Life...

It is a unique life here, one to be cherished and looked upon favorably. For when the contract is up the time will have flown by and what will you have? Memories.  What kind if memories do you want when you look upon your days, weeks, months and years? This question is applicable to all of us, whether living overseas or in the same home for 30 years.  What kind of memories and life do I want to remember of our time here? I choose to be positive. I choose to be happy. I choose to find the good in every experience.

Take laundry for example.  Oh how I miss my oversized American washing machine and dryer! I could do a weeks load of laundry in a matter of hours...assuming I stayed on it!  Here, my machine is a combo washer/dryer. A novel concept for space saving if only the dryer worker like a dryer.  My machine is in German.  Once a cycle starts you can not stop it.  Forgot to throw in a sock or dish towel? Your stuck! Wait until next load. I set the machine to wash. Once complete, pull out the items I want to air dry and then set the dryer.  The first time I did a load of towels I washed them in hot water and set the dryer for one continuous cycle.  The display showed how long it would take...four hours and thirty minutes!  Four and a half hours to wash towels!

The above display was set for two and a half hours.  I forgot to take a picture of it once I started the cycle. Any guess as to what is inside?  I will tell you at the end of the post.  And we can't forget the ironing...almost every item that comes out of this machine needs to be ironed.  

I decided to make some banana bread tonight.  Tired of waiting for our cargo shipment of cooking and baking utensils, I improvised.  The recipe called for a cup and a half of flour.  Does this look like a cup?  The bread sure did smell yummy in the oven! We will find out in the morning...

We need water. We need milk. We need bread.  We need a car! If only it were that simple.  Shopping takes planning and forethought. Even then you still may not find everything you want or need.  Improvise!

Life...life here is about improvising. It is about making the best with what you have and what you have been given. Life here is about getting back to basics; family, friends, sunshine when it smiles and stomping in puddles when it rains.  Life is about scratch cooking. Life is about eating in season.  Life is simple yet complicated at the same time.  Life is about having a sense of humor....if you can 

do these things, you can have a life...in Moscow. But how you do these things and look at these things...that determines the kind of life you have in Moscow. 

Still wondering what is in my washing machine for two and a h alf hours? One king size sheet. That is it....