Yummy lunch!
I’m quite proud of what I cooked today. Appetizers:
Main course:
And dessert:
It’s freezing cold!
Ok, maybe not so much, but it IS cold. Today, for the first time in two weeks, I’ve gone to my German 8AM class. It was raining, and as I opened my umbrella the wind took care of it. Goodbye umbrella. It was cold, and I realized that the clothes I was wearing two weeks ago are no longer enough to keep me warm. Not only because it’s two weeks closer to winter, but also because in Spain we’re having a crazy cold wave, and the temperatures dropped on Monday. So, while on Sunday we had 90F (I know, but it’s always warm here!), on Tuesday we had 55F. And people wonder why is everybody sick. From here I can see the Penyagolosa, the highest mountain around, which is around 6,000ft, and it’s all covered in snow. So pretty!
Now, the bad news. We don’t have heating. And the forecast says we’ll have around 3-4ºC tonight, which is below 40F. And that’s not so warm! We have a “climatizer” which works both as an A/C unit and a heating system (sorry, I have no idea how to say that in English) and it died this summer. Since, despite the very high temperatures and crazy humidity we get here in summer we’re tough (and poor) we barely used it anyway and we forgot about it. Now we remember. Now that it’s cold, and getting colder. We should get a call to set an appointment to check it out, but we’re waiting… and holding hot cups of tea.
Lucky it’s only october and it doesn’t really get cold here in winter!
We’re back!
After a couple of weeks of what a doctor called “the worst cold I’ve seen in years” we’re here. Eric has been super busy taking on all my tasks around the house, working his 8h, cooking and cleaning and helping me with my deadlines. He’s the bestest of the whole wide world and the solar system!
BUT despite everything, we were determined to keep up with the Apartment Therapy Cure and cleaned our kitchen and cooked a meal… ahem, a pizza. Look at our face looking our extremely clean oven (and the melting cheese…) Hey, we were supposed to cook something we like, and this was our first pizza in months, and was delicious! And, we cooked it from scratch, so I guess we’re fine.
But, don’t think we stopped there. We actually put up the shelves in our storage room, declutered it and put away everything! This is the before…
Wow, that’s ugly… Here’s Eric assembling those shelves. They’re great and were just 8.90€ each! I was sitting on a chair sneezing and coughing. I’m fun like that.
And here are the shiny afters. We know they may look somehow cluttered, but we’re storing a bed and a huge piece of wood (visible everywhere) for my parents. BUT now we know what we have, where we have it and we know it won’t get ruined because of the huge humidity or moths or anything, because we took care of that too.
Will I ever feel better?
101F, cough, total unability to breath, headache, general body ache.
I’m hating fall big time!
Daily procrastination
I’m having a very hard time working from home (i.e. never ever going outside!) and I really can’t focus enough to work. Really hard for me. Here’s what our day looks like:
Eric works from 8.30AM until 6.15PM with a lunch break. He gets home around 6:40PM. And now he’s following an online course on something very difficult related to his job. The company he works for is paying for the course, and he thought it was a good oportunity since it’s a highly valued and highly priced course. So, when he gets home almost 11 hours after leaving, he has to study. Then, he’s in charge of cooking dinner and leaving the kitchen clean before going to bed. But the rest is mine.
So, now that you know Eric’s routine, I’ll tell you about mine. I wake up with him. He leaves around 8:10AM. I make the bed/do whatever. Check email. Check Newsreader. Whoa, new blog posts. It’s 10.30AM. Work. I start translating only to get frustrated because they sent me the wrong script, or there’s a Shakespeare quote to translate (for these things you need to get the published Spanish translation and copy it to the letter or some very angry Shakespeare fan will want to kill you) and go make yourself a coffee. Go back and find a solution to your problem. Translate some more. It’s 12.30. Turn back to see a huge pile of clothes waiting to be folded or ironed/bags from weekend camping/suitcase from 1 month ago trip/whatever. Do something (very small!) about it. Like fold three undergarments. Or run a washing load. Or scrub a sink. Or have another coffee. It’s 1.15. Eric will be home in 15 minutes, and there’s no lunch. Cook lunch. Eat lunch. Check email. It’s 3pm. Siesta time! No, you don’t have a siesta hour because you’ve done nothing all day. Check email. It’s 4pm. Gosh, afternoon hours go by fast! Work. Work. It’s 5.15pm. Write a post. 5.45pm. Oh, my other blog sure is missing me. Write another post. 6.15pm. Eric is about to get home. Do the dishes. Then, stare at your handsome boyfriend studying for the rest of the afternoon.
That’s a pretty day in my life. Oh, and I have class 8-10AM Mon and Wed and 9-11AM Tues and Thurs, so the prorastination process usually begins even later than 8.30AM.
Any help?
