Where Does the Time Go?

 Really I don't feel so busy that I haven't got five minutes to sit down and blog... but my last post was when, September?  I guess I'm filling those precious free moments with other activities.  This weekend for example I completed the second of two tables that Angelines is making for the bar.  I was put in charge of deccorating them.  Between table one and two, I also laid pavers in a section of our patio.  Oh and we took a family weekend away with abuela and my sister Lucy came for an eight-day visit, too!  Of course there have been the usual, more mundane daily activities that also keep me away from my blog: cleaning the bar and the house, cooking, overseeing homework, reading with Em, walking Norte, correcting work from the academy...  Still, I honestly don't know how it is that Thanksgiving is this week!  Where does the time go?  

As always, we'll be celebrating Thanksgiving this year on the Saturday after.  I've got my turkey ordered and I'm thinking of doing some fancy cooking I saw on a French cooking show we sometimes watch.  I need to see if I can find the recipe, but it looked like an amazing way to cook turkey.   I cannot, however, part with my tried and true stuffing recipe or traditional pumpkin pie. ;)  

This week I'll be prepping making the pie crust and also the veggies for the stuffing ahead of time and freezing.  My roasted pumpkin is already weighed and frozen. ;)  I am only slightly worried about the size of our newly acquired refridgerator and freezer.  In the past we've had two refridgerators (both came with the house) and although they were dinosaurs that were probably extremely inefficient, it was very useful at this time of year to have a lot of space for food storage.  I don't know what I'll do with my turkey carcass, for example!  I've always made broth with half and frozen half to make fresh broth around April...  I am pretty sure there won't be room for that in our new freezer. 

Guests this year are my true blue Thanksgiving fans plus a few new additions.  I'm most excited to have a fellow American: a language assistant from NYC living in Estepa. :)  I'm happy and excited to welcome a displaced compatriot into my home for the holidays and equally happy and excited for her to meet my exceptional friends. :)

Angelines has just come home and I was waiting for her to have dinner... all this talk of food has got me even hungrier!

Table 2: completed today :)

At the beach in Huelva on our weekend get-away.

The whole crew...minus yours truly, the photographer.

Table  1: our logo.

Beginning pavers

Finished...but not yet cleaned.

Back to school

 Fall is upon us...wow.  I started this post when school started... One line into it, I quit.  Oops.  

Anyway, indeed, the seasons have changed.  Emily commented that she could tell it was school time because it was chilly in the mornings. ;)  In all fairness, it had been chilly in the mornings for some time, but of course, she wasn't awake to know that.  Anyway, September has ended with a new pair of gloves for Emily.  She was complaining of cold hands in the morning.  All of her American family will laugh to know that the coldest it's been in the morning is probably around 65º-68º F.  She's a little Andalusian, what can I say.

School has started wonderfully this year.  She has a new teacher, which may or may not be part of it, but I think mostly, she's just matured.  There are no more tears at night before bed or in the morning at the gates when she has to go line up for class.  She has done a full 360º and I couldn't be more relieved!  Last year she always came home bubbling about what she'd done, but she would cry nearly every night well into the second semester of the year!  This year, it's nothing but joy. :)

Other exciting news is that Em is taking horse-riding lessons.  She has ridden on every visit to the States since she was 8 months old. ;)  But now, she's the one holding the reins.  This last visit to Ga and Papa's really did it for her.  She has been totally horse-crazy since we got back.  When we said we'd sign her up for riding lessons, she was so excited she forgot to ask, "Will you stay, too?".  

Separation anxiety has been a big problem for Emily since the beginning of formal schooling.  She loves to dance and loves ballet, yet even with her dance lessons, we were virutally forcing her to go in Granada!  The fact that she just jumped in with both feet to her riding classes, is a testament not only to her maturity, but also to just how much she really LOVES it.  We went to the stable to see the horses and meet the people before she was signed, up and she was chattering away to the woman who runs the place and even introducing herself to other kids!

For those of you who have been with Emily, you may know that she never stops talking (and I mean never).  However, with new people, or when she's not feeling 100% comfortable, she is very shy and quite.  I was so surprised by the way she was so herself the very first time she interacted with the people at the stable, I wanted to cry.  Since then, she's gone to three official classes, and loves it more every time.

