Well, it's Saturday evening and once again I have a cool breeze flowing in the front window. Tim, Evelyn, Bob & I are all amazed at how wonderful the weather has been for MONTHS! The humidity has been down since Thanksgiving. Temp is usually in the 80's during the day, too. The combination of low humidity and temperature has made our lives here much more pleasant.
I can't remember the last time we have even had a fan on in our apartment! The entire time we have lived here (Since December 15, 2003) we have not experienced this long of a period with a comfortable climate!

I'm not overheating, not having to take 5-6 cold showers a day to stay cool, not miserable at all! I actually am having opportunities to wear my jean capris, and tops with short sleeves (as opposed to sleeveless). Sometimes in the early morning (6AM) I even have a very light weight cotton sweater on!

Best part of all? While our group was here from Grace, I was able to go out with them on Monday for the med clinic in the village and did not suffer for days afterwards! We have another group arriving tonight from Texas, and I am planning to go on Monday while we do another med clinic in a batay! Thank you LORD!

We're so thankful for this sustained pleasantness.

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The only thing we are experiencing is more frequent power outages. Two hours last saturday night, eight hours on Wednesday and three hours this afternoon. When the power goes out that means NO water! No doing laundry, dishes, flushing toilet, etc til the power comes on. Papo refilled the pool today, so atleast in the future, we can get buckets of water to flush the toilet! Praise the LORD for *small* blessings

I think I've mentioned before that we do have an invertor that runs off 4 large batteries (sort of like car batteries). This keeps our lights, frig, etc working for about 12 hours if we are careful NOT to use the microwave or toaster oven.

If Papo turns on the main generator, then we have full power (except for the hot water heater). But for some reason he has not been turning it on much.

...but why is it? If the water is off, the only things I can think to do all involve using water? Ok, no power? No problem, I'll just wash my hair...ack! no water!
No power? Okay, with the invertor I can still do a load of laundry...ack! No water to fill the tub!
Ok, I'l just do the dishes while I'm waiting for the power to return...ack! No water!
You get the idea, right?

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Today I had the great idea to make Rice Krispy Treats. chuckle-chuckle! I now have a new recipe for them! One that does NOT use rice krispies.
It was like this:

My gas stove has 4 burners, but only one of them has a knob. That knob is on the one burner that does NOT work! (No, I cannot move that knob to another burner either.) So, I use a pair of small pliers to push in the post that controls the gas for the burner, while holding a lighter in the other hand.

I put the 3 T of butter (NOT margarine) in the pot to melt. Turn to open the marshmallows, NOT Kraft by the way. While I do that, the butter starts to smoke and turn brown. Poured that out, and started over. Hopefully I can do a better job this time.

I add the large marshmallows (pkg has 36 not the required 40, but that's ok). They took forever to melt. When using the pliers to adjust, I have "almost off" & "Burn". Since 'burn' didn't work the first time, I opted for "almost off".

Then I opened the Rice Krispies....oh yeah. A member of a previous group a few weeks ago had left them for us. Good thing I tasted them first! Stale doesn't even begin to describe their condition!

But now I have a dilemma...melted marshmallows and no Rice Krispies. But I did have some Kellogg's Vanilla Almond Special K. Did a taste-test and they were acceptable!

The end result was very good, but also very, very, very sweet.
Evelyn had sent over some chocolate chip cookies the other day. I returned her plate this afternoon with some of my "Missisonary's Dilemma Treats" and she came over a few minutes later and said they were delicious!

Feel free to borrow my recipe! :)

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If you note on the side column where I have "blogs that bless, encourage and amuse me", I have added a new one. "From Russia with Love". I have been following this connection for quite a while from Charity's blog and been blessed incredibly. I've posted notes to Eileen on occasion and finally asked permission to add her to my list. She graciously gave me permission, or I wouldn't have added her :)

If you want a real blessing, read her blog. Then pray for this dear sister in Christ!

til next time
~anna~