Interesting Flowers

These flowers are growing in our yard at the base of one of the palm trees. I'd never seen flowers like these prior to moving here. There were only a few these when we first arrived, but they've started to spread and are really quite pretty.


I don't know if they're some kind of daisy, but that's what they appear to be. They have white petals with purple centers, and they're lavendar on the underside.

I spied a critter on this flower and managed to snap a quick photo before it flew away...

This is one of the blooms.


See the flowers now? They "close up" in the late afternoon/early evening, and they don't "open" again until the next morning. Need a closer view? Check it out... I'd love to have a whole garden of these beautiful flowers!

Rednecks ARE universal!

This, my friends, is a coat/hat rack in a local restaurant, one that primarily serves Chinese and Tai food. So... it's an Asian establishment in a Spanish city, but from the looks of the décor, this restaurant could very well be located in, say, the southern part of the United States (a.k.a. "The South"). Hey, I'm not looking to offend anyone here. I'm a southerner! Seriously... I'm 100% convinced I could fine several of these babies within a 50 mile radius of my hometown in Kentucky. I'm just sayin'...

Pyromania!

Apparently a fire pit is a must for outdoor gatherings here, as seemingly all of our neighbors have one. We've had a small chimenea for a few years, very similar to this one... ... but it's wimpy compared to the neighbors' fire pits, so of course we ran to the NEX and bought ourselves the last one on the shelves. Yes, I know, it's like keeping up with the Joneses, only in our case we're keeping up with not only the Joneses, but the Smiths, the Scotts, the Grapes... You see where this is going? So now we have our very own fire pit.


I love sitting by a fire, don't you? There's something so cozy, comfortable and mesmerizing about a fire. I'm drawn to them, and our children are too, but for different reasons.

Our boys like to burn things. Is that normal? They run around the house, inside and out, searching for things to burn. I'm wondering if we're raising a couple of pyromaniacs.

"Mom, I never wear this shirt anymore. Can I burn it?"

We've come a long way, baby!

The hubby and I have one week of Spanish under our belts and we've been thinking we're pretty dadgum smart. Basically we now know how to say our names, greet someone, conjugate a few irregular verbs as well as a whole bunch of regular verbs, say the Spanish alphabet, count to 100, and write in simple sentences. We've learned lots of vocabulary too, and like I've said before, every little bit of Spanish instruction we've previously had is coming in extremely handy.

On Friday our instructor gave us homework to complete over the weekend. The assignment included some relatively simple exercises where we had to choose the correct verb form in a group of sentences and then match up subjects and predicates to a different group of sentences. It wasn't long before I'd finished the exercises and found myself feeling quite confident in my work.

The other half of our homework wasn't as easy, but I was sure I could zip through it with no problem. We were given information about which to write a short paragraph. Wow! I couldn't believe how far we'd come in just a week's time! We must really be picking this stuff up quickly... or so I thought.

The information for my paragraph consisted of three key words ~ Pepe, taxista y Madrid (Joe, taxi driver, and Madrid). I really want to learn how to form the sentences myself, without the aid of the computer translator, but what I've rapidly discovered is that we've only touched on the whole verb conjugation thing. We've just learned the present tense form of verbs thus far, which means we still have to figure out the past and future tenses, as well as determine which verbs are regular and which are irregular. Okay, I'm not feeling as sure of myself now. In fact, my confidence level has taken a significant hit. We've come a long way, baby... but we've also got a long way to go!

Now back to the Spanish paragraph, my special seat and the hat I wear so well...

Learning Spanish

My husband and I started a Spanish class this week. Oh, you're not fooling me! I know what you're thinking... "Of all the fun things they could possibly have chosen to do, why on earth would they choose to take Spanish classes?" Tell me I'm wrong!

We've found ourselves feeling awkward and more than a little uncomfortable in Spanish social settings because we can't understand a word people are saying! It's not that they never speak English, because they do, which is incredibly generous on their part. It's just that when they're speaking to one another, they totally fall into their native Spanish, which is completely understandable. So what are they saying? I haven't a clue and that's tough for someone like me. I need to know what's being said. What if they're talkin' smack about me? I'd wanna know, wouldn't you?

Seriously, I want to be able to follow conversations better and have the ability to converse with the Spanish in their native tongue. After all, we are in their country. I realize I'm not going to become fluent anytime soon, but if I could just carry on a simple conversation, I'd feel on top of the world.

There are only three students in our class... a Navy guy, my husband and me. We're in class approximately three and a half hours per day, five days per week for six weeks. Our instructor is very warm and friendly, and quite possibly the most patient person on the planet. Can you imagine teaching Spanish to three knuckleheads who really don't know which end is up? She's awesome!

As a result of the small, intimate number of students in this class, there's a lot of interaction between each of us and the instructor, which in turn helps us learn quicker, or at least I'd like to think so. I have to pay very close attention because the pace at which our class moves really keeps me on my toes. Instruction is probably 95% Spanish, which of course means our teacher speaks to us in English only 5% of the time. I never would have dreamed I could comprehend anything in a setting such as this, but it's actually starting to click. I'm learning!

What drives me crazy about Spanish is that most words have a feminine and masculine quality/connotation assigned to them. Why? Why? Why? And guess what? There are "exceptions to the rule" in Spanish, just like in English. And here I'd been thinking Spanish made more sense because it had steadfast, cut and dried rules. Um... no, that's not always the case.

And then there are the verb conjugations... ¡El cielo, me ayuda! (Translation = "Heaven, help me!") I wake in the middle of the night conjugating verbs. I was commenting about this very thing to the language school director and he said that was good because it meant my brain was thinking as I was sleeping, putting things in my "Spanish memory bank." That's great... really, really great... but I wish my brain would work a little more silently and allow me to rest at the same time.

I only wanted a trim

I want to allow my hair to grow out a bit, but my bangs were getting long and hanging in my eyes, which totally gets on my nerves as it's often very humid here. It's so not a good look for me, therefore...

I got my haircut yesterday, an event I used to really look forward to and thoroughly enjoy before moving to Spain. Here it's a little different situation. There's definitely a language barrier in that I don't speak Spanish and the hairdressers don't really speak much English either. The thing is... they're pretty much the only game on base.

I enjoyed having someone else wash my hair (Isn't that the most wonderful feeling?), but the cut and style are another story. I'm apparently unable to make myself understood. I only asked for a trim and my hair is easily an inch and a half to two inches shorter, not at all the look I was going for. And the style? Hmmm... very outdated and I left rather resembling a bird. Yeah, I know it's only hair and it'll grow back, but I'm struggling to find my happy place once again. You know how we women are when it comes to our hair!

Furniture Polish vs. Air Freshener

I went to a baby shower on Saturday and had to leave the boys alone for a while since my hubby was out of town. No problema as my oldest is quite capable of taking care of himself and his brother in my absence. As I was departing the house, I told the boys they could earn some extra cash if they were interested in doing some dusting and vacuuming while I was gone.

Now... I didn't really expect to come home to a clean house. To be perfectly honest, I didn't expect to find the boys doing anything other than playing Wii, a computer game, or perhaps watching a movie.

I was wrong.

My oldest, who loves extra cash, had actually heard what I suggested and decided to get busy. He dusted some of the furniture, albeit not as thoroughly as I would have liked, however, I've never really given him a complete tutorial, so I'll cut him some slack on the quality of his work. He tried.

What I didn't realize, until much later, was that my son used air freshener instead of furniture polish. No wonder the furniture still looked "cloudy" afterward.