To Be or Not To Be . . .

. . . that is the question we ask every day regarding the hot water. When we were here this summer we never had a problem with hot water, even though we were expecting to be without it for at least part of the time we were here. Now that it’s the middle of winter, we lose hot water for at least part of every day. Some days nothing comes out when the hot water is turned on, sometimes it’s hot, but brown and mostly it’s reasonably clear, but just cool or lukewarm. Today, we’ve had some of each for most of the day. With the amount of cooking we are now doing with Hope here it’s getting rather tiresome to heat water on the stove to wash dishes. We’ve also had to adopt the same philosophy regarding bathing that the Queen of England has for using the restroom – “Go when you can, not when you have to”. After 35 days here, the hot water situation has lost its adventure appeal. Then again, just about everything has lost its appeal (OK, except for maybe the bakery cookies.). I can’t say that I’d recommend to anyone spending 35 days in a 1 BR apartment with one’s spouse and 3 kids and not being able to leave the apartment except for about an hour a day.

View from our apartment at 8:05 AM.




As for all the cooking, I think I mentioned that after Hope’s first day visiting at the apartment I was chastised for not feeding her enough and reminded what they typically eat for dinner (i.e. lunch). Hope’s daily schedule and menu are as follows:

7 AM – wake up
8 AM – breakfast
10 AM – 2nd breakfast (i.e. snack)
12 PM – dinner
1 PM – nap (although she doesn’t usually sleep because she’s so much older than the other kids)
3:30 PM – lunch (snack)
5:00 PM – 2nd lunch (snack)
6:30 PM – supper
8:00 PM – 2nd supper
9:00 PM – bed time

Breakfast:
1 – bread with milk, cheese, butter, cocoa, tea with milk, porridge
2 – fruit, yogurt

Dinner: soup, salad, second meal (i.e. main meal with meat and “garnish” [garnish = potatoes, macaroni, etc]), juice, bread

Lunch:
1 – milk, cookies
2 – fruits, yogurt

Supper:
1 – only second meal (with meat) & bread
2 – kefir, yogurt

So, to be sure I feed her adequately, I end up spending a good bit of the morning in the kitchen preparing soup, some side dishes (usually potato or pasta and a veggie) and a meat dish. Then it’s finally time to eat lunch and clean up (if we have hot water). When she was only staying for lunch it wasn’t too bad because we just switched our lunch and dinner around and ate our PB sandwiches or salami, cheese and bread for dinner. Now that she’s staying for dinner I’m left with the dilemma of what second meat meal to cook. Of course, she eats like a bird, but I make her eat a good bit of what’s on her plate lest she go back saying that she’s hungry. Also, she, and consequently, Tim are going through fruit for snacks like crazy. In the last 2 days we’ve gone through 12 bananas and 3 or 4 apples between the 3 kids. Needless to say, our Ramstore trips have become more extensive and consequently more expensive – just a taste of things to come, I guess, when we have to feed 3 teenagers.