Forget Waldo, where is the hot water? Seriously!

We've been in the house over a week. The creaks and groans are somewhat familiar to us now, and it crosses my mind at least 10 times a day that we might just be in over our heads, but the kids are happy (and T is starting to nap again without being up until midnight). There are some issues here though.

Issue one - I'm cold! Those of you that know me well know how shocking this statement is. I can't find the box that I packed the bedroom rugs in, so I actually have to psych myself out of bed in the mornings. It's August, and I'm considering asking the landlords to turn on the heat. This does NOT bode well for us this winter. Does not, does not, does not.

Issue two - no hot water. Every third day or so, we have warmish water. I've had one shower here where I haven't left it shivering - and that was ruined by a spider that was the size of my hand (which is not small and dainty) showing himself mid conditioning treatment. Needless to say, I cut that short. Tonight, I boiled water on the stove so that the kids could take a warm bath. The landlords say that it will take 'a while' for the water to heat up - but I think a week is plenty of time. At the end of next week, I'm venturing into the basement and measuring the oil level. If it hasn't dropped much, we are cranking up the water temperature. Period.

Issue three - FMO gave us a German washer and dryer. The washer does an amazing job, but is TINY. What I could do in two loads in an American washer will take me four or five here. And the shortest wash cycle takes 46 minutes. You want hot water (and thank goodness the washer heats the water since we don't have hot water) and you are looking at a minimum of two hours. The dryer, which does work better than the last American dryer we had, doesn't actually work well in my opinion, and it's so cool in the house that it's taking the clothes about a day to dry when I hang them up. We can switch out the German washer and dryer for American ones, but we have to do it - which will mean renting a truck or van to haul them to FMO and then having to set up the new ones ourselves. At this point, I want the most energy efficient ones, but I have no idea which ones those are.

Issue four - no screens on the windows. I hate bugs and have had to deal with way more bees, yellow jackets, flies and spiders than I expected - and again - it's August. In December, I figure I will be able to trace a line of invading insects similar to the one that formed for Noah's Ark. Well, that's actually assuming that it will be warmer inside than outside, and I'd say that's a pretty big assumption at this point.

Issue five - since our current laundry room, living room, kitchen, and second bathroom were added on to the house fairly recently, to get from our bedroom to any of those rooms, we have to go up the stairs which creak like crazy and risk waking the kids (if they are asleep) or go out the main front door and through the other door - but you have to have your house keys with you to open or shut the main door and open the other door. And since I hang up my keys in the kitchen so that I will be able to find them when I need them, that leaves me with limited options.

But, even with the issues, this house is so much better than our housing quarters were. SO much better! Today we took the kids for a walk down by the river that runs beside the campground. There is a huge playground there and I can see the kids and I hanging out there at least a couple times a week. Plus, the pool is open until the end of September and I'm betting the pool water is warmer (or at least as warm) as the water in our house, so I'm going to try and take the kids there this week. Brave, aren't I?

Stay tuned for more adventures!