"THIS is the good life..."

These are the words that my darling husband P has been uttering everyday, usually after he sits down in some chair (sometimes after dinner) and finds he has nothing pressing to do.

This is the impact that Rosemarie has had on our lives. Yes friends, we are now living la bella vita.

Little A has been sick since Rosemarie arrived. She has had what doctors here are calling a 'viral fever' followed by a 'viral infection' which caused a minor rash. Our medical experiences have not been so great: minimum 2 hour wait at the hospital AND the health clinic. Apparently the word 'appointment' means nothing to the local population. However, she is now on the mend. The entire time she has been ill, I have not had to lift a finger to clean anything around the villa, and the villa is the cleanest it has been since we arrived.

Rosemarie has been pretty much self-directed, and just busies herself with cleaning everything in sight. I must say...it is exhausting watching her...and she NEVER takes breaks (just to sleep). I try and try to get her to 'rest' but at this point, she says that as she is still homesick and missing her family. She prefers to work and keep her mind busy, so that she doesn't have time to feel sad.

I thought it would feel strange to have someone else living with us. However, perhaps it is her personality, but it's quite comfortable. I actually like having someone else in the house...it doesn't feel so big and empty, and I feel less like it's just me, a dog and a baby all day long. She does keep to herself quite a bit, and does her own thing in the evenings. She is pretty nervous about going and hanging outside (b/c of the number of male workers milling about...she's heard some bad stories about the population here, and the word 'rape' has come up several times in our conversations). I am going to offer her to take Phinn with her if she feels like going outside. Many of the locals are quite scared of dogs (even small rodent sized ones like Phinn...he does put on a good show) and so he would afford her a relative amount of 'protection'.

Tomorrow we are planning on participating in the Terry Fox Run (Little A too...she'll go in the BOB). P has a funny story about how his company won first place last year for largest donation (seems the bulk of the donation was actually made by the company). We're interested to see if they will be winning first place again.

The weather seems to be heating up again. We were out walking around this morning, and came back around 10:45...too hot for the chocolate pom!! Looks like it's time to turn the a/c back on!