Showing posts with label Simpleton Pleasures. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Simpleton Pleasures. Show all posts
Grenada's sunsets are usually soft, pink, and short-lived. Once the sun starts setting, it goes fast. Golden hour lasts all of maybe 25 minutes. Although I do miss longer sunsets and days filled with indirect sunlight, the quickness of it all here makes the brief bit before the sun disappears all the sweeter. Jared and I try to get a little walk in most evenings if his class schedule will allow it, and sometimes he'll even let me snap a few pictures. Jared hates photoshoots, and although he supports my hobbies, one of which is taking pictures, he still hates photoshoots.
On this particular evening, we got a 10-minute sun shower. The rain sprinkled down, but the sun stayed out. This type of weather makes for the most gorgeous sunsets. They're deep and they're orange and I wish they'd stay forever.
p.s. Just updated the "about" page, so if that's your favorite part of reading blogs like it is mine, then go ahead and have at it!
As happy as we'll be to get back to America, we're really going to miss this place! I've been feeling nostalgic all term, but it didn't hit Jared until this last week that he might be a little sad to say goodbye to our island home. It happened when he looked up our flight itinerary for the end of the term. When he told me we'd be going home on May 14, I gasped. That's only a day after his finals! That means no last-minute island explorations or beach days together free of school stress before we go home.
When I explained this to him, he thought about if for a bit and then worry lines started to creep across his forehead. "Oh no! It's going to be kind of sad when we leave, huh?" He said, with something between worry, panic, and regret in his voice. Without me even prompting him, he suggested that I write down all the highlights of Grenada—all the things we can't miss doing together before we leave. Then he told me to pick a Saturday for us to do all those things together, and he'd make sure during the week to get ahead on his studies so we can give Grenada a proper farewell.
Me: Jared there's a weird tan moth in the bathroom. Can you come get it?
Jared: Don't hurt him! He's my friend. He is good.
Me: Ok, well it's creepy and watches me while I go to the bathroom, so...
Jared: Be nice to my friend! I talked to him last night and he told me he likes you. Let him stay!
On millipedes (we get lots of millipedes in our apartment, so this type of conversation happens probably every other day)...
Me: Jared, I was just in your study room. Did you know there's a gross black millipede on the floor by your desk?
Jared: Yes! He came two days ago. He is my friend.
Me: Ok...
Jared: I told him he can stay. His name is Moses.
Me: Moses?
Jared: Yeah. The other ones were Charlotte, Grey, Weeder, and Steadman. The next one can be yours to name.
*****
Me: Jared, there's a dead little friend (millipede) under the sink.
Jared: Don't hurt him!
Me: But he's already dead...
Jared: No, he's just resting. Maybe he's hiding under there so you won't hurt him.
Me: Jared, I'm not going to hurt him! We get millipedes all the time and I've never hurt any of them.
Jared: Yes, but you hurt their feelings. They know what you say about them.
On earthworms (I've never seen an earthworm here, but this happened all the time when we lived in Utah)...
Me, walking along the sidewalk after a rainstorm: Ewwwww!
Jared: *picks up each worm one by one and puts them in the grass so they'll be safe*
On cockroaches:
Jared: Die! Die! Die! Evil! Bad! Die!
Jared and I don't get as much pillow talk in as I'd like. He studies and studies so hard that by the time he's done at night he is flat-out exhausted. When his head hits that pillow, the lights had better be out because he needs darkness to sleep and he's tired enough to be out in 15 seconds flat.
We're in the blessed, reasonable fifth term now though. And classes just started on Monday, so there's a feeling of "we can do this" in the air. An aura of lightness that hasn't been around since, well, before this whole med school biz. It's wonderful. The other night when the lights went out (all except the string of Christmas lights still above our bed, because we're those people), we had a nice chat about silly things--I don't remember what about exactly, but there was lots of giggling. And then as Jared adjusted the temperature down a degree Celsius, he remarked on how our AC remote looks like Bert, as in Bert and Ernie. See!
We laughed about that for forever and then I poured myself half a gulp of NyQuil, because I brought a nasty sleep-ruining cold with me from the States (the stuff also conveniently helped me adjust four hours ahead to the Grenada time zone). It was in this moment that I learned that I can thank NyQuil for our marriage. See, Jared always told me that he knew I was the girl for him because he never felt nervous or anxious around me--everything just came naturally. Come to find out, he actually threw down a swig of NyQuil each morning before our German class in the weeks just before and after we started dating to fend off the nerves (he now knows that that is not a sound medical practice)! That's why you never felt anxious around me, bubs! So I guess I'll be adding NyQuil to my gratitude turkey every Thanksgiving from now on.
