shifting weight

I'm sitting on the couch in our living room waiting for the washer to start beeping like crazy again, because it can't handle the 2 kgs of weight that I put in it. The bulk of the weight always ends up on one side of the machine, so I have to get up every few minutes and shift the weight. The three loads of laundry that I have to do are going to end up taking the whole day. Which is not a surprise at this point - things over here almost always seem to take longer than you would expect them to.

Like for instance, living in your home for a whole calendar month. Aaron and I moved here December 6th, and since December 6th we haven't been in our house for the completion of any month - December we visited friends, January and February we were out traveling, and we won't be at home for the entire month of March either.

Getting over sinus problems takes longer here....but I don't know that this is related to the location as much as my expectations for sinus relief to have come a lot sooner.

Communicating with the vendors at the market takes longer than i expect.  Their dialect and accents are so thick, that I often have them repeat what they are saying a few times before I realize that they are saying "I DON'T HAVE THAT."

Even time in between blogs is longer than I initially expected because life seems uneventful or uninteresting when i sit down to write or I am spending hours studying Chinese which is probably the only thing taking about the amount of time i would expect it to take (FOREVER) and don't make time to blog.

Lately I have been reflecting on how much of my life is done on a time schedule I create, when in reality I have an eternity to live. So unexpected lines and delays are reminders that it is okay when things move slower. Thank you, China, for challenging me to change perspective.

And because it has been my goal for our blog not to become my personal journal, but to be more like a photo album or slideshow of our lives for our families. Here are recent pictures from around the house. So I can at least feel like I didn't compromise that goal with so many words written above:)

Two things we're pretty excited about:

Making brownies in my new oven!
Thank you to both Moms & your friends,
for praying for me to find a good oven.

Aaron standing at his desk he installed as a wall desk.