Before we leave the holiday of gratitude behind and look forward to the season of joy and 24/7 gas from various candies and chocolates, I would like to give thanks for the fact that I almost had to publish this post with the title, "A Moment of Mourning, Please," but now I get to publish it with the title "#soblessed."
Two months ago, when I realized that I would be needing more swimming suits in my life, I did a rather lengthy search of the internet for the most fabulous one-piece swimwear I could find at affordable prices. I fell head-over-heals mad in love with this magical swimsuit by MinkPink:
Gah, isn't it wonderful?? It cost a wee bit more than what I normally like to spend on swimwear, but I batted my eyelashes at my mom and said, "Give me this for Christmas?" And she said, "Welllll, ok."
So I ordered the thing, and a week later it arrived at my parents' house in Utah. I was Skyping with my mom one day and she said, "It came!" And, always one to spoil my own Christmas presents, I demanded, "Let me see!" So she opened it, and it was,
it was,
it was . . .
the wrong swimsuit!
It was this hot pink meshy thing that just would not do. My mom sent the suit back, but unfortunately, when I had originally ordered it, it was the last of its kind available. So I cried for three days that it was gone forever and I couldn't replace it (you guys, I feel like I need to tell you that when I say on my blog that "I cried," it's only for dramatic effect--I don't actually cry five times a day), and then I got over it and moved on and found a swimsuit I liked just as well. I ordered that one in its place (it was the light greenish-blue suit you've seen in recent posts, with boylegs and a gorgeous flower print). I shipped it to my mom-in-law in Washington and she brought it to me on our Disney trip, because it was an expensive enough purchase that if it didn't fit, I'd want to send it back before the return policy expired.
Well, a few weeks ago I searched out the tiger swimsuit one more time, for fun. And lo and behold, I found it! There were two left in existence, one my size and one not, but they were in Great Britain. I lusted after it for a while, but I had already gotten my other new swimming suit, and wasn't willing to pay the price for the suit again plus shipping. I clicked out of my browser before I could do something I'd regret, and got to work editing papers.
Fast-forward to yesterday. Good old Black Friday. When I found a free minute between researching laptops and editing dissertations, I somehow wound up back on the tiger suit website. And whaddaya know, apparently in the past month no one had bought the suit (why? why does not everyone in the world want this suit in their life??) and it was at half price! One left--in my size! So I slyly mentioned it to Jared while we were eating lunch together, and fortunately he appreciated the fact that this thing that me and the tiger suit have . . . it's obviously something special. And then when the laptop I bought wound up being $300 less than I was planning for, that was it. And the rest . . . well, I guess we'll find out what happens next together.
Two months ago, when I realized that I would be needing more swimming suits in my life, I did a rather lengthy search of the internet for the most fabulous one-piece swimwear I could find at affordable prices. I fell head-over-heals mad in love with this magical swimsuit by MinkPink:
So I ordered the thing, and a week later it arrived at my parents' house in Utah. I was Skyping with my mom one day and she said, "It came!" And, always one to spoil my own Christmas presents, I demanded, "Let me see!" So she opened it, and it was,
it was,
it was . . .
the wrong swimsuit!
It was this hot pink meshy thing that just would not do. My mom sent the suit back, but unfortunately, when I had originally ordered it, it was the last of its kind available. So I cried for three days that it was gone forever and I couldn't replace it (you guys, I feel like I need to tell you that when I say on my blog that "I cried," it's only for dramatic effect--I don't actually cry five times a day), and then I got over it and moved on and found a swimsuit I liked just as well. I ordered that one in its place (it was the light greenish-blue suit you've seen in recent posts, with boylegs and a gorgeous flower print). I shipped it to my mom-in-law in Washington and she brought it to me on our Disney trip, because it was an expensive enough purchase that if it didn't fit, I'd want to send it back before the return policy expired.
Well, a few weeks ago I searched out the tiger swimsuit one more time, for fun. And lo and behold, I found it! There were two left in existence, one my size and one not, but they were in Great Britain. I lusted after it for a while, but I had already gotten my other new swimming suit, and wasn't willing to pay the price for the suit again plus shipping. I clicked out of my browser before I could do something I'd regret, and got to work editing papers.
