Jeez,
where has the time gone? Looks like the last thing I blogged about was
Thanksgiving and prepping for our trip home. As you can probably guess,
or if you are a FB friend, you know the trip has come and gone and we spent
lots of great time with family, friends, and Mexican food. Savannah spent
a lot of time with her friends from church and school, intermingling with some
family time in between her social hours, while I spent as much time as my Fab
5’s schedule would allow with them, with lots of other friends, Mom & Dad,
the nieces, and Michael. (When we were home, we decided to try and give this
long-distance thing another go... anyone who said this love stuff is easy is
lying!) I spent a day at the office for meetings and got to meet up with
some work folks for a local happy hour. That was lots of fun and good to
see their familiar faces. I spent my birthday losing money in Lake
Charles, but had fun while doing it so I guess that’s all that matters,
huh? Robert came into town for Christmas and stayed for the long
weekend. It was great to catch up with him and hang out. We are
working on a big trip in May to celebrate his 28th birthday,
Savannah’s 16th birthday, and explore Asia together. Any
suggestions are welcome – we are in the planning stage but I need to get it in
gear. It’s already mid-January!! We are thinking of places like
Thailand, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Sri Lanka, or Malaysia… where else??
While we
were in Houston we were spoiled and got fresh hair do’s from the fabulous Aunt
Lauri, gifted with enough product to bring back with us and last for the next
year at least (let’s see how this doing our hair ourselves thing works out…),
treated to homemade lasagna and cupcakes from Kent, enjoyed a big girls’
slumber party complete with a taco bar and array of wines, celebrated Christmas
and had a few dinners with my brother and his family, went on a hayride with
the kids to look at Christmas lights, had a welcome home party complete with
Apple Pie Moonshine, were treated to manis and pedis, took family pictures
courtesy of the fabulous team at Allen Owen Photography, and oh, so much more I
can't even think of right now. We enjoyed everyone's time and talents,
knowing it's a very busy season and sometimes hard to get away for a few
hours. I ate Mexican food almost every day while we were home and I loved
every bite of it! It was probably a good thing to get back here and start
back with our chicken dinners, because all that food could have started making
the pants tight again quick! While it was good to see everyone and enjoy
our old haunts, it wasn't really difficult for me to come back. Maybe
because I knew what to expect, had a routine going, felt more acclimated before
we left. It has, however, been difficult for Savannah this time.
She misses her friends a little more. Misses sweet tea and Red Robin
burgers more than before. Misses her sweet cousin, who she did spend
quite a bit of time with... It's rough. Please keep her in your
prayers.
When we
got back, I was excited to get home to our little Dynamo and see all the fresh
fixes the landlord was to have put in place at our flat while we were
gone. I was ready to see our new TV stand, have the DVD player, computer
and Keurig all hooked up and ready to go, have the few small issues with
kitchen drawers and cabinets fixed and even get rid of the small ant issue we
had before we left. I had been in contact with the landlord via e mail
and he had the list ready to go. On the way home from the airport (oh,
without our luggage, by the way... because the flight was late leaving Houston
and the layover in Frankfurt wound up being less than 45 minutes so we had to
RUN from our plane to the departing plane for Chennai which was completely
boarded by this time, and although we made it, our luggage did not!) Savannah
asked if I thought our flat would be all fixed. I told her of course it
would - I had talked to the landlord the night we were leaving, showed him
everything from the list, followed up in e mail , etc. She doubted
it. The little brat was right. We walked in and NOTHING had been
done. Ants still in the same spots and then some :( No TV
stand. I was soooooooooooo annoyed. No luggage. No fixes at
the house. Dynamo wasn't coming home until the next afternoon. And
we had just traveled for 20+ hours. Yeah, cranky Nikki. Poor
Savannah was all messed up from the time change, which didn't affect me since I
am backwards over here, anyway... but she stayed home from school on
Thursday. I forced her back on Friday but she was still pretty off the
clock over the weekend, but I've made her go back this week. No
excuses. Back to the routine. Last weekend was our "Annual Day