...They say third time's a charm.  Yet again, I was interrupted mid-post and didn't hit send.  Another week has come and gone since then. :(

I think I'd better wrap this up and sign off before something else happens and you're left yet another week + without news from Seville. ;)  I'm sure you've got the bottom line, by now: school's started with a bang and things are just getting better.  I do promise another post soon.

A Dry Spell

 Sorry all.  Summer has found me with little inspiration to sit down and blog.  I'm not sure why because it certainly isn't for lack of things to tell.  Life has been busy and busier, but it seems like the more days go by without posting, the harder it is to get myself to just sit down and type.

We're coming out of a Saharan heat wave at the moment and so I am sticking to my chair as I write this.  I'm sure it actually pales to the temeratures that most of my Portland friends were dealing with in late July, but still it's been pretty aweful.  I say we're coming out of it, and it is true, today we're at a refreshing 93ºF.  Keeping in mind that since Friday of last week it's been over 110ºF every day and only cooling down to about 78ºF, I'm not even joking that 93º feels nice.  At least temperatures at night are dropping more recently so the house can actually cool off.  We do not have AC, but thankfully just had an amazing, life-saving ceiling fan installed in our bedroom so with circulating air even the heat is bearable.

This week the academy is closed and so I'm on "holiday".  We were supposed to go camping from Monday to Thursday, but with the heat it just seemed like a very bad plan even though the campground had a pool and river access.  It's tough to go anywhere in August, too because EVERYONE has holidays and of course anywhere near water is usually jam-packed.  So we ended up staying home and because Emily was so sad about not camping, I pitched our tent upstairs on the terrace!  We have been "glamping" upstairs all week. ;)

These are actually my second holidays this summer.  At the end of July I took off two weeks and we made the trans-Atlantic journey to California despite CoVID and its nefarious variants.  It was an ordeal to be sure: European non-US citizens/residents (ie. Angelines) are not allowed into the States still under the Presidential Proclamation.  Of course, there are exceptions, one of them being the spouse of a U.S. citizen, so we had to travel with a copy (and sworn translation just for good measure) of our marriage licence.  Emily also travelled on a Spanish passport for the first time this trip (only on the return of course).  In the past she has only had her US passport.  And of course there were the extra long Q-tips up the nose 48 hours before our flights... Yuck!  Thankfully no negative CoVID test was required on our return trip because it is so unpleasant.

Once we were there, of course, every bit of red tape was worth it.  It was fantastic just to BE at my parents' home and BE with them and my sisters.  We didn't plan anything at all for our visit other than my cousin's wedding at the end of our stay, and that was the best thing we could have done.  We just hung around home.  Emily drove the tractor, the lawn mower, rode the horses, bathed the horses, fed the horses...  We hiked Sierra Buttes and went to Fraizer Falls.  We barbecued with family friends and just generally enjoyed each other.  

It was only two years since our last visit, but with CoVID, it felt more like five.  You don't feel the distance so much until suddenly it's acutally NOT possible to book a flight and go whenever you want.  Of course, I never just go at the drop of a hat, but the fact is I could, in theory...if I had a few extra thousand sitting around.  But suddenly without that option, even with near daily video calls, the distance seemed greater than ever.  So even though this last visit was just two short weeks, it was intense, and it was enough to get me through until my sister and mom come this fall. ;)

Angelines has just brought me some cold watermelon--yum.  I'm going to sign off and stuff my face!

May 9th...

 Obviously, after more than a month without word from me, there is a lot to write about.  Sadly, most of that will remain unwritten.  The days since COVID arrived have sped by...I don't know where the year has gone, honestly.  My last post was acutally just three days after the one year anniversary of the Corona virus lock-down here in Spain and the beginning of the "state of alarm".  This estado de alarma has been extended continually to date and only will end (we hope for good!) this Sunday, May 9th--mark your calendars.

Under the state of alarm the federal government can implement things like curfew, close city/province/state boarders and limit the number of people allowed to get together in public or private spaces.   We are coming out of a fourth wave of the virus here and I must say that if COVID doesn't get you, "pandemic fatigue" most certainly will.  We are sick of this (I think that goes for most everyone reading, as well).  

Vaccinations are slowly on the rise here; but our statistics pale to those in the U.S.  The E.U. was sold short on several vaccines, and then ran into some nasty side-effects from the AstraZeneca vaccine.  Of course all of this is bound up tightly in red tape.  I think we're somewhere around 10% of the population fully vaccinated at this point...  Obviously things could be worse, but hearing from so many fully vaccinated friends and family I am feeling sorry for us Spaniards.

