Easy Going Saturday

It is hard to believe we have been here 26 days. It seems that we have been here for a lot longer. I know that we have less than 3 weeks before we get home but it still feels very far away. I am keeping myself busy, between Jacob’s school work, going to the market, fixing our food and the most dreaded -the washing clothes. I know I am missing a step on the washing machine that came from Italy but have not figured it out. The washing machine does take about 2 hours to run. It leaks and fortunately the bathroom where the machine is has a tiled floor. The spin cycle if there is one does not seem to work very well. When the machine finally stops the clothes are still very wet and there is water in the bottom of the washer. I then play the switching game. I start out by having the clothes or sheets drip there excess water on the balcony with the clothes line. The balcony has two windows that open to the outside. But we have had very few windy days. I have found that if we open other windows in the apartment it does create a cross breeze to help with the ventilation on the balcony. After the clothes have stopped dripping I then start putting them on the radiators. We have three radiators that I can put clothes on. I then start checking them about every hour and flip, rotate or exchange clothes on them. I definitely miss my washer and dryer at home. Some of the apartments have clothes lines hanging outside their windows, where they can get more breeze and dry things faster. There is also a clothes line on the grounds behind our apartments but I don’t know if they belong to someone in particular plus there seems to be a lot of dirt blowing around which I would not want our clothes to have. On the other hand I am finding that our clothes smell musty because they have been wet so long. Well enough of the saga of the washing of the clothes.

The picture above is the main door to our four flights of stairs apartment builiding. The bottom picture is our apartment building. Our apartment is the one with the rug hanging out.

Our court date is this coming Monday at 10:00am. Horray!!!! Then the 10 day waiting period starts. It will end on the 18th. We should be taking the overnight train to Kiev on the 18th. Our facilitator Gregory says they are going to try very hard to get us home before Christmas. We are praying that this can be done.
Our translator said that it would be better for us not to visit our new boy today or tomorrow. This is because his mother has been to visit and our translator does not want us to have a run it with her. Or cause any problems between our new boy and his mother. We have had a good day today. Jacob got his school work done quickly, and then we walk to a nearby park, which is more like a huge walking garden type park. It was very peaceful and relaxing. We say several families, grandparents or mothers walking with their small children. They were not in a hurry like you would see on the street. They were there just to have a place for their children to play and relax. We did not see many children older than 5, which I don’t understand, unless they are in a board school. After our walk we picked up mother from our apartment, exchanged some more money then went to a pizza place that has pretty good pizza. We came back the apartment and I started rotating the laundry and getting Richard ready to leave on Monday. We finished our day with a round of Hand and Foot. Our facilitator will be here in the morning around 10:00am. It late here around 11:30pm. Well I better get to bed.