Dreams, Apartment Issues and Care Packages
Today, I was trying to get Ashley to take a nap (no such luck!) and I asked her if she’s had any dreams lately. She told me she hadn’t had any dreams. So I told her that I had a dream about a tree. Her reply – “did the tree get knocked over by the big wave?”. My heart just sank and I wanted to cry. She didn’t seem upset by it at all, just asked me. I told her that in my dream, the tree had lots of birds in it and an owl and it was big and round with lots of leaves. She then proceeded to tell me about a “dream” of hers with monsters in it, but they seemed to be good monsters.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned our apartment heating problem we had once we returned home to Taiwan. We arrived late at night/early in the morning (around 1 am) to our apartment in Taipei on Dec. 29th. We have a central air/heating unit, which is not very common here in Taipei, it’s rare for an apartment to have central heat. It was about 15 degrees Celsius in the apartment (that’s around 59 degrees Fahrenheit). We switched the air conditioning unit from cold to heat, and then turned on the thermostats in the rooms. After about 10 minutes, I heard this loud sound. It scared me, since I was already on edge. I asked Anthony what it was; he didn’t hear it since he was blowing his nose at the exact same time as the noise I heard. We walked around trying to find the source of the noise and outside (in the laundry area) where the air conditioning unit is, there was water pouring out from a pipe attached to the unit. Great! Just what we needed, more water. Anthony went and got the security guy, who came up and tried to tell us it was no big deal, it could wait until morning and he’d have someone come look at it, no one was awake to come fix it or look at it at that moment. Thank goodness Anthony was a little adamant that they do something NOW – that we spend enough in management fees that they should take care of this. They guy finally agreed to get someone to look at it, he left, then brought back another security guy (UGH!). They looked, talked, looked, talked, then finally agreed to turn off our water. So, here we are, back from Thailand, tired, dirty, cold with no heat and no water. The next day, one of the ladies from Anthony’s work got a contractor to come look at it. They got our water turned back on and the heat was fixed a few days later (they had to find parts, etc). Luckily, we have some friends here who loaned us some space heaters, which work really well here, so we weren’t left completely in the cold. Today, they finished the last of the repairs (replacing the thermostats in Liz’s and Ashley’s room) and it is so nice to have heat in the apartment.
Elizabeth doesn’t seem to be doing much better, her fever is down, but she’s refusing to eat, drink or sleep. I spent all day trying to get her to do any of the three. She cried a ton today and I felt so awful for her. I am really hoping that she is better tomorrow – I don’t know how I can handle another day of her being that upset. And since she’s sick, we haven’t been able to visit with any of our friends, which makes it even harder. We (Ashley, Liz and I) are all stuck in the apartment all day long. I haven’t taken Ashley to school in case she’s also carrying some sort of virus – plus, she doesn’t want me to leave her at school, she just wants to visit. Her teacher called today to find out how she was doing. I told her that Ashley probably wouldn’t be back to school until the end of February when we get back from the States. She seemed disappointed, but understood.
We got a care package from my parents last night – sent out right after we got home from Thailand. It was so nice to receive and really brightened our spirits. They sent some Junior Mints (mmm, my favorite) along with some chocolate for Anthony, some p’jammas for the girls, a few stuffed animals (Liz lost her favorite puppy and blankie in the tsunami) and some other little treats. Ashley was very excited to get to open more presents and she immediately named her white stuffed doggie – Noodle. It’s a poodle, so I don’t know if she is confused on the name, or if she just randomly picked noodle out?! Pretty cute though...
I don’t think I’ve mentioned our apartment heating problem we had once we returned home to Taiwan. We arrived late at night/early in the morning (around 1 am) to our apartment in Taipei on Dec. 29th. We have a central air/heating unit, which is not very common here in Taipei, it’s rare for an apartment to have central heat. It was about 15 degrees Celsius in the apartment (that’s around 59 degrees Fahrenheit). We switched the air conditioning unit from cold to heat, and then turned on the thermostats in the rooms. After about 10 minutes, I heard this loud sound. It scared me, since I was already on edge. I asked Anthony what it was; he didn’t hear it since he was blowing his nose at the exact same time as the noise I heard. We walked around trying to find the source of the noise and outside (in the laundry area) where the air conditioning unit is, there was water pouring out from a pipe attached to the unit. Great! Just what we needed, more water. Anthony went and got the security guy, who came up and tried to tell us it was no big deal, it could wait until morning and he’d have someone come look at it, no one was awake to come fix it or look at it at that moment. Thank goodness Anthony was a little adamant that they do something NOW – that we spend enough in management fees that they should take care of this. They guy finally agreed to get someone to look at it, he left, then brought back another security guy (UGH!). They looked, talked, looked, talked, then finally agreed to turn off our water. So, here we are, back from Thailand, tired, dirty, cold with no heat and no water. The next day, one of the ladies from Anthony’s work got a contractor to come look at it. They got our water turned back on and the heat was fixed a few days later (they had to find parts, etc). Luckily, we have some friends here who loaned us some space heaters, which work really well here, so we weren’t left completely in the cold. Today, they finished the last of the repairs (replacing the thermostats in Liz’s and Ashley’s room) and it is so nice to have heat in the apartment.
Elizabeth doesn’t seem to be doing much better, her fever is down, but she’s refusing to eat, drink or sleep. I spent all day trying to get her to do any of the three. She cried a ton today and I felt so awful for her. I am really hoping that she is better tomorrow – I don’t know how I can handle another day of her being that upset. And since she’s sick, we haven’t been able to visit with any of our friends, which makes it even harder. We (Ashley, Liz and I) are all stuck in the apartment all day long. I haven’t taken Ashley to school in case she’s also carrying some sort of virus – plus, she doesn’t want me to leave her at school, she just wants to visit. Her teacher called today to find out how she was doing. I told her that Ashley probably wouldn’t be back to school until the end of February when we get back from the States. She seemed disappointed, but understood.
We got a care package from my parents last night – sent out right after we got home from Thailand. It was so nice to receive and really brightened our spirits. They sent some Junior Mints (mmm, my favorite) along with some chocolate for Anthony, some p’jammas for the girls, a few stuffed animals (Liz lost her favorite puppy and blankie in the tsunami) and some other little treats. Ashley was very excited to get to open more presents and she immediately named her white stuffed doggie – Noodle. It’s a poodle, so I don’t know if she is confused on the name, or if she just randomly picked noodle out?! Pretty cute though...
posted by The Armstrongs at
1/04/2005