You may be wondering what will happen when the state of alarm expires on Sunday.  All of us are!  Many individual states are appealing to the Supreme Court to pass laws quickly that would allow for state governments to implement restrictions on mobility and number of people allowed to gather.  This has apparently been approved in the Balear Islands.  As far as I know, Andalusia hasn't asked for this extention of state power (and I sincerely hope they do not).  

At some point, I do believe that people need to take this as a matter of personal responsibility...of course, a public health worker may think otherwise.  To my mind this is a situation that can be likened to that of an overbearing parent.  If a parent constantly and consistantly makes a child's decisions for her, she doesn't learn self-control or how to recognize the limits of what is acceptable and what isn't.  Without mom or dad to tell her what to do, she runs wild...this is exactly what has been happening here with every attempt at loosening restrictions.  People go crazy.

Speaking from first-hand experience helping Angelines and cleaning the bar on weekends, I can tell you that the way people are going out, and drinking is frightening.  They all act like college freshmen at a frat party!  Curfew is currently 11pm (it has been earlier) and now bars are allowed to close at 11; however up until just a week ago, the bar had to close at 8pm.  People were going out with the apparent objective of drinking as much as posible before closing!  

I won't argue that aglomerations of maskless people are a danger nowadays.  But the frenetic way in which people are getting together in recent months is in large part due to the restrictions imposed to "keep us safe".  People are repressed and feeling more than ever like they need to let off steam.  When they aren't allowed to that pent up anxiety (or whatever you want to call it) builds and the minute there's a little extra leeway in the law, they throw caution to the wind and go all out.  One cannot help but wonder how all of this will permanently change habbits, and customs.

But as it turns out, every storm cloud does in fact have a silver lining: alcoholic Spaniards deprived of socialization who aren't allowed to leave the province, means great business!  Obviously the bars and restaurants in big cities and tourist destinations have been really hard hit with the pandemic. Thankfully in our case, even with the very limited hours they allow us to open, we're bursting at the seams!  People in La Roda have always tended to go elsewhere to go out--Málaga mostly.  Our town is right on the border, but we belong to Seville province and from Christmas until last week the provinces have been closed.  In our case that means no one from here can go anywhere outside land-locked Seville province.  We are an hour and a half from the capital city, and the draw of Málaga is the beach anyway; so more than 100% of our usual clientel have been "stuck" here for the past few months and it shows in the way sales have skyrocketed.  Angelines was joking the other night that we should set up a clandestine laboratory to create another pandemic virus just to keep business going!

Anyway, I know you're all as sick of the pandemic and COVID news as I am, but as May 9th draws near, there really isn't a whole lot more on my mind.  I promise a more newsy post soon.

Spring!

 Sunday Emily was invited to a birthday party.  As restrictions stand there are only 4 people allowed to gather in closed spaces.  This party was going to be at a local indoor park with a ball pit, etc.  Only children from her class were invited and they are together all day every day in school, but of course they are wearing masks.  When Emily realized it was at an indoor park she said she didn't want to go...and really, it's just as well.  Angelines and I had pretty much already decided that it was better not to risk going as Emily wouldn't have stayed without me and that is just one more person added to the mix.  The police could easily come by and fine all of us.  We've had enough of run-ins with the local law thanks to the bar and the riddiculous restrictions.

In the end, Emily asked if we could picnic in the sierra.  Although a picnic wasn't possible because Mamá had to open at 3:30pm, we did go up to the sierra in the afternoon to "walk" the dog and enjoy the countryside with abuelita.  We were there for about three hours just enjoying the sun and the flowers and all the green that this winter's endless rains have brought us.  It was the perfect way to inaugurate the new season!

I have never seen so many flowers in bloom up there.  It was like a whole different place!

I just had to share a few pictures:

My favorite photo :)

We've decided that a family gathering at San Pancracio is definitely in order during the week of Semana Santa (next week--Easter) since we are on holiday, cannot leave our provinces, and all processions are cancelled!  That's what I call making lemonade from lemons. ;)  We are even concocting a plan to smuggle my sister-in-law over the boarder from Málaga province to be able to join in...  I'll keep you posted, 

Sunday was a spectacular day.  I am so glad we opted for a day out in nature rather than a party indoors, COVID-19 aside, this was hands down the best choice.