Fast-forward to yesterday. Good old Black Friday. When I found a free minute between researching laptops and editing dissertations, I somehow wound up back on the tiger suit website. And whaddaya know, apparently in the past month no one had bought the suit (why? why does not everyone in the world want this suit in their life??) and it was at half price! One left--in my size! So I slyly mentioned it to Jared while we were eating lunch together, and fortunately he appreciated the fact that this thing that me and the tiger suit have . . . it's obviously something special. And then when the laptop I bought wound up being $300 less than I was planning for, that was it. And the rest . . . well, I guess we'll find out what happens next together.
Jared's birthday was Wednesday, the day before Thanksgiving.
I sort of struggled to figure out how I could make the day special for him.
He was in classes for most of the day, and the only place on the bus route I could go to get him presents was a little hardware store with random home goods. Nothing screams "Happy Birthday!" like a tiny rug and a string of ten colored Christmas lights, right?
Good thing both of our parents were able to send gifts down here for him. Jared was genuinely so happy at the end of the day, especially after we got to see Intersteller at the local theater and he opened his presents.
Next year I'll have to remember to go birthday shopping for my guy five months in advance, when we're in America for the summer break.
Thanksgiving, the next day, was another non-traditional event.
Since we're not in America, Jared still had classes, and I had to pick up the slack at work for my co-workers who were busy preparing feasts and celebrating. I was grateful to keep busy though!
There was a moment when I got back from the pool mid-afternoon, after my mom posted a picture on Facebook of two beautiful Thanksgiving pies she had made, when I had a minor meltdown (nothing dramatic, but clearly this is my first time living far from family). But I immediately Skyped home and then began prepping for our own dinner, and the joy was restored.
Our Thanksgiving feast was a spread of green beans, mashed potatoes, baked chicken (the price of a turkey, shipped from the states, is an abomination), and cranberry juice. I "slaved" for about an hour and a half in the sweltering heat of our kitchen, listening to the "John Denver & The Muppets" Christmas album on my phone. Jared cleared his study table off and pulled it away from the wall for the special occasion, and we had what was probably the most memorable Thanksgiving dinner of our lives, there in our little bedroom in Grenada.
^^Perhaps not the most beautiful picture, but I feel like it captures the evening just perfectly.
^^Jared in feast mode. We were able to Skype with Jared's extend family and my extended family after dinner (we are grateful for modern technology!) and Jared's shirt perfectly matched my Dad's shirt and my Uncle Bryce's shirt. Aw, family! That was one of the major items on the cue when we went "around the table" a few times and said what we were grateful for. Don't worry, we got that all on film. Haha.
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I also wanted to thank all of you who commented on my last post, when I asked for your advice about Macs. Everything you said was so helpful to me! I did a little bit of extra research, and in the end I ended up buying a refurbished MacBook from BestBuy.com. Because I bought it refurbished, I was able to get a sweet deal on a 17" MacBook Pro. Like, it was much cheaper than the 13-incher I was looking at getting during a Black Friday sale, even if it is an older model.
Once I get it and am able to play on it a bit, I'll let you know how my experience buying refurbished is. If it's bad, then I can return the machine and get a new one, no problem. But if it's a good experience, then man, that's a game changer, because that deal was off the chainnnn.
Hey friends! I know a lot of you have experience with MacBooks, so I have a few questions for you.
My laptop died right before we moved down here, and I am in dire need of a new one. Jared and I haven't had great luck with our last few laptops, so we've decided that I should make the Macbook jump to see how we like it. Plus, we know some people who have recently made the switch and are "never going back." Sounds promising to me, but if you're a Mac-hater and want to try to talk me out of it, go ahead an do your worst. I just want to be an informed human!
My main questions are:
(A) Why do you prefer (or not prefer) your Mac to a PC?
(B) Which type of MacBook would you recommend getting? My uses for it are, I'm sure, similar to many of your uses for your computers. That's why I thought this blog would be a good place to ask for advice. Of course I'll be using it to edit and write and use the internet, but I also really want to get into photo and movie editing, because heaven knows I need more hobbies down here. I know a lot depends on how much I'm willing to spend. I found a great upcoming Black Friday deal for a 13.3" MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It's a little bit more than I wanted to pay, but if it's above-and-beyond the best option, then I would be willing to spend the extra hundred beyond my budget. Oh, plus it has 8GB memory and 256GB flash storage, where most of the less-expensive Macbook options offer half that. My other options are the MacBook Pro without the retina display and, of course, a MacBook Air. How much difference does the retina display even make? There isn't an Apple store here (surprise?) so I can't go check it out myself.
