Suddenly it feels like summer

We turned our heaters completely off yesterday. We'd had just the pilot lit on both for a few weeks but decided it was time to turn 'em off. While we may get cooler weather again, not sure it would warrant having the heaters on. And if it does, they're easy enough to light again.

Yesterday was downright hot. The sun has already reached that feels-like-it's-burning-your-skin-if-you're-out-in-it-for-more-than-5-minutes stage. Great for drying clothes. Not so much for a fair-skinned person who doesn't tan, but simply burns/peels/turns white again. Time to dig out the sunscreen.

Because of an ongoing bus strike, my crown has not made it's way back from the lab in Cordoba city so my dentist appointment yesterday was postponed. Thus freeing us for a dash into the city ourselves for a little shopping marathon after Spanish class and lunch. Discovered that is THE BEST TIME EVER to go shopping. The stores were practically empty and we whipped through faster than ever before. Who knew?!

We were pretty excited because the warehouse type store where we used to buy all our cleaning, laundry, and personal care products plus paper and plastics has re-opened. They had a fire in February and others told us it usually takes at least a year to rebuild because insurance typically drags their heels, and the construction process is just slower here. But lo and behold, six months later they are back in business. Bigger and better than ever. I was especially pleased that the foul smell that used to emanate from aisle 3 is gone, eradicated -- hopefully forever.

That particular store, while definitely having the best prices, was always a pain because the lines were ridiculously long and the wait never less than an hour and usually closer to two (and that's after battling the crowds up and down the aisles to do the actual shopping). Yesterday? NO LINES. Not sure if it was just the time of day, or if maybe everyone hasn't heard that they're open again. Whatever the reason, we were thrilled to be in and out of there in less than an hour.

In fact, although we went to two large stores we were home in just over 3 hours and that includes the travel time back and forth (35 minutes each way). Amazing. Seriously amazing. We decided we'll always try to do our shopping then.

Ivan, man of the hour, then went over to the our co-workers' house and fixed BOTH their washer and dryer. These are older, American made models and you cannot get parts for them here. The dryer had broken down a while back and Ivan ordered parts online and then our friend brought the parts when she came last week (I wonder what customs would have thought of the odd assortment of things in her suitcase if they had opened everything?). But the washer broke down early last week, and we were so busy with the big group from PdeV that Ivan didn't have time to mess with it. We knew if it needed parts, we were out of luck. But he was able to jury-rig (that is the correct spelling; I looked it up) the part that was acting up on the washer and we're hoping it does the trick for the coming 10 months until they go on furlough.

My husband is very good at jury-rigging things. It comes from growing up on the mission field when parts were often not available so they had to make do; didn't have a choice. But early on in our marriage he was offended when he overheard me tell someone, "Ivan doesn't fix things so much as rigs them." It took me a while to make him understand: I MEANT IT AS A COMPLIMENT. Of course there were times when he spent more time and money rigging something than it would have taken if he'd just bought the part. But years of making do had left its mark and it took a few years before he saw that sometimes it really is best to use the part originally meant for the job.

IF YOU CAN GET IT.

Which once again, he's finding isn't always possible. Who would have thought that being a missionary also meant becoming an expert jury-rigger?