We're in the blessed, reasonable fifth term now though. And classes just started on Monday, so there's a feeling of "we can do this" in the air. An aura of lightness that hasn't been around since, well, before this whole med school biz. It's wonderful. The other night when the lights went out (all except the string of Christmas lights still above our bed, because we're those people), we had a nice chat about silly things--I don't remember what about exactly, but there was lots of giggling. And then as Jared adjusted the temperature down a degree Celsius, he remarked on how our AC remote looks like Bert, as in Bert and Ernie. See!
We are looooving our Christmas break over here with Jared's family. Last night we hung ornaments on the tree, this morning Jared and I went for a gorgeous hour-long walk through a quiet preserve filled with hundreds of moss-covered trees, and tonight we'll all be decorating gingerbread houses together. Throw in our adorable 19-month-old niece, and we're in heaven.
These pictures are from the middle of Jared's most stressful finals week yet. We took a break one day to drive to Egmont (a really nice neighborhood in Grenada that's kind of a long drive from our house, but is fun to explore). We walked along the beach and ate peanut butter sandwiches and picked out the cutest conch shells from a giant pile of 'em. Those study breaks are life in med school. You can only do so much of this before your eyeballs fall out of their sockets and your brain 'splodes:
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| L to R: Me, Alex, Kylie, Tori, Laina, Jenny, Sam, Holly |
Jumpsuits. They are SO COMFY. I know they look kind of awkward (see above picture), but they feel like socially acceptable pajamas. I'm definitely the only person here who wears them, which should make me uncomfortable, but I just know the trend will be gone by the time we return to America and I couldn't let it pass me by.
The kindness of Grenadians. It's weird being a minority in a third-world country. Some locals do their best to swindle the Americans, but most of them are just the kindest and friendliest, and if you tell them they're good fishermen they'll toss you a couple of lobsters to pose with.
Not being sick. Earlier this week I was super nauseated and feverish one day (not pregnant, yo) and I was convinced I was coming down with some flu. But by the next day I was 100% back to normal and like, "Hey I can do things today!" Being healthy is the best.
Jared watching himself in the video I posted last time and laughing so hard at how funny he thought he was in the last 3 minutes. It was the best. This is funny to me because (a) Jared usually hates seeing himself on film--he won't even watch our wedding video willingly, (2) he wasn't even really particularly funnier than usual in the video? and (d) he was not even humble at all about what a brilliant comedian he's decided he is. He was all, "Am I always that funny? Man, I didn't even know it!" The answer is, yes, he's always good for a few excellent quotes and giggles every day. And that's when I realized that if Jared was a character in a TV show, then the real Jared would not even be able to get enough of that TV show. It's not that he's a cocky guy, it's just that he has a very specific, quirky sense of humor that only he possesses, and so naturally he would be his own biggest comedy fan. He just gets himself, you know? We could all probably stand to be a little more like that. (Also, I think school must be getting to him because no one should ever be able to laugh so hard and for so long as Jared did watching film clips of himself last night. It was seriously hilarious.) Next time I show Jared clips of himself, I'm going to have to film him watching them so that you can see how funny it is, and so that he can see how funny it is. And he'll probably think it's hilarious, and I'll have to film him watching film clips of himself watching film clips of himself, and then I'll show him those film clips, and it will go on forever and one day I will show our children and they will ask if they're adopted. The end.
This past week I've had a bit of trouble falling asleep. A few nights ago I lay awake way past our bedtime, staring up at the ceiling and trying to empty my mind while Jared breathed deeply next to me. He'd probably been asleep for over an hour, and I was anxious to join him.
Just as I was finally beginning to drift away, Jared pulled me in close to him. I thought he was being cute and going in for a hug (he does that in his sleep sometimes), but then he grabbed my head in both of his hands, shifted it around a bit until it was right where he wanted it to be, and then he put his pillow over my face and promptly and forcefully lay his head down on top of it. After a few confused seconds of not breathing, I moved my head out from under the pillow to get some air. Not missing a beat, a sleeping Jared grabbed my head again, adjusted it to his liking some more, then fluffed his pillow on top of my face and lay back down on it. Uh?? Trying not to laugh, I pushed him away and moved as far away from the mad man as possible so that I could try again for the type of sleep that doesn't come from being smothered to death.
The next morning, Jared had no recollection of trying to smother me in my sleep. As funny as it was, I think I prefer Jared's sleep giggling phase--for its general lack of danger and presence of foreign accents.
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