Sunday, April 23rd...

Hiya,

Well I'm up and on the blog early cos my husband is sleeping at last. He finally came to the end of a busy double shift week and can relax at last for two days. So I'm trying to let him sleep a bit. We've both been kind of ratty this week, me thanks to "girl stuff" and he due to the long work hours.

We are really in a bit of a panic now as to how to pay all this stuff that is coming upon us, and just when we relax and think we have it all under control something new pops up and throws us all out of whack again. Some advice to anyone out there who may be planning to do something similar: SAVE SAVE SAVE money before you even begin. You can never really have enough to make it happen as fast as you would like it to happen for you.

My sister took us all out for dinner last night and proposed a way for me to make some extra cash while I wait. As her housecleaner is off sick and will be for at least another 2-3 weeks, she has offerred to pay me to do the housework instead. Now its not my dream job, but it's something... and a way for me to help Peter with all the things we have to pay. I've been feeling very guilty about his having to cover all the expenses, and while I know that I will not make enough money this way to cover much once you convert it all to dollars, it will enable me to at least cover the things happening on this side for a while and keep my own head afloat so that he doesnt have to worry about anything here, just bills back at home. We will see how it all works out. This is a very big house and with the granny flat and 5 adults and two children to clean up after, it is going to be a HUGE job...

Oh, speaking of "back home" there was a show on the Discovery Channel this morning about Buffalo. Which is wierd because the people here in this house never really watch Discovery. But they were clicking through channels and saw that this show was on. So they told me about it and I ran to watch it in Lee's room. It was called Urban Explorers: Buffalo, NY. Its about these people who are urban climbers and scale and explore all these abandoned buildings around the USA. Their travels took them to Buffalo this week and so I got to see some of the city. It is really a pretty place!! Lots of art deco styled buildings and you can really see from the size and opulance of these sites that this was once a bustling metropole. I got to see the Buffalo Central Exchange station buildings, inside and out... and it is breathtakingly beautiful!! We then went down to the Church of the Transfiguration, which is an old Polish Catholic church scheduled for demolition, which had actually begun, before some of her old parishioners petitioned the city to stop. We went down to the historic Anchor Bar, home of the Buffalo Chicken Wing. And finally we explored two of the large grain silos, Concrete City and the Nabisco Silos near Niagara, and learned a bit about their history and the role Buffalo played in revolutionising the industry. Its a pity they really only focussed on these few buildings themselves and didnt cover much else about the city or show many other sites of interest. But I got a great feel for the place in any case. I'm really excited to see it all in person.

Here are some links in case you are interested to see some more:

This is a link to a site with some beautiful pictures of the station in it's heyday: http://www.icenine.org/photography/walt then click on "exchange 1" or "exchange 2"
The above pic was taken from this site.

Link to an interesting blog which aims to raise awareness of the "modernisation" of Buffalo and what this means for her beautiful historic buildings. Some fantastic pics of the Church of the Transfiguration in its current state as well as other stunning sites around the city:

http://fixbuffalo.blogspot.com/2005_08_01_fixbuffalo_archive.html


Ok thats my plug for the "Beautiful Buffalo" Association... (if such a thing exists).

I'm off now then... I will speak to you tomorrow on day 29 of the countdown!

Hope you all enjoyed your weekends... you know that I didn't...

XXX Ros

All things come round to him who will but wait. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow