My Mailing Address and other triumphs

Success at last! Preservation has won out! I finally got a PO Box! So, if y'all want to mail me something (hint, hint), either post here or e-mail me and I'll send it to you!

Funny thing, I got the key to my box, but it is the master key. I have to go make a copy of it and then return the master back to the post office. Sometimes ya just gotta laugh about these little annoyances. We take so many conveniences back home for granted. I know that in the states I could get a PO box immediately at any post office. I'm just glad to finally have it! It's been like a month that I've been trying (it took longer partly due to the fact that it was during the holidays).

AND my landlord finally came over and hooked up my washing machine last week, it needed a new hose to connect to my sink. Now whenever I want to do laundry, I can. I just have to make sure that it doesn't rattle around too much and that the second hose properly expells the water back into the sink. That and I can't use more than one appliance at a time. However, there's no complaining from me! Tthere are many of my fellow PCV's that have the joy of handwashing their clothes for their entire two years of service. For more details about this particular challenge, check out my friend Dennis' blog: http://mac10dennis.blogspot.com/ and read his humerous post, "Doing landry in 13 easy steps." (Dec 29th,05)

As another triumph, I am actually cooking. Yes, you read it right. Cooking! Me! Although I still don't exactly enjoy it, it is going well so far and I'm really appreciating having an oven (something I didn't have in Ecuador) and the PCV cookbook we got at the end of training. The first meal I made was meatballs. Yum.

Today was the first day of school after the holidays and it went well. One of my co-workers gave me two jars of homemade aijvar. With the aijvar my host family gave me, I'm set for at least a couple months! :)