Home Sweet Home

I've lived at Torre Fuerte for almost a week now, and I'm loving it. There's still little things to do around the house: a room to paint, some trim to finish, curtains to hang, a toilet to replace, a cat to buy. . .

But the big things are done! The main living spaces are cleaned and painted, all our broken windows have been replaced, internet and phone were installed and activated today, our gas is on (and the copper tubing hopefully won't be stolen again since the repair man built a secure box and the locksmith soldered it shut), a water heater has been installed in the shower, our tampered with lock has been replaced, and as of today everyone has moved in!

Here's some pictures of our much more home-like house. We have a few finishing touches we want to do before we have our house-warming/(late) Chinese New Year party.

My room! I love my hammock chair. I sort of bought it by accident when I went to buy "necessary" items for the house. Because, you know, everyone needs a garbage can in the bathroom and the kitchen, a shower curtain, and a hammock chair. An ambulatory salesman saw me looking at it as he walked by. He told me the price was 180,000 pesos. I offered him 60,000 figuring it was low enough he would realize I wasn't really thinking of buying one. But, he said, you tell me the maximum you'll pay and I'll tell you the minimum I'll accept. I agreed, he told me 120,000, but that he would really reduce the price to 100,000. I told him 80,000. He started to complain about what a low offer that was, then started packing up the chair, I though to leave. Then, he handed it to me. I hoped I really did remember correctly and still have 80,000 pesos in my wallet. I did. 81,000 to be exact. Good thing all my necessary shopping was done for the day. :)

Our bathroom, looking slightly more colorful than before.

Making pancakes for dinner our first night in Torre Fuerte.

Our living room and dining room. It still looks pretty empty.

Though, we got some more furniture donated and that has helped.

See our china cabinet or sideboard, or whatever you call that piece of furniture? On Tuesday night, I was looking at our very empty dining room. "What we need", I said, "is a long, low table or cabinet or something". Gonzalo said, "God will provide." Wednesday, Sara called me while I was at work. "I'm over here cleaning" she told me, "and we dropped of some furniture that was donated that was at the Other Way" When I walked in after work, sitting exactly where I wanted it, was pretty much the piece of furniture I had imagined. God is good, isn't he?