(C) How long has your MacBook lasted you?
Thank you in advance! I'm getting pretty excited about the online Christmas shopping that's going to be happening over here in the next few days.
p.s. This picture is a few days old, but my paper chain currently says there are only 21 days until we go home for Christmas! Ahhh!!!!! I hope there's snow! My first words when I wake up each morning lately are always, "Jared! ____ days!!" And then I leap out of bed and tear off a chain. Either that or I sit in bed for an hour and stare at Jared while he's studying and make the occasional comment about how much fun I'm having. (My very favorite activity is lying in bed for way too long in the morning while the sunlight floods in. In that regard, island life is the best.)
My laptop died right before we moved down here, and I am in dire need of a new one. Jared and I haven't had great luck with our last few laptops, so we've decided that I should make the Macbook jump to see how we like it. Plus, we know some people who have recently made the switch and are "never going back." Sounds promising to me, but if you're a Mac-hater and want to try to talk me out of it, go ahead an do your worst. I just want to be an informed human!
My main questions are:
(A) Why do you prefer (or not prefer) your Mac to a PC?
(B) Which type of MacBook would you recommend getting? My uses for it are, I'm sure, similar to many of your uses for your computers. That's why I thought this blog would be a good place to ask for advice. Of course I'll be using it to edit and write and use the internet, but I also really want to get into photo and movie editing, because heaven knows I need more hobbies down here. I know a lot depends on how much I'm willing to spend. I found a great upcoming Black Friday deal for a 13.3" MacBook Pro with Retina Display. It's a little bit more than I wanted to pay, but if it's above-and-beyond the best option, then I would be willing to spend the extra hundred beyond my budget. Oh, plus it has 8GB memory and 256GB flash storage, where most of the less-expensive Macbook options offer half that. My other options are the MacBook Pro without the retina display and, of course, a MacBook Air. How much difference does the retina display even make? There isn't an Apple store here (surprise?) so I can't go check it out myself.
(C) How long has your MacBook lasted you?
Thank you in advance! I'm getting pretty excited about the online Christmas shopping that's going to be happening over here in the next few days.
Edit: I just realized that this is the sort of blog post that I probably wouldn't ever be interested in reading if it didn't apply directly to me. So . . . consider this a journal entry/dumping ground for photos of our apartment. You know, for posterity. Read at your own discretion, because it probably won't leave you feeling entertained or inspired about life. Sorry :)
I began drafting this post during the first few weeks after we moved here to Grenada. You see, Jared and I have a love-hate relationship with this apartment/house of ours. Actually, it's more of a neutral-hate relationship. I don't think we've ever really loved it. After our first month here, we began to think of our house in more of a neutral way than a hateful way, so I never hit publish on this post. But now we're back in hate mode (difficult landlady, gas leaks, AC leaks, funny smells, creepy sounds, decaying animals in pipes, broken lights . . . the works), so I don't even feel bad about bashing on this place for a hot second.
Remember how when we first arrived here our house was filthy and reeked of dog? Also, I'm pretty sure someone made drugs here at some point? (We get some weeeird whiffs sometimes.)
Our landlords blamed the dogs for them not being able to come and check on the place before we arrived. Thus the filthiness and smelliness.
Then a few weeks after settling in, as I was being dropped off from Trash TV night, my ride was like, "Hey, you rent this place? I've totally been here before. They had, like, tons of pitbulls."
"Really? So you know the guy who lived here? Was he nice?"
"Ya, actually there were two guys. They were gay."
"Oh, good. Well, I'm glad we got a new mattress then." (sorry for that. but really. the last mattress was bad news bears, and in a third-world country you never know what could be living in an old mattress.)
I've heard that it's actually illegal to live with a gay partner in Grenada--it's an extremely Christian island. We're pretty sure that's why they hoarded pitbulls. Keepin' out the government, yo.
In addition to our home being the ex-home of two non-law-abiding, dog-hoarding, possibly drug-making Grenadians, it also makes weird noises all the time. Nobody lives in the lower floor currently (we had lower-floor neighbors for about a week before they bailed from their contract and found a roomier place) so we're the only ones living in the house, but it sounds like people are walking around on the roof all the time. The house creeks during the day when I'm home alone, and often times it sounds like there's someone living in our fridge, knocking to get out. The walls are paper thin and the roof is tin, so the tropical thunderstorms are terrifying (and also awesome), and the house could probably fall in on us at any moment. We have a second bedroom that we mostly use to store things in, but the door swings open and slams shut of its own accord if I don't pull it extremely tightly closed. It's creepville.
