A Hot, Long, Tiring Week

...just when you have probably gave up hope of me ever posting again...

The daily temperatures here in Chennai are slowly starting to creep back up. January was a great month here, temperature wise. The daily highs were in the upper 70s/lower 80s every day...of course, this was without the humidity. It doesn't get much better than that here. However, the last week or so, the temperatures have been inching up a few degrees with it now being around 83 to 85 every day (once again, without the humidity...as it really feels about 10 degrees warmer than this). Of course, I can't really complain about the weather here...we could be back in Illinois suffering through the horrible winter conditions there.

If I'm going out and about during the day, I normally wear capris. Shorts just aren't really an acceptable thing for women to wear here. In fact, capris to some degree are pushing the "dress code" of Chennai when you see that the women here wear clothing that doesn't show any leg skin whatsoever. However, all the foreign women here do get by without problems with wearing capris or knee length skirts. Being that I'm not really a skirt person unless I'm dressing up for some reason, I wear capris outside of our house.

Well with the lower quarter of my legs being down right not pleasant or just plain ugly from all of the mosquito bites, I have been wearing jeans all week. Luckily all of the activities that I have been doing with my guests have pretty much been indoors this week with the exception of one day that was completely outside (boy did I pretty much overheat on that day). However, the problem with me wearing jeans is that none of my jeans fit. In the last 1 1/2 years, I have probably lost about 15 pounds. I have already gone down one size for sure and probably could easily fit into the next size smaller if I really wanted to. Since my need for jeans and dress pants is pretty much zero in Chennai, I haven't thought that it would be wise to invest any money into these items since I have lost the weight. So, this means that I have been wearing around clothing all week that hasn't fit...big and baggy! I pretty much was constantly pulling up my pants...I guess I should be thankful that I have fat hips and thus my pants didn't fall completely down!

My legs are finally starting to show the signs of healing. Calamine lotion didn't help at all with the itching. However, I found that I had some aloe vera gel that somewhat worked to stop the itching. Finally though, the best thing I found in my massive supply of medicine that I stocked up on before leaving the U.S. was some leftover prescription antibiotic skin ointment. I have a couple of functions in a few days that I will need to dress up for, and I'm hoping my legs will be healed enough that I can wear a skirt (as one of the events is outdoors, I will be sure to wear bug repellent this time). The other thing with having a million mosquito bites on my legs is that I haven't been able to shave them in a week now. Getting a little bit hairy!

Well my first friend has now returned to Beijing. We had a great couple of weeks together. Lots of laughs and good times. My other friend has been here for a few days now. However, she has gone for the weekend to Delhi to meet some other friends. She'll be back on Monday night, and I will be busy the rest of the week with her. In the meantime though, I am flat out exhausted from being out of the house every day for at least two weeks now. I have declared that I'm not leaving the house at all this weekend...and so far I have been very successful with this goal!