Catching Up

Since I've lately had some new visitors from my entry on Fresh Modesty. To answer a few questions:

My blog title "The Marchioness" is taken from a character in Charles Dickens' book "Old Curiosity Shop." I love Dickens' works, and that particular character seemed a humorous comparison to myself. I've been blogging since I was seventeen, although I've changed my blog address since then

Messrs. W and J hanging out in the laundry room

I am in Russia because I'm of the mind that when travel opportunities come along I should take them, especially right now while I'm single(which is hopefully not permanent). This particular opportunity came along at Presbytery last May, when the Ds mentioned they were looking for nannies to go with them to Russia. The Ds have eight children under almost thirteen, and knowing they would have a busy speaking schedule while overseas they sought out extra help.

 

Monday morning I found out that Grandma had been admitted to the hospital on Saturday, her ninety-fourth birthday. She's now home on Hospice, but we don't expect her to live very much longer. It's been frustrating, stressful and depressing to have this going round in my head. I'm hoping she can hold out for eleven more days.

Feeding the birds leftover lunch.

The D parents arrived home from Trip 1 on Monday night. As a welcome home I made "my" chocolate cake(recipe here). It turned out different than normal, probably because I haven't figured out the oven temperature controls. Thankfully frosting covers a multitude of sins. The frosting turned out super rich because the only plain chocolate at the corner store was 90%. Wow. That was a good Russian experience.

The Ds second speaking trip was still up in the air late last night. They sent out a request for additional funds, since the money for Trip 2 was spent on the extra visa costs(Many thanks to the T family for covering all my remaining expenses!) and extra funds did come in; but the schedule was still in question. In fact, it was changing every hour and I got to the point of thinking JUST GO ALREADY! Mentally, of course. I would never say that. Today they're booking flights, so I think the trip is a go.  

In other news, Miss N threw up last night.