So why did we rent this apartment in the first place? Well, we honestly had to race to get it because so many other people wanted it. The fact is, it's cute. It's not an ugly apartment at all, and when all you have to go off of are a few pictures while apartment hunting from a thousand miles away, you go with the apartment that looks the cutest and comes at a reasonable price. Here, I'll give you a house tour.
So you see, it's not all that bad. Our biggest complaint isn't the apartment itself--it's our landlords. (A Grenadian woman and her husband . . . but actually they might be British? Ya, we don't actually know what's going on there.) They're nice people, but they're terrible landlords. I'm sure you remember the mishap where we were promised our internet would be set up when we arrived here, but it wasn't, so we had to pay $300 EC to have it installed and then, in typical island fashion, it didn't show up for three weeks. Ew. That was a traumatic time. All alone in a foreign country and no way to communicate with our families or the outside world.
There were also important things that were promised us in our contract and were never given us, even after we went to our real estate agents and they nagged our landlords. And then there's the issue of the ever-present lake on our bedroom floor. About a month ago, the outlet that our air-conditioning unit in our bedroom is plugged into started sparking up in the middle of the night, and some of Jared's hair was singed off. We had our landlady call a repairman. He fixed the sparking problem, but introduced a dripping problem. We let the AC drip on our floor for a full two days before we knew that it wouldn't be stopping anytime soon. Again we had our landlady call a repairman, but (island fashion), they came, "fixed it up," left, and an hour later the drip was back. This happened four times. It has been a full month now of placing bowls under our AC to catch the drip and mopping up the wet floor with towels. The last time we called our landlady about it, the repairman didn't come at all. I don't know whose fault that is, but we've given up. We're just counting down until Christmas break, and in the meantime, the house could crumble down around us and we wouldn't really care because our contract is up in 20 days.
Wow, I guess this was kind of a long and unpleasant post. I'm glad I got it out though, so we can remember this time in the future. It's kind of nice to know that, from here on out, our living situations will only go up and up and up. Our next apartment is really homey and the landlord is possibly the nicest and most honest old man that Jared and I have ever met. After a year and a half there, we'll be moving back to the States, where we'll have a dishwasher (I made Jared pinky-promise) and all of our old stuff that is currently furnishing my parents' guest bedroom, including our velvet-tufted, queen-sized bed that I dream about on a nightly basis. It's also nice to know that if we can be happy here (and we really are!) then we can find happiness together anywhere.
I began drafting this post during the first few weeks after we moved here to Grenada. You see, Jared and I have a love-hate relationship with this apartment/house of ours. Actually, it's more of a neutral-hate relationship. I don't think we've ever really loved it. After our first month here, we began to think of our house in more of a neutral way than a hateful way, so I never hit publish on this post. But now we're back in hate mode (difficult landlady, gas leaks, AC leaks, funny smells, creepy sounds, decaying animals in pipes, broken lights . . . the works), so I don't even feel bad about bashing on this place for a hot second.
Remember how when we first arrived here our house was filthy and reeked of dog? Also, I'm pretty sure someone made drugs here at some point? (We get some weeeird whiffs sometimes.)
Our landlords blamed the dogs for them not being able to come and check on the place before we arrived. Thus the filthiness and smelliness.
Then a few weeks after settling in, as I was being dropped off from Trash TV night, my ride was like, "Hey, you rent this place? I've totally been here before. They had, like, tons of pitbulls."
"Really? So you know the guy who lived here? Was he nice?"
"Ya, actually there were two guys. They were gay."
"Oh, good. Well, I'm glad we got a new mattress then." (sorry for that. but really. the last mattress was bad news bears, and in a third-world country you never know what could be living in an old mattress.)
I've heard that it's actually illegal to live with a gay partner in Grenada--it's an extremely Christian island. We're pretty sure that's why they hoarded pitbulls. Keepin' out the government, yo.
In addition to our home being the ex-home of two non-law-abiding, dog-hoarding, possibly drug-making Grenadians, it also makes weird noises all the time. Nobody lives in the lower floor currently (we had lower-floor neighbors for about a week before they bailed from their contract and found a roomier place) so we're the only ones living in the house, but it sounds like people are walking around on the roof all the time. The house creeks during the day when I'm home alone, and often times it sounds like there's someone living in our fridge, knocking to get out. The walls are paper thin and the roof is tin, so the tropical thunderstorms are terrifying (and also awesome), and the house could probably fall in on us at any moment. We have a second bedroom that we mostly use to store things in, but the door swings open and slams shut of its own accord if I don't pull it extremely tightly closed. It's creepville.
