Here they have what they call provisioners, ours is named Richard (almost everyone has an english and native name and they usually use their english name). He calls me every morning to see if I need any groceries and then will deliver them to me later that afternoon. If it is on the island they usually can find it. This is a good resource because who wants to spend all day looking for tortillas or tartar sauce. I try to do most of my shopping myself still so I still get the benefits of walking to the grocery store, seeing what is available and getting a little more exercise. Surprisingly things don't cost much more through Richard, maybe 20-80 cents which is nothing if you take into account gas and time. They do import Dr. Pepper so we still have that bad habit in the house. But this is one of the things I keep stocked by Richard so I'm not carrying 12 packs home from the grocery store. It is funny because they open the box and put an imported sticker on each can put them back in the box and then tape it back up. I guess that is what you call job security.

THE HOUSE

I will post pictures of the house a little later we are still unpacking boxes and we don't even want to discuss what the guest bedroom looks like. I think I need someone to plan a trip out here soon to get me moving on that one. Any takers?

Staying Busy

Besides trying to adjust to cooking, cleaning and getting around and finding things there is a lot to do around here. There is a lot of groups through church and schools. I have found it it fulfilling enough to just do stuff with people from church so far. I have done exciercise (they meet for weight training on Mondays and ultimate frisbee on thursdays), Scripture study on Tuesdays, which usually includes some outing afterwards like lunch or to checking out a place of interest. Playgroup is on Wed (I currently have Anna come clean on Wed since Collin is a little young for play group still). Thursday I am taking a quilting class (I'm not actually sewing right now I decided to just watch and gain the knowlegde for right now). Here is the blog she has for the class if you want to check it out. http://kellyslearntoquilt.blogspot.com/ She is teaching us how to draft and do things I didn't know quilter did, Hello geometry. It always changes but there is usually something going on Fridays. We have soccer pratice and a game following practice on Saturday and try to do anything else that needs to be done (things like buy a vacumm). Sunday is Church and then we start the week all over again. Tyson doesn't usually get home till after 5:30 at the earliest and last night was a late night of around 9 so we don't do a ton in the evenings. Tyson thinks time goes by faster in Asia I'm starting to agree.