Party" at work and we were going to try and attend, but between her jet
leg, both of us not feeling 100% and me just being tired, we decided to pass
and just stayed home. Not to unpack, though, since the ants were still
around, but we did get our luggage around 6 AM on Friday, special delivery,
thank goodness! Back to the story... I went back and forth with the
landlord via text asking what happened and he said "I thought you were
going to be gone for three weeks, we were going to start today." Uh
yeah. It was three weeks and no, you weren't. Grrrr. No
change over the weekend... So Tuesday morning when I got home from work and
ants were in the package of rice I was cooking for breakfast (we have an odd
diet over here, especially me and my schedule..) and some ants poured out with
it into the pot. Let me tell you. O M G! I was PISSED! We brought back over 2
suitcases full of the US foods we wanted and knew would keep (this might or
might not have included 6 blocks of Velveeta cheese, which Michael still does
not understand... but we will have lots of queso and grilled cheeses and other
good stuff - thanks for the idea Brandy!) and there were ANTS in my
rice! So, I picked them out. One by one. All ten of
them. Cooked the rice and texted the
landlord at 5:45 AM. I have been a pretty nice American up to this
point. There are lots of things undone around here since we moved
in. We still don't have our TV stand, a mirror in the hall bath, one
socket working, etc. But it's not a big issue so I don't make a
fuss. ANTS IN MY US FOOD IS A BIG ISSUE. So I made a fuss.
Within six hours he had the pest control folks over here spraying our place and
apologizing up and down. I told him I was still annoyed, should not have
had to let it get to that point, and let's get the other stuff fixed.
Three days later and the other stuff isn't started yet, but the ants are gone
and I guess that's good enough for now. I chalk most of it up to what my
coworkers tell me is our time zone… IST - Indian Stretchable Time. That's
ok every now and then, but come on, already! So this weekend I'll blow up
his phone again and hope some other fixes get crossed off the list. We'll
see... always an adventure over here, that's for sure.
Today
marks our six month mark in India. In the beginning it felt like every
day was soooooooooo long and every issue was insurmountable. Now, I can't
believe SIX MONTHS have passed and we only have a year and a half left! I
feel like I need to hurry up and do and see all the great stuff this country
and continent has to offer. That being said, 2013 will include some
travel plans! And visitors are welcome J Come see us!
Savannah and I are also trying to plan to visit a friend and her family
for a long weekend in Singapore next month, maybe, if we can get our schedules
to jive. That would be super fun and I hope it works out. And we
are planning a long weekend trip to the neighboring state, Kerala, for a
backwater boat ride to see elephants in the wild, some natural beauty (I am
still telling these folks in the office I haven’t seen the natural beauty of
India yet and they keep telling me it exists… just have to get out of Chennai
to find it…), and enjoy some local cuisine. I hear the food is great and
they are famous for the banana chips. I’ve had them. Yum. Of
course YUM, they are fried. LOL Oh, well. I am lucky to have
some of the best resources here in the office, as many guys are from Kerala and
know the ins and outs for us to plan a great trip. Should be fun. We will
see the Taj Majal for sure before we leave, too. Don't know if it will be
in 2013, but it will happen. I am still trying to finagle my way into a
wedding while we are here. There seem to be quite a few opportunities, so
I am fairly confident that will happen. Sometime soon I will talk about
some more cultural stuff. Like weddings. And the recently highly
publicized assaults against women. And the not-so-highly publicized
assaults against women. And the treatment of women in general. And
drinking. I am sure there are more items, but this will just be a few
I'll touch on. For now, this has become more of a novella than a blog
post. If you want to see our family pics, feel free to take a look and if
you're in the Houston area, may I recommend my friends Craig & Becky at Allen Owen Photography! Can't say enough
good things about them and the pics turned out great! Also posted some
candid shots from our time in Houston. Click here to view them.
Wishing
everyone a very happy 2013, filled with God's grace, laughter, love, family and
friends. Looking forward to a great year here in Chennai making awesome
memories with my kiddo and new friends! 
No comments:
Post a Comment