Thursday, Friday, Saturday

It's Saturday afternoon and Garry has gone off to Zaporosia (complete with a mask Shannon sewed) to pick up more cement powder and the boards he had made for baseboards. Yesterday evening I went with him to Zaporosia, but I was baking a cake when he left and it gives me a chance to grab his laptop and make a blog post for you to read.

Oksana with baby Matthew

My days seem to be filled from morning- getting lunch ready for the gang working, to evening. Okay, I admit I have been relaxing with crocheting and reading sometimes in the afternoon instead of remembering to grab the laptop before Garry comes home. Once he comes in the door he's got it until bedtime. I must be finally over jetlag, as I have slept the last couple of nights, no midnight blogging!

Here's the highlights of the last couple days. Work progresses on the house. Thursday they started mudding the drywall, it looks pretty good.

I made chili bean soup with omelet brodebrot (open faced sandwiches) for lunch Thursday (with my helper Valentina).


For coffee time in the afternoon, Shannon made chocolate chip cookies, and they were a big hit with the students, and with Garry!

Thursday evening we were in the house early for a zoom mission meeting at five our time (8 am for the home office people in BC). It was nice to see people we know well from the Europe area, and interesting to hear from some we've never met, to talk about how CORVID19 is affecting everyone, and to pray together. Our conference in June in Hungary has been cancelled. 

While we were doing that, I found headphones for Valentina (who was listening to prasie music on her phone in the same room, gave Vlad his clean clothes to put on after showering in our bathroom and told him to put the rest in the washer. (Garry had finally agreed he smelled bad, he has no shower where he's living, he's a former student who has been helping build) then found him a snack and made coffee for him and Garry. 

Friday morning they were sanding, because the screw spots were dry already. The weather had turned warmer but still windy Thursday. The corners did take two days as predicted. Garry and Victor, who was out for the day, (he also checked on the bees) were working on building the entryway porch.

I changed things up and made mac and cheese with hotdog slices (a huge hit) and cherry pie for dessert (we have a lot of bags of somewhat pitted frozen cherries, quality control was poor, Leila is good at speed, not accuracy).

The guys are finally almost finished with the cementing of the cistern. When it was cold earlier in the week I'm told they were assembling cabinets in the garage (machine shed).

Garry needed to pick up some chipboard at Nova Lenya for the entryway and we needed to drop off some money for a friend in Zaporosia (a friend of hers in Canada puts money in our Canadian bank account to give her quarterly). Garry had to breed a cow in a village on the way there. The kids in that village are still playing on the street, something we don't see in our village during the quarantine.

WE were right in the city center so we went through the Mc Drive. The apricot trees in the village are just starting to bloom, but the city is always ahead of us, and the forsythia bushes are in bloom.

Then we circled back around to Nova Lenya. I wore my mask inside (I had one in my coat pocket from visiting my dad in the hospital) and it turned out that now you needed to sanitize your hands (pure alcohol, made Garry's cut on his hand sting), have the lady take your temperature (on your wrist now) and get a mask on, she told Garry they had them for sale. He didn't buy one (a very flimsy one was 99 grivna, about 5 dollars). 

I bought the student parents more diapers and wipes (Kolya's Huggies were his 28th birthday present) and got some dish soap (Valentina uses more than I do). They were in they only section you could touch things in. Garry ordered his lumber and paint and we paid for everything, separate checks for Garry's stuff and then mine. Turned out the light bulb I picked up by the checkout was supposed to be a prepay and delivery out the back item, so no fixing the burnout bulb in the kitchen. 

Then we drove to the gate to get Garry's wood and paint. While we were loading the wood, a passerby offered to help, but Garry told him Thanks but no. Guess I look like a poor old lady helping load sheets of plywood. Garry laughed and said he doesn't know you used to milk 500 cows and take care of 8 kids and more.

When we got home Shannon and Scott had dropped off the groceries they had picked up for me in Dnepro. This morning Shannon dropped off the extra money and said you had to wear masks at Metro and they were limiting how many people came into the store. They are going to be extra cautious now. Scott has been sick since fall. Shannon gave us a mask she'd sewn this morning, which is why Garry had one to wear to go to the city.

This morning Garry had a group working, so it was beef barley soup for lunch.

 Andrey (Max's brother that used to live with us) is around, he's been working on ships as an underwater welder) and was working the fence post auger for the picket fence that will go in front.

I brought over coffee and cake at four so here's a quick update on the fence and cistern. Garry's back and spackeling walls.

Garry didn't actually go in at Nova Lenya this afternoon, he said there were 40 people waiting for their turn to go in, so he just picked up the planed boards at the lumberyard.