I am seated on the floor of our roof top patio, listening to happy birds chirp. The breeze is refreshingly cool after months of exhausting heat. It may not feel as fall as I would like it, but the respite from unbearable heat is welcome. And the cool dips at night make my morning coffee with a sprinkle of ground pumpkin spice all that much more enjoyable. A coconut-lime keto cheesecake is cooling on the counter. Homemade keto chocolate ice cream is also freezing in the freezer. A roast is in the crock pot and I am excited to see how the sweet potatoes I finally found here turn out this evening when I bake them. We didn’t have lunch until nearly 3, which is so Spanish of us. You see, we really are adjusting. Dinner will be on the table by 8. School has been accomplished, Kyle in 3rd and Ellee in 1st, and Rosie has napped on and off all day. Teething has disrupted our days and nights for over a week now. Jonathan has been in and out - out at the store helping with refugee grocery shopping, in working on class preparations for English class tomorrow, back out here shortly to help with an immigrant food distribution and then on to his African migrant soccer team’s practice this evening. If it sounds like he should be tired, that’s because he is.
Moving to Spain has been quite a smooth transition, as far as transitions go. Buying a car, securing a rental home, filling it with furniture and getting it set up during our first week here wasn’t exactly the least stressful thing I’ve ever done. We checked out of a guesthouse on Saturday morning, July 13th, and went and dropped a few thousand dollars at IKEA that afternoon buying beds, couches, a table, a pot and pan, silverware, pillows and sheets and everything else you might imagine needs putting into a house if a family plans to live there starting that evening. Now the house, which at first didn’t attract my love and affection but was all that was available, feels like home. I enjoy the quiet setting, the very low traffic along our street, and access to the pool and neighborhood garden for outdoor time. Since Jonathan is away a lot with the car, I am pretty well situated here at the house with the kids all-the-time, so it at least feels like we’ve gotten out when we go up to the swings for a picnic. We’ve managed to work out a few kinks with the place, except the A/C that couldn’t handle the heat. Fortunately, it seem the worst is behind us now, so I’ll wait for Spring to bug the maintenance guy again about that. My favorite thing about the place is probably the stunning view. And the dishwasher.
Spanish has come flooding back, although thankfully we never lost it completely. We’ve been using it for years as a secret language when we want to hide something from the kids or to speak privately in Lesotho or South Africa. Unfortunately, now we are encouraging our children to learn our secret language. Kyle works daily on DuoLingo and Ellee listens intently. Sadie is picking up bits and pieces along the way. I have made it my personal goal to be absolutely fluent someday, but that day is far in the future, I am sure. Nevertheless, being able to get around and make my point or ask my question in the language is not a luxury I enjoyed in Lesotho. And English is not widely spoken here, so it is pretty well a necessity.
The baby is now awake after another barely-nap, so I am off to see how my ice cream is coming along (read: have a bowl regardless of if it is frozen yet or not). Then maybe I’ll try to pointlessly sweep the house or fail miserably at attempting to read my awesome book about a missionary family in Peru during the 1960’s. Although more than likely, that will have to wait until the kids are all tucked into bed and I am left with silence until Rose wakes back up. This is a life I love and appreciate, even in the frustrating and mundane. I wouldn’t trade it for all the cleanliness, structure, or silence in the world…. But at times that does sound appealing.
~Abby
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