Kitchen cleanup.

I briefly mentioned in my last post about a situation that came up that became an exercise of patience. Ever since we moved into our house, we have had a cockroach problem. Gross, right? Some days we would have 7-8 sprawled out on our kitchen floor which was always what we wanted to see first thing each morning!

While my niece was here, we spent a good chunk of time cleaning the house and throwing away things that previous occupants left behind. We also discovered what roach eggs look like. Google that if you are really curious. In a word, disgusting. We knew the roaches were hiding out in the lone cabinet/counter/sink and went looking for a replacement piece.

I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say we finally found something we liked (landlord included), and found out from the store when the new one was going to be delivered. So 2.5 weeks ago, Nat went about the demolition of our old cabinet, knowing there would be roaches to contend with.

What we didn't know was that the actual nest was in the floor of the cabinet and pulling it apart meant roaches went scattering. Nat spent a good chunk of the day getting rid of the roaches and when he pulled the counter away from the wall, there was a whole pile of them in one corner. 

Umm, ick.

With the help of a friend, they moved the counter and cabinet out and only two baby roaches managed to drop out of it on the way to the door. :-) We took care of them, of course! We knew the cabinet was going to be delivered on Monday morning, so we dealt with the lack of sink for two days thankfully anticipating our new one to be installed - minus the roaches.

Monday morning two men showed up, measured the space, and said they would return after buying a few supplies... or so we thought. Here it turned out they were just measuring to make sure the new one would fit. After a phone call to the store clarifying that up, they said come on down and pay and then we'll install. Okie dok. Tuesday we go pay and ask when the cabinet will be delivered. At first they told us "next day" but we said that wouldn't work with our school schedule. When we asked about Thursday as another option, we were met with blank stares. With our limited Thai and their limited English, we went round and round until the man nervously chuckled and said, "oh! Not next day. Next month!!" 

Huh?!?

We finally figured out that things indeed were lost in translation. Two little words were never mentioned when we were first at the store: special order. That cleared up a lot of the miscommunication. In the meantime, we were looking at being without a sink, counter, and cabinet for 3.5 weeks. 

Thankfully God's grace is truly sufficient. We went out to get a folding table (which we were going to buy eventually) and two buckets to be our temporary fix. It's working just fine. :-)

Oh, do you notice the grey fridge in the above picture? We now have three fridges in our kitchen!

The Lord provided us with an amazing deal to purchase our own fridge (2014 model!), rather than the two we were using. One came with the house since it was fully furnished, and then one came from the neighbor down the street who lent it to the people who were here before us. Both have issues and weren't big enough or efficient enough. So we have an abnormal kitchen: no sink and three fridges! Wanna come visit?!? :-)

Hopefully we can sort out the extra fridge situation soon and return it to the neighbor down the street or have it go somewhere else. We'll obviously have to move the small grey fridge before the new counter and cabinet comes because that's where they are going. :-)

So am I glad to be without a sink and counter for 3.5 weeks? Not necessarily... until I think about those roaches, and then I'm really glad they are gone! If we have to deal with an inconvenience for a few weeks, it's worth it to be roach-free! 

I AM looking forward to next week though... :-)