I'm not unemployed anymore - I actually have a very fabulous job as a preschool teacher with the University of Michigan child care centers. But I'm still posting, albeit a little more irregularly, and I don't want to ignore the personal progress I've made since starting this blog by renaming it.

Blog inspiration: I read 48 States in 48 Days by Paul Jury in the summer of 2011. It was fabulous...although he planned way less for his roadtrip than I would have. And at the same time, my lovely Anna was constantly reminding me that our lives were awesome, despite the fact that we didn't have job prospects, new cars, boyfriends/husbands, houses, etc., like so many people we knew. So, in an effort to appreciate my life and the crazy uncertainty that it is, I started writing this blog about the little adventures I have. (And by "writing a blog," I mean "making a list" because I make lists, not narratives.) Even if there isn't a BIG adventure that happens every day, I try to find at least one thing to list :)

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Dear Maria, Count Me In

  • It rained like crazy in Austin this morning! Apparently, they've been waiting for it for a long time.
  • Because of the rain, I drove Carmen around to run errands downtown. So I got to give myself a mini-tour of the city. The Capitol building and property are really beautiful. And there are sooo many restaurants! I wanted to stop at lots of them.
  • I got to spend the afternoon with Carmen of course, but also with her son, Rolando. He was so excited to meet me and I loved meeting him. I love being greeted with a hug by everyone, including by people I don't know :) He asked so many questions about me and was so complimentary of my dad. It was cute and I'm really glad I get to see him again before I leave.
  • Then, Carmen and Rolando brought his daughters, Maria and Lucia, back to the house after school and I got to spend lots of time with them. They were both shy at first but we all opened up to each other after awhile. Maria played both Set and Banangrams with me, even though she's only 8. She seemed to really like them too! She was good at finding patterns in Set, but loved sorting the cards "so they were more organized" even better (a girl after my own heart). And she really got the concept of Banangrams (especially the changing letters around to make new words), even though her vocabulary and spelling skills weren't developed enough to really be competitive. Lucia, who is 3, took a very long time to be comfortable with me. But after I responded very interestedly in a very long story of hers (which included ice cream, Spiderman, cupcakes, monsters, trees, and rain...it literally reminded me of the little French girl's story), she warmed right up. We played, I did her hair, we took silly pictures together and we looked at pictures on my computer. We also talked about our favorite superheroes ( Lucia: "I like Spiderman because he's a cute one, he's a sweet one and he saved the day!"). Finally, Maria and I worked on homework together (and I did her hair too). It was so so much fun, I'm so glad I met them and I'm very grateful that I get to see them for dinner tomorrow night.
  • It was fantastic to listen to Carmen and Rolando speaking in Spanish to each other - so fast! It was beautiful. I also loved listening to Lucia and Maria speak in English and Spanish. Lucia is fluent in both and would respond in both to Carmen and Rolando. Maria is also fluent in both, but less confident in her Spanish - so she would listen to what Carmen or Rolando said in Spanish and then respond in English...which was kind of even more awesome!
  • On the news tonight, there was a story about a town near here that will literally run out of water in the next 2-4 weeks. I can't even imagine what that's like (and it became even more unfathomable as I took my shower tonight) :( #notsothirdworldproblems
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