So why did we rent this apartment in the first place? Well, we honestly had to race to get it because so many other people wanted it. The fact is, it's cute. It's not an ugly apartment at all, and when all you have to go off of are a few pictures while apartment hunting from a thousand miles away, you go with the apartment that looks the cutest and comes at a reasonable price. Here, I'll give you a house tour.
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| I've already posted pictures of the outside of the house before, so I thought I'd highlight the beautiful flowers that line our driveway this time. |
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| We live on the upper floor, so we have a cute little balcony we have to climb up to to get inside. It's dangerous after it rains though--those blue beasts are slippery little monsters! Jared almost died once coming down the stairs. |
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| Our front door. Although all students are "required" to live in a place that has bars on the doors and the windows, we actually feel pretty safe where we live. Good thing too, because the lock on those bars is broken, so they don't really do anything but make it look like we live in a ghetto. Don't worry, our regular front door locks just fine. |
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| Our kitchen. This is the room that sold us on the apartment when we were looking at pictures. Turns out, looks aren't everything. This is my least favorite room, because it's not air conditioned (and gets no breeze), it often smells funny, and most of my time in here is spent scrubbing dishes and scraping food into a grocery bag that serves as our "garbage can" hanging from the drawers. Sorry, no garbage disposals on this third-world island, and definitely no dishwashers. We actually moved our kitchen table into our bedroom so we can eat in comfort. |
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| This is our bathroom. It's tiny, but somehow the shower is actually quite large. My only complaints about this room are that there is no counter space, the shower drain is a super sketchy hole in the ground (typical third-world style), and our landlord hasn't fixed our broken lightbulb, so for the past month we've only been able to shower in the mornings. It's really not too big of a deal though. Oh, except that the shadow of the faucet against the wall at night looks like an alien head. Ya, sometimes I don't brush my teeth at night just because I'm afraid of a creepy shadow. |
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| Our bedroom/living area/dining area. We probably could have rented a studio apartment, because that's pretty much what we've turned this room into. This is our work area, our sleep area, our study area, our safe heaven. Also, I'm a fan of the vaulted ceilings. No worries though, our new apartment next term has vaulted ceilings, too. No loss there. |
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| Another view of our bedroom |
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| This is the guest bedroom. Aka, our storage room. It gets super hot in there during the days, so we leave the windows open all the time. I think the breeze is what makes the door open and close of its own accord though, so maybe we shouldn't have been doing that all term long . . . Also, we found some sketchy droppings in there about a month after we moved in. We never did find out what made the droppings and haven't seen any droppings since, but I really think there might be a decaying rodent in one of our kitchen pipes, because it reeks when we open up the under-the-sink cabinets, but there's nothing in there. |
There were also important things that were promised us in our contract and were never given us, even after we went to our real estate agents and they nagged our landlords. And then there's the issue of the ever-present lake on our bedroom floor. About a month ago, the outlet that our air-conditioning unit in our bedroom is plugged into started sparking up in the middle of the night, and some of Jared's hair was singed off. We had our landlady call a repairman. He fixed the sparking problem, but introduced a dripping problem. We let the AC drip on our floor for a full two days before we knew that it wouldn't be stopping anytime soon. Again we had our landlady call a repairman, but (island fashion), they came, "fixed it up," left, and an hour later the drip was back. This happened four times. It has been a full month now of placing bowls under our AC to catch the drip and mopping up the wet floor with towels. The last time we called our landlady about it, the repairman didn't come at all. I don't know whose fault that is, but we've given up. We're just counting down until Christmas break, and in the meantime, the house could crumble down around us and we wouldn't really care because our contract is up in 20 days.
Wow, I guess this was kind of a long and unpleasant post. I'm glad I got it out though, so we can remember this time in the future. It's kind of nice to know that, from here on out, our living situations will only go up and up and up. Our next apartment is really homey and the landlord is possibly the nicest and most honest old man that Jared and I have ever met. After a year and a half there, we'll be moving back to the States, where we'll have a dishwasher (I made Jared pinky-promise) and all of our old stuff that is currently furnishing my parents' guest bedroom, including our velvet-tufted, queen-sized bed that I dream about on a nightly basis. It's also nice to know that if we can be happy here (and we really are!) then we can find happiness together anywhere.
