Just a Normal Week

A few days ago I opened my closet to discover that ants had not only devoured most of the 100 little tea candles that we brought down with us, but they had also built tunnel systems in them, like they were living there or something? Lately I've been baiting the ants with some stuff that my uncle  sent me, and that's worked a bit, but now instead of going after our food they're going after our tea candles and mouthwash. Whatever, man. Have at it.

Yesterday I spent two hours playing Diddy Kong Racing on my computer. Three cheers for neighbors who fork over all their Macbook-compatible N64 games. Next month I guarantee you won't be hearing from me because I will be spending all my free time with Link and Zelda.

I'm pretty good at making us healthy main dishes for dinner, but I am the WORST at bringing in side dishes. By the time I finish making the main dish I'm usually covered in sweat (as is the Grenadian way) and like, "Welllll, good enough." When possible I like to make main dishes that incorporate vegetables so that we can actually get some nutritious goodness into our systems, but sometimes we have just chicken breast for dinner. Or just spaghetti (spaghetti sauce is a vegetable, yes?), or just frozen burritos (although I am very happy to report that we have only had those once for dinner this term, as opposed to once a week for dinner last term), and then we have some nutritious gummy vitamins for dessert and call it a day. Two nights ago I had this brilliant idea. I was like, "Hey, maybe I'll make the fruit and veggie sides first, and then we'll have an actual complete meal!" Guess what we had for dinner that night? Roasted cauliflower, and that's it. FAIL. (Actually it was really good though--my eyes are hearts for this cauliflower recipe.) Please tell me this one-course-meal thing is something that will change once we have growing children. 

Two nights ago I was just lying in bed (playing Diddy Kong Racing) when all of a sudden my bed started to shake and all of our bottles of sunscreen and bug repellent starting clanging together on the shelf. You guys. It was an earthquake! It was small enough that Jared, who was engrossed in his studying one room over, didn't even notice, but it lasted a full-on six or seven seconds, and I could hear it moving away after the room stopped shaking. All over Facebook the med school wives all told the same story: "I could feel it and hear it, but my husband who was studying in bed right next to me didn't notice a thing!" (#medschoolwives)

And here are two pictures from when I picked up my boys this morning for their last day of seminary! Truthfully, I stopped teaching over a month ago (because I was in such an intense state of anxiety and depression over it all that I legit had to be medicated--but that's a different story for a different day), but they're still my buds and I love that I've still been able to drive them to seminary on Fridays. The first picture is across the street from two of the boys' house, and the second picture is all of us in front of the LDS church building at 6 a.m. (Hence my face.)

^^Left to right: Miguel, Shimon, Terrel, Tyrone, Natalie Portman (This is my favorite picture from Grenada ever. Those boys, little monsters that they can be, have changed my life and stolen all my change. Gotta love teenagers! p.s. Aren't their school uniforms so cute? It's the best to drive down the streets when all the little boys and girls are waiting for the bus in their cute little dresses and ties.)

This morning I finished up some work and took my Kindle out to the veranda to do some reading. Upon opening the back door, I was met with a face full of lung cancer (aka thick thick smoke) and realized that our backyard was on fire. Normally that would be concerning, but this is Grenada (#TIG), so I just went back inside and decided to blog about it instead. I'm pretty sure it was a controlled fire started by our gardener to get rid of all the dead branches on the edge of our yard. Pretty sure . . .