Prolific

This is the only adjective to describe Emily's incredible writing. On more than one occasion she has taken all of our scrap paper cut for shopping lists and gone through the whole pile writing notes, warnings, signs, names and then taping them on the walls around the house. A few of my favorites have been a warning message to Norte: "No me comas los juguetes" (don't eat my toys) hung strategically at his eye level in the corner where his water bowl is; and another made for her mamá whose been having lower back pain recently: "Mamá, me siento triste cuando te duela la sintura (sic)". This was accompanied by a picture of a person with little lines shooting from around its waist and exclaiming: "¡Au! Me duele la sintura." (Mama, I feel sad when your back hurts.) 

She writes in my agenda, she writes on her chalk board and on the white board in the kitchen. Thankfully, she is beyond the age of writing on the walls! She writes labels on her pictures, and even notes of apology. When we had a small gathering of friends at the house, she wrote up the house rules and hung them by the door just to be sure everyone saw them. She went through a phase of showering me with written affection upon my return from work. My favorite was a paper on which she had taped a leaf. When she gave it to me, she asked me to lift up the leaf. Underneath she had written the following message: "Wen the last leef fols yoo wil bee may momy forevr." Translation for those of you, less skilled in phonetic reading: When the last leaf falls, you will be my mommy forever. So you can see, she's definitely got a poetic streak coming through. And most recently she wrote a wonderful story stapled as a book. 

It is thrilling to watch her obvious pleasure as she dives head first into this new form of self-expression. María Montessori described this phase as the writing "explosion" and I must say, that this is certainly the case for Emily. I was a little concerned this past summer, when she was barely able to crudely write some simple phonetic words in Spanish. She didn't show much interest in writing at all and her handwriting left much to be desired. She had been exposed to all of the letters and letter sounds through her school in Granada, but was never interested in much more than writing her own name. During the quarantine, probably mid-April, she wrote her first word with no assistance: "California". It was a picture she'd drawn of of the bar and she put the name on the outside. Angelines and I were shocked by how without prompting or apparant "teaching" she had written this all on her own and with actually quite good handwriting--a mix of cursive and printing. 

Montessori claims that young children (0-6) absorb their environment rather than actually being receptive to "active" teaching. This is why proper modeling is so important for babies, toddlers and preschoolers. Adults most often learn by listening and reading; observation and action usually take a second plane. This is partially because adults have moved on to learning more abstract concepts. Our brains are different. Montessori argued that reading and writing were just as natural for a child to learn as walking or talking, so long as they were provided with an environment rich in stimuli and opportunities to observe and practice. A baby in normal circumstances will walk and talk without any instruction other than the daily interaction with the adults around her. To Angelines and me it seemed like magic when she wrote that first word, but the reality is there were years of observation and practice beforehand. 

It is extremely gratifying to see how her writing is blosoming now and know that she is experiencing this new endeavor as real self expression rather than an imposed external necessity. It is true that in her new school she is required to do a lot of copying and in the beginning it was very hard for her to accept that obligation versus the invitation to work that she had become accostomed to. I was worried that the change of pedagogy/methodology would throw her off track or suddenly make her an unwilling student. I know that a large part of her resillience and persistent curiosity is obviously fostered at home; but it was also the time she spent from 3-5 in an environment that respected her and her personal developmental rhythms, with teachers who genuinely loved her and showed her as much every day that has made this breakthrough into literacy and life-long learning possible. Our time in Granada was stressful on many levels, but when I see the little person she is becoming and the way in which she takes on new challenges, I feel vindicated for the sacrifices we made. It is true that she can still be very reluctant to do homework, but I don't push. She does it in her own time. How can I justify forcing her to sit down with a school book when it is so incredibly evident that she is learning and beyond that, thriving?

The title of her book: Story of the Really Pretty Castle.

In a really pretty place there lived a really pretty castle and in that castle there lived a really pretty princess.

which (the princess) had a unicorn that was surrounded of magic and hearts and when she rode it her dress of silky pink it swirled around her.

