HKG029: Laundry...If Only I Could Git 'er Done!

quinny enjoying the little-kid section of a public playground near our new apartment

livie enjoying a zip-line thingy at the playground

quinn figuring out these moving discs while sissy watches

livie hamming it up in the little-kid section of the park

quinn fell asleep while we were out on errands yesterday...he woke up pissed at the world

this is one side of our living room. the couch does usually have cushions on it, but those are what the kids are sleeping on right now until their beds get here.

q's room...his "bed" is just below the carpet. when his real bed gets here, this whole area will be rearranged.

part of livie's room. her "bed" is catty corner to the egg chair. this arrangement is pretty much how it will be once her bed gets here.

our room. right now, our room is the repository for empty bins and for the boxes that contain our bikes and bike trailer.

view of the living room window and the offending toy box...i already removed the lid here. if you blow up this pic, you can see the bamboo scaffolding on the construction site across from our building. that green material is some kind of netting used to catch falling debris.

bad exposure, but this is josh and q getting the tv up. well, josh is getting the tv up and quinn is thinking of ways to get into trouble.

livie's self-made outfit today. when we went out, she wore this adorable pair of pink boots she got for her birthday along with a turquoise jacket.

the makings of rootbeer bbq sauce (i would normally make dr. pepper bbq sauce, but i can't find dp here). missing is some apple-cider vinegar...josh went out and got me some and the sauce was saved. check out the brown sugar sticks...pretty cool, eh? i haven't found granulated brown sugar here. yet.

we don't have a microwave, so i picked up this timer at IKEA...even though it doesn't look like my mom's timer, this one brings back all sorts of memories from my childhood...it ticks and dings just like the timer my mom used my entire childhood. i am 99.9% sure she still has that timer, too.

the most-hated machine in our apartment. i have never wasted so much time, water, and gas-powered energy as i have trying to use this thing today. i think i am better off washing our clothes in the sink and hanging them to dry when i am not hauling them to the laundromat down the hill.

that's our fridge and our current system for kitchen trash. it's not pretty, but it works! notice the broom/dustbin combo...notice that it's made for someone who is not 5 foot 7. livie loves playing with this thing...b/c it's her size!!

this is the other end of our kitchen. note the stove...3 burners...still better than 2. note the laundry in the kitchen...i don't like tripping over it while i am cooking...have to find a new system for it.

our IKEA place settings. i love me some IKEA....their stuff is inexpensive and still pretty nice to look at.

matching monkeys after bath...they are wearing their matching christmas jammies...mostly b/c we need them both to be in long sleeves and long pants in this COLD-at-night apartment. we have yet to score ourselves a space heater. while josh and i slept much better with the addition of a blanket (the kids have at least 2 if not 3 blankets on their beds), i am still having to wear fuzzy pants, a long-sleeved shirt, a sweatshirt, and socks in order not to freeze. i know it will be more comfortable once we are not sleeping on rubber that is laying directly on the cold floor.

we are now officially settled into our new apartment. we either have or have purchased all of the household goods we need (some will arrive late next week/weekend), i cooked our first full dinner tonight, and finally, everything is as put away as it can be (we still have to get rid of our empty plastic bins and ship our bikes/trailer back to TX since we can't use them here).

the kids are having fun exploring their rooms, getting reacquainted with their toys, and generally causing mischief. quinn misappropriated a toy box in such a way that it smacked him hard and caused him to bite his tongue quite badly. i have removed the lid from that box, and we'll just have to deal with the messy look of it. he also threw his metal hiro train out our window (and down 10 stories). thank god, no one was below us...that would have caused a major injury had it hit someone. we've had some serious talks about the windows, and josh has rigged that one window to not open easily.

livie has been having a blast being reunited with all of her clothes and her dressup clothes. she was sporting a combination of punky brewster and madonna today (tamed down madonna) with arm warmers, shoulder-length clip on earings, and a flapper dress with leggings. she looked pretty cute...got a lot of looks when we went out, but i think she was okay with that.

i have had some fun getting our house set up and organized. even though i am not the most domestic person, i do enjoy organizing household stuff. i have been waging a war with our laundry machine, though. a friend warned me that these combo units that both wash and dry aren't too great, and boy was she right. this thing SUCKS. by the end of the day, i was shouting at it, and telling it how much i hate it. i have been working on the same darn load of 15 small items ALL *&^% DAY LONG. it has taken no less than 2 cycles to dry these 15 small items, and right when the 2nd drying cycle was finishing, sticky-fingers quinn went and turned the dial back to wash. i give up. i will take most of our laundry to a facility that's down the hill from us and just do our kitchen towels and very small items with this unit...and only hang them out to dry (oh, and it rained on and off all day today, so putting the stuff out to dry wasn't an option). arrrggghhhh. i did notice an indoor drying rack in the cupboard in our bathroom, and once our room is completely set up, i will put that up to dry stuff inside, too. i never realized how much i take our washer and dryer in pville for granted. both items are 2nd hand and we got them dirt cheap, but man, they work like a dream. i had no idea how difficult laundry could be!