This afternoon, Mrs. Benevolent taught me how to make her version of a ziti pasta dish for a fellowship potluck type thing at church on Sunday. The secret ingredient? Sour cream. Interesting. She worked it out so that I could make a little batch of it for myself using my rice noodles. I'm excited for supper! 

Happy Leap Year. I was kind of uninspired by it this year, but since it only happens every four years, I still feel compelled to acknowledge it. :)

I went to Wednesday night service this evening and helped with their version of kid's club... The Buckaroo something or other. It was cute.

And for LOTR fans, have you ever tried this? I saw it on a website and thought it was just Photoshopped, but no. It really works. Type these locations into google maps (in the walking mode) and you get a stern warning. Jonathan tells me there are other things you can enter to get funny results.

I haven't figured out the thermostat. I'm still awake because it's scorching in here. They told me the thermostat doesn't quite read right... Last night I had the heat up to 75 and it felt chilly. 
And tonight I finally had to turn the air conditioning on to be able to think clearly. Spifferific!

Allow me to introduce you to Mr. and Mrs. Benevolent (pictured here with one of their grandchildren). My apartment is just inside their back door. We can easily share the beautiful laundry room and be friendly without interrupting each other terribly. The arrangement was originally built for Mr. Benevolent's elderly mother who stayed here for 8 years before passing away. This sweet couple attends Jonathan's church and wanted to help him, so they're helping me.

So basically things went a little better than I expected. Yesterday, my first morning in my palatial apartment, I slept half the day, then began unpacking. Around four in the afternoon, I decided some sun would be nice from my lovely western-facing living room windows. 

I raised two of the blinds halfway and went to open the third... and CRASH, the entire set of three heavy blinds and all their wall-mounting attachments fell to the floor. 

I stood there in abject horror for a few seconds, then went toward the common area where my hostess, Mrs. Benevolent was rushing to make sure it wasn't ME that had fallen like a pack of rabid wildebeest off a sheer cliff face. She was terribly gracious about me pulling her home down around my head. Nothing was seriously damaged (mostly my single knuckle that caught the full brunt of the disaster), despite there being a lamp and decorative glassware in the vicinity. While I was out with Jonathan getting groceries, Mr. and Mrs. Benevolent were able to somehow reattach everything. 

Suffice it to say: Today, I am satisfied to have the blinds open but not raised!

Day 2:

So far today... I opened the blinds without mishap. Yay for me! 

Less remarkably, I did laundry in one of the old school "low-efficiency" washing machines *that actually get things clean.* I did dishes, and scrubbed down the fridge. I also put up a little white board/cork board combo on the door so that we won't use reams of note pads... since Mrs. Benevolent and I both like leaving notes. I'm planning on unpacking some more, probably just my boxes of allergy-safe foods, and maybe some clothes if I have patience. Oh, and I started a blog while listening to a combination of polkas, dixieland jazz, and marches.  

All of that is basically killing time until this person comes over for supper. 

He got these silly shirts that had these light-up panels on the front that were supposed to ''power up'' as we got in closer proximity to one another. It was a really super cute idea, but the shirts really only worked sporadically. 

Question for tonight: I only brought Mancala with me; does anyone have any suggestions of non-computer games? Maybe a couple games that don't require much of anything?  

Ya'll come back now, ya hear?