Planners and books
(It’s Talk About Tuesday over at Lazy Organizer’s… go check it out!)
Let’s see… since we moved in together, there have been changes in both areas. My dad got me a Blackberry Curve, which I love and use a lot to read emails. Since I’m a freelancer, it has proved to be extremely useful to check my email on the go. I’m not sure if you know, but I’m a translator and interpreter. And when you’re waiting for a client to send you a project (i.e. text to be translated, usually TV scripts) BUT you also have a to do list longer than your scarf, it’s great to be able to go do all the shopping, arguing with the guy at the bank, applying for silly courses at your former Uni, etc. knowing that as soon as you receive the text to be translated you’ll know and you’ll be able to go back home and work. I’m really grateful for this since I have had to stay home all day waiting for something only to get it at 8pm. That’s so frustrating! Ok, now we’ve reviewed the coolest aspect of my Blackberry. (Or pink-in-perry, which is what we call it, and don’t ask me why because I don’t know). In the actual “planner” side, I’m still getting used to it, I’ve had it for about 2 months now and I’m not 100% fully functional with it. I’m getting better at using the calendar fixture, but, for example, I never think of synchronizing it with my computer. Also, I don’t have more than 5 contacts in the address book. I should stop being this lazy and work on that, since I’ve been wanting to do it also with my computer adress book since I got it, 10 months ago. I need to get some budget/finance planner software, preferably for free, for my Blackberry. Or at least a program that will read my spreadsheet so I can check it at any moment. I can’t use Quicken or most finance managers out there because they require you to configure your bank accounts with them, and they don’t work with Spanish banks, so… Also, I’d like to find a better GTD system than the BB to-do list. That’d be nice!
On the book side, I want more books. Period. But I don’t have money to spend. And also, after having had arguments with my parents all my childhood because I’d never go to sleep (I’d rather spend the whole night reading and then fall asleep at school) in the last year I’ve read about 3 books total. This is sad and embarrassing, but I’m working on it, I promise.
Motionless
I’m slow today. Slow working, slow blogging, slow everything. Because I can’t move from the sofa. The reason is too private to share (nothing exciting, but nothing you’d want to hear anyway). But whatever, I just got a frugal haircut I wanted to share. Ok, just new bangs. Here you have a before shot. And do you want to know why was it frugal? Because I did it myself. You can’t go cheaper than that!
Now I have to drink the cup of cocoa Eric just brought me. Got to love him!
Good bye, wonder car!
We said goodbye to my car yesterday. It was sad, but right (and green! and frugal!).
My dad bought it second hand and used it as a taxi (my dad owns a taxi company) before giving it to me. I’ve had it for about 3 years now, and I’m not going to be its last owner, since we gave it to a guy who just arrived from Romania and needed a vehicle in order to apply to a job. At 250.000 miles (for now), I think it’s fair to say that it did its job.
When Eric and I decided to move in together both had cars. His was a little older than mine, but since it had always been a family car (not a taxi and who-knows-what before) it was in better shape. My car insurance expires today, and it wasn’t worth for us to spend 500€ on insurance and around 100€ in bi-annual taxes since I work from home and we’re keepind Eric’s.
So, although it was the right thing to do, I loved driving that car, and I loved that it had CD and MP3 player… and Eric’s doesn’t. So, here’s a goodbye photo, showing the Erics struggling to get all the camping stuff in:
The Cure
I’m doing the Eight Step Cure following Apartment Therapy’s advice and encouragement (I joined the “Eastern” group… what could be more eastern than Spain? I failed to take a picture of what my storage room looks like right now, but you can have a small hint looking at this:
Since 90% of what you see in the photos is now in the storage room… yes, just lying on the floor. And that’s just about 1/4 of the stuff we have down there. You also need to add all of our camping equipment, climbing equipment, winter duvets, extra linens, seasonal “stuff”, all the notes and books from college, etc, etc, etc.
Our to do list for this cure includes:
- Finding a “something” to make our entry hall interesting.
- Printing all the photos we have waiting and framing them.
- Cleaning the storage room.
- Installing better light there.
- Getting (and assembling!) a storage system.
- Purging, decluttering, getting rid of stuff, whatever you call it.
- Storing the staying things properly (i.e. not on the floor) and away from humidity.
Just met our nephew!
Just a quick update, we’re spending the weekend (our last weekend with two cars, we’ll tell you about that on monday) over at my aunt and uncle’s. Ten years ago, they were foster parents to a 16yo girl. They never adopted, but she turned 18 still living with them, and as of today she considers us her family. Well, on July 27th her life was blessed with a beautiful baby boy. Here they are in a photo we just took:
Now this is me with him:
And baby “I” having fun with uncle Eric:
He’s so adorable! And we’re so happy that our family has just grown a little bigger.
Stumble it!