The Domestication of Jan

It was a beautiful, sunny day here - spring has sprung in Shenyang.  The leaf buds are opening on the trees and the blossoms are out. 

There is lots of gardening going on these days.

After some breakfast, laundry, and a bit of cleaning this morning the kids and I headed out to investigate the only part of the apartment complex that we haven't seen yet.  I thought I had spied a playground when we were leaving one day so I told the kids we should go try to find it.  We were not disappointed!  This one was near a building that looked like it might be a day care.  The "dog" we saw on the way to the playground could have passed for a three month old kitten.

After almost two hours at this playground we headed back to our building for lunch but got side tracked by some chickens at the building across from ours.  We may have them over for dinner some night.

When we did make it back to the apartment I made lunch for the kids, then for myself, started more laundry and then I did something I haven't done in years - I ironed.  Ironing is something I consider to be a waste of valuable time and energy.  In the time it takes to set up the board, wait for the iron to heat up then actually do the ironing, I could have throw the thing in the dryer and let it do it for me.  I normally either buy clothes that don't wrinkle or wear the ones that do anyway.  I really don't care that much.  In the four and a half years that I have had kids there was only one time I took out an iron.  It was a rather expensive one that I purchased some time before when I planned to start ironing and had only used a handful of times.  Well, that one time I took it out it refused to heat up for me - probably died of  loneliness - so I put it back on the laundry room shelf where it still sits now (unless Mom has thrown it out).   However, today I actually found the ironing rather relaxing.  I did a duvet cover, pillow shams, bed skirt and pants and went looking for more.  I even ironed a pair of pajama bottoms - something I once laughed at my sister for doing.  I ended up washing and ironing three sets of sheets today!  I discovered that the fastest way to dry something when you don't have a clothes dryer is to iron it and put it on the bed while damp.  It's great!

Now this was pretty exciting but I didn't stop there.  When I put the ironed sheet on Ryan's bed to dry I opened his window to speed up the process and discovered that it was quite dirty around the frame.  I washed that then noticed, for the twentieth time, that his window, in fact all of our windows, were quite dirty on the outside.  So, I set about washing the outside of the window - not an easy task when you are six stories up and there are bars on the windows.  I ended up getting Tim to stop on his way home from work to pick up a long squeegee and I got back at it.  This was okay for Ryan's room but when I moved on to Nick's the window was too big.  So, out came some of the bars and I was able to hang out the window slightly to get my squeegee where it needed to go.  Unfortunately by the time I was done the kids' rooms it was too dark to do anymore.  Back to ironing, sweeping, taking out garbage and general cleaning.  Talk about housewivery!  I kicked ass.  Now if I can just get the rest of the windows clean, the floors washed, blah, blah, blah.  How much did I say a housekeeper was?

Now that I have finally sat down to write my blog I am ready for sleep.  But I am determined to blog, even if I have nothing interesting or useful to say.

I am very excited for tomorrow - 12 hours from now I will head out shopping all by myself!  I am going to YooHoo, a store that carries a lot of imported foods.  Hopefully I can find a few more familiar foods that I am able to eat.  When you cut wheat and dairy out of your diet and you can't find a decent piece of meat, it really limits what you can consume.  Oh well, good for the waistline I guess!

Well, that's about it for tonight.  I hope you are all enjoying your Good Friday!