Full of surprises

I know, I know, it's been almost a month since I wrote last. Several of you wanted to verify if I was sit alive....yes! I think as you become comfortable in a foreign place, things begin to seem more normal and then there is not as much to write about. Anyway, the theme of the blog today is surprises and I have quite a few.

Good surprise #1:
I may have mentioned that I've been losing weight. I cannot explain this unexpected bonus, but I'm certainly enjoying it. I would be even more excited if I had the opportunity to actually go to a store and buy clothes a size smaller. Alas, there are no stores here, so I have to bask in the glory of trying on clothes from ages ago that were always too small and suddenly realizing they fit! Not only fit; some are too big! My favorite dancing jeans from 2005 fit again. Sorry, Regina, you won't get them back this time! The Nike warm-up pants that I bought for Laura that she refused to take twice...that were way too small for me....fit perfectly! All the bathing suits I wore in Austin are too big. The capri pants that I bought in DC that were just a tiny bit too tight, well they are the only pants that fit me well now. All my dress clothes are at least a size too big or maybe more. I'm telling you, I swear by running for staying fit and for exercising. I can eat whatever I want, I feel good, I sleep well, I eat healthy, and the weight just seems to melt away. I was never even heavy, but it's nice to feel slender. Ok, enough about body image.

Good surprise #2:
I finally decided what to do about the missing dishes. After hours online checking out Amazon.com and Ebay and craiglist, I decided to go ahead and have my 4 missing boxes of dishes shipped here. The shipping is free (that saves me money), I'm used to my own things, and most of all, I could not stand the hassle of bidding and waiting and worrying about shipping all the way here. My dishes will be here in about 3 months. Oh well.

Big surprise!
About a week ago, I started to randomly feed a kitten/cat in our compound. It looked hungry and it jumped up on my balcony a couple of times so I gave it some of my leftover food. Five days later I came home from work and found this same cat lying on my balcony nursing two kittens! The very next day I came home from work and there were three kittens nursing. I started to be afraid to come home! After careful thought, I noticed that the kittens looked bigger than a couple days old, so I figure she had the kittens sometime before I started feeding her. She never looked pregnant when I first noticed her hanging around. She must have started to feel comfortable around me, so she brought the kittens up one at a time in her mouth. This was no small feat since the balcony has bars and it's up one half floor from the level of the parking lot. Anyway, she stopped at three so now I have 4 mouths to feed! My boss noticed mice at his residence, so he may take them all as his new pest control program. Good for me! I joined Foreign Service to be footloose, not tied to coming home every night to feed cats. (been there, done that)

Anyway, that's about all for now. Hope all is well in your corner of the world! Becky