Tuesdays are Egg Days

Good Day, Friends!

I've realized that I haven't shown you much of my living situation or told you much of what I do on a day-to-day basis.  So, I thought that I would tell you today, as I realized I'm beginning to get a little bit of a routine down to my weeks. Up above is a picture of "Nutmeg".  We live in Nutmeg R2C, which is 2nd floor right in the middle. So, you can only see our bathroom window in this photo. 

I've been here 6 weeks now, and Tuesdays, I decided as I was walking home carrying 96 eggs, are egg days. Every Tuesday a local man comes to campus and sells eggs 2 1/2 dozen for 17 EC, which is a pretty good price! That is $6.18 according to my computer calculator.  Today I bought 3, which brings me to 90 eggs: 1 for Emily, 1 for Ryan and I and 1 for next week (I'll get to that later).  He gave me six free eggs because I returned 6 crates today.  Emily and I were a bit behind in returning them. 

OK, So Wednesday, Thursday and Friday still don't have too much routine (except for the two bible studies that I've joined Wednesday and Friday nights), but that doesn't mean I don't keep busy!  I've just started my online MBA program, which keeps me reading a lot, and the daily chores keep me quite occupied as well.  I normally wake up around 6:30 and prep breakfast to send Ryan off.  When he leaves I work out by running or doing yoga, then I get into the word before I start lunch.  In the afternoon I usually do something with Emily before starting dinner and desert.  Then in the evening I have some down time with Ryan. Also in those days I usually end up at the beach, or pool at some point, and Emily and I are trying to hang out with the locals a bit more at Nick's Donuts once a week. 

Saturdays are grocery shopping at the Market in St. George's, which I have yet to get pictures of.  Emily and I leave around 7:30, catch a bus and get into town by 8:00.  This is the perfect time, because things haven't gotten too busy yet, and everything has just been stocked.  We usually get most things from our market friend, Cindy.  Things are all purchased by the pound. Prices are fair, but I wouldn't call them cheap.  Though now that Cindy sees us as regulars she is starting to throw in some freebies.  We haven't gone into St. George's every weekend, because it's a bit of a hassle.  So when we don't I still have to find the fresh fruit on the streets, because the produce in the stores isn't great. 

This last Saturday I bought fruit from a man named Kevin. I was thankful he had "normal" bananas.  Most of what you find in Grenada are really tiny, really dense, and really sweet bananas.  They aren't really bananas, but they are.  They call them "figs" here.  Anyways, so I struck up a conversation regarding bananas, and I ended up getting a free guava and passion fruit!  See what a little friendly conversation does?

Well, here is the guava!  I really liked it, but Ryan liked the passion fruit better.

Sundays Ryan and I go to our CSA meeting, which is church, but they don't like to call it church because we don't have a pastor or elders.  The service starts at 11:00, but we usually get there early to go to prayer meeting, help set up, or start on the worship team.  The service ends at 12:15, and as Ryan goes off to study again, Emily and I usually find ourselves baking, reading or talking again.

This is the apartment complex where Emily lives.  The apartment that we will be living in next term is the one on the top right in the front building.  Fun spiral staircase, right?

Mom, I thought that you would like that the apartment complex is "Bougainvillea".

So, yesterday was Monday.  I found myself in the routine of running, being at Emily's to read and cooking. As I was cooking I was wondering where all my time went in the day.  I don't feel very productive here ever, but my productivity should not be what defines me.  Especially when I only have a microwave and two stove tops to cook with.  I cooked for 3 hours last night! I made home made pizza from scratch and then these oatmeal "cookies" that Ryan and I have fallen in love with.  The recipe is from one of my wedding gifts, and is actually a recipe for muffins, but I don't have an oven, so I've been cooking them into cookies.  They still taste good.

These pictures are from last Wednesday:

The ball shape didn't work out too well, but they still tasted good.

This is my husband that day.

This is from yesterday.  The same oatmeal things. 

But I promise it's a different day. How can you tell? Well, no glasses, and umm, earphones, O! and there are clothes on the back of his chair. 

And my oatmeal "balls" morphed into cakes because they cook much better that way.  I experimented with a few fun shapes last night.

I'm still trying to find contentment in my new routine.  It's hard to not measure yourself by the standards you were brought up by.  But it's not those standards that count.  It's what God says of us.  God calls us new creations, redeemed, loved, chosen a royal priesthood, his sons and daughters.  My work is in loving Him with my heart, soul, mind and strength, and I'm still working on that. It's hard to do even when our days aren't as full or busy as they used to be.