She's written part of the lyrics of the anthem of Andalucía.  Feb 28th was Andalucía Day.  In big writing: Somos Andaluces "We are Andalusians".  The three figures are us, obviously. ;)

This is the story of Swan Lake: Sigfried falls in love with a pricess but one bad man named Rothbart threw Sigfried in the lake.  He called the swans.  The swans saved him. :)

"Zoom, the horse went.  Cowgirl rat Emily zoomed instructions.  She is a cowgirl.  The police choosed her to study cowgirl."  The policeman in the right hand corner is saying, "You should study cowgirl!"

This is the cowgirl rat in action! ;)

A little note she left me one day before school.

A birthday message for her cousin. "Cumpleaños feliz, cumpleaños feliz.  Te deseamos un cumpleaños con paz y corazón.  Te queremos toda la familia.  De Emily"
Happy birthday, happy birthday.  We wish you a birthday with peace and heart.  We love you, the whole family.  From Emily.

Ya vienen los Reyes Magos!

It is the eve of Epiphany or as called in Spain Día de Reyes (King's Day).  For those of you who with little Bible study under your belts, Epiphany is the celebration of the arrival of the Three Wise Men who gave their gives to the new-born baby Jesus.  The famous tweleve days of Christmas are the tweleve days between Christmas Day and Epiphany.  Living in a Catholic country you pick up these kinds of biblical tidbits without need of catechism. ;) 

As you may have guessed, if you didn't already know, King's Day is the day that Spanish children traditionally get their presents.  The Three Kings come on camel-back from the Orient bearing gifts for all the children.  Normally, there is a huge parade through town, candy and cheap gifts are thrown from the Kings' floats as well as those of other participating associations.  Traditionally, most of the town follows the parade in one gigantic crown all through the town...of course, COVID-19 changed that.  This year, each King came in his own mule-drawn carriage.  There was no candy and there were no crowds, but I must say it was a classy tour around town; not the garish show that it usually is, but much more regal, if you ask me.

This year, for the first time ever, I decided to try my hand at making the traditional King's Day dessert: roscón de Reyes.  I was only sorry that we started on this endeavor so late that Emily didn't get to help deccorate them for the oven.  We have made one big one and one little one for abuelita.  It is tradition to hide a tiney baby doll and a bean in the dough.  Whoever gets the slice with the baby will have good luck for the New Year and whoever gets the bean has to pay for the roscón.  I wasn't about to bake any plastic goodies in my cake (even if they were "oven safe") so I opted for a garbanzo bean and a white bean... I think I'll make the garbanzo the "baby". 

Emily has been beside herself with excitement all day.  She is a lucky duck indeed, getting gifts from Santa as well as the Wise Men!  Although, more and more Spaniards celebrate Santa these days because it allows the kids more time to play with their toys before going back to school.  It's back to school on January 7th.  Anyway, Emily has carefully picked some grass for the camels ("Do they come in the house, mommy?  Or do the Kings tie them up outside?), roscos de vino for Their Majesties, and her letter specifying that she would like a giant stuffed teddy bear and an electric scooter.  The scooter (not electric) ended up being a gift from Santa, if you'll remember.  These four obviously have to divvy up the gift-giving during the holidays.  Here at the house she has two gifts under the tree--a few more puppets, and a pair of inline rollerskates--and at her tita's there is a giant stuffed teddy that she is going to LOVE. :)

Yesterday, as a sort of early Reyes, we ventured out of La Roda for a bit of Christmas shopping with Emily.  Abuelita always gives her money for her birthday and for Christmas.  Emily HATES it.  I think that our trip to Málaga yesterday, however, may have changed her mind. ;)  We decided she could spend her money on what she wanted.  This trip was exclusively for Emily.  We went to the beach just quickly to take a little stroll along the shore.  Emily dipped her feet in and ran through the surf.  Then we caught the metro into the center, had a lovely lunch and did some quick shopping at the mall.  Emily bought herself a beautiful princess dress costume, a pretty purple pegasus horse, a little stuffed doggie and a big jiggly "koosh" ball ("It's a coronavirus, mom!").  She was on cloud nine.  We have never taken her shopping like that and she loved every minute of it!  Although, I'm pretty sure we're never going to be able to just walk by a toy store with her again.

The holidays are coming to an end and today I was a little blue.  I think this year's Chirstmas holiday has been one of the best ever.  We have opened the bar more than usual, which means more work for me cleaning, disinfecting and mopping, but Angelines is home every night by 11pm and we can just sit and enjoy our dinner and an episode of our TV series.  It's been a relaxing holiday; a real break.  I will be sorry for it to end.