Change Is In the Airformerly "Lydia's Latvian Blog."

Winter has truly arrived in our corner Latvia. Yesterday we were very excited to wake up to about 1 1/2 inches of snow on the ground. It was so pretty. Everything was white and clean, as opposed to the dirty, disgusting mud that we’ve had for a few weeks. I took some pictures around the house, and this one of one of the apple trees was my favorite. I love winter.

This morning Chris woke up around 7:45am and told me we had no electricity. That’s not good since we have an electric pump for our water, so no electricity means no water. Hmm. We called around and it wasn’t just us, but it seemed to be at least our immediate area. It’s been flickering off and on all day. The other thing we found at 7:45am was that we got about another 5 inches of snow, so we’re at around 6inches or so on the ground, and it’s still falling. I guess we missed the forecast last night. I knew it was supposed to snow, but someone said our area of the country was forecasted as “strong snow”. Yup, we got it. So, of course I had to go out and take more pictures. Here’s that same apple tree, 24 hours later. (Maybe I’ll send this picture in to The Weather Channel.)

We were also very bad ants. We were not ready and prepared for this, and so I will publicly say, “I’m sorry” to my Dad for not listening to all of his warnings & lessons growing up and therefore not being better prepared. We have learned our lesson and now have water stored (for the time being at least), have 2-3 days worth of wood in the house (we had nothing this morning), and Chris is cleaning off the car to go to town to stock up on some food items. We’ll also make sure to have a minimum of 1/2 a tank of gas in the car. We have truly learned our lesson.

The power is back on, though it keeps flickering. Chris just came in to tell me that the battery on our car is dead. Hmm. We had sold our car when we went to America last year, and by some strange series of events, we ended up buying it back. What we didn’t know at the time was that it seems the guy who had bought it from us parted out all the good parts (battery, jumper cables, jack, etc) and put junky parts in there instead. When we get a jump from a friend today, Chris will go to town and also buy a new battery. In the meantime, we’re seriously praying for an SUV. Right now I’m hoping he can get out of our driveway.

That’s the latest from our neck of the woods. Stay tuned for more exciting winter weather! The forecast is for snow for the next 10 days. Woohoo!

It’s been a long road but I’d say we’re about 80% moved into our house now. In some ways I think that’s a pretty good accomplishment, and yet… those remaining boxes are like a stone in my shoe. So annoying. I just want to finish it!!! Part of the problem is I need to find some storage solutions for the rest of it. Something like a buffet or china cabinet for many things. And then there’s all of Chris’ office stuff that will go to his office at the base when he’s finished with that.

And even with things that are unpacked but just not put away, there are hold ups. We’re at the stage now that everything we need to do will take at least 2 or 3 steps. For example: We need to re-hang the curtains in the office. Before we can do that, we need to buy some kind of glue/plaster to fix the curtain rods so they don’t come out of the wall again. To do that we need someone who know how to do this stuff AND speaks Latvian to find the time to go to the store with us.

But don’t think our lack of settling has meant that we have no visitors! On the contrary. Since we moved in a little more than a month ago, we’ve had about 15 different people here, 2 overnight and 3 for a long weekend! Don’t get me wrong, we like having people over, but I can’t wait to finally have our “Come see our house” party when people can finally see everything done.

It is happening slowly, though. I went to a second hand store not long ago (a friend owns it) and scored an awesome Secretary desk from the 1940s… for about $35. It looks really good in my bedroom. The same day I finally got my stove! There’s an electric cook-top in the kitchen now, but I not only hate cooking on electric, I always burn things. And we had no oven. Not good. Our new stove is gas on top and has an electric oven. Beautiful! Just gotta get the gas hooked up now. Gotta figure out when Janis has the time to go with us to buy the tank… and on it goes.

So, anyway, here are a few pictures from the inside of the house. Hope you enjoy. :)

Remember, you can click on the pictures and they will get larger. :)