Last night I was reading the bios of the other editors on the website where I recently got a job. Their bios were full of impressive nuggets, like, "Bobby graduated from Harvard and then was the president of his own company," and, "Sally has three masters' degrees and has worked her way up through the ranks of twenty-five prestigious editing companies." Ok, so maybe it wasn't that dramatic, but it was pretty close.
So anyway, I was noting to Jared that I hope the company doesn't contact me for a bio anytime soon, because it would look something like, "Laura just graduated from college with a nearly useless degree and then she sat around for a while without a job. And now she is working for us. Fingers crossed that you don't get Laura as the editor for your project!"
Jared was, of course, quick to remind me of all my achievements and how it's pretty cool that I'm working among so many qualified people. But then he started giggling uncontrollably and began monologuing his own dialogue for what he thought my editor's bio should be:
"Laura enjoys sleeping in, neglecting her dental hygiene, and eating chocolate. When Laura's not busy editing, she enjoys checking her Pinterest feed in bed. Laura cries herself to sleep every night."
To be fair, I have been very emotional in the evenings as of late. Because, you know, special times and such. But really, Jare? Really? He just couldn't get over how funny it would be to read through all those serious bios and then see that one. And I have to admit, that would be pretty funny.
Here's an unrelated picture of how I cope with life on the day after I get assaulted by a tribe of mosquitos. Maybe I'll add it to my Pinterest feed in bed tonight:
To get even with my husband, let's talk about doctors and math for a second (because we don't need to get into doctors and handwriting--you already know that hilarious story).
Jared: I somehow went my entire life (after high school) without ever having to take a math class, and I never will have to take one! How did I get away with that? Oh, the other day we did have to divide something by five in class though. I had to do 150 divided by 5.
Me: Oh? Did you get the answer?
Jared: Yeah. . . . 30.
Me: Good job, Jare.
Jared: . . . at first I thought it was 50 though. [shifts eyes]
AHAHAHA!! Doctors and math! That made me feel better about my sad bio for a minute. Ok, maybe don't pattern your lives after ours.
So anyway, I was noting to Jared that I hope the company doesn't contact me for a bio anytime soon, because it would look something like, "Laura just graduated from college with a nearly useless degree and then she sat around for a while without a job. And now she is working for us. Fingers crossed that you don't get Laura as the editor for your project!"
Jared was, of course, quick to remind me of all my achievements and how it's pretty cool that I'm working among so many qualified people. But then he started giggling uncontrollably and began monologuing his own dialogue for what he thought my editor's bio should be:
"Laura enjoys sleeping in, neglecting her dental hygiene, and eating chocolate. When Laura's not busy editing, she enjoys checking her Pinterest feed in bed. Laura cries herself to sleep every night."
To be fair, I have been very emotional in the evenings as of late. Because, you know, special times and such. But really, Jare? Really? He just couldn't get over how funny it would be to read through all those serious bios and then see that one. And I have to admit, that would be pretty funny.
Here's an unrelated picture of how I cope with life on the day after I get assaulted by a tribe of mosquitos. Maybe I'll add it to my Pinterest feed in bed tonight:
Jared: I somehow went my entire life (after high school) without ever having to take a math class, and I never will have to take one! How did I get away with that? Oh, the other day we did have to divide something by five in class though. I had to do 150 divided by 5.
Me: Oh? Did you get the answer?
Jared: Yeah. . . . 30.
Me: Good job, Jare.
Jared: . . . at first I thought it was 50 though. [shifts eyes]
AHAHAHA!! Doctors and math! That made me feel better about my sad bio for a minute. Ok, maybe don't pattern your lives after ours.
This afternoon I grabbed all the ingredients necessary to make homemade flour tortillas. We have an excess of really good cheeses in our fridge right now, so it seemed fitting to plan to eat some seriously gourmet quesadillas for the next few days. You can buy tortillas at the store here, but they're pricey and they taste kind of gross (I don't know where they're shipped from, but they're less-than-fresh by the time they arrive). A few weeks ago I discovered that making tortillas myself is easy and inexpensive, and they taste really good.
So I grabbed my flour, opened the bag, and . . . ew. Tiny black bug infestation. Like, all I could see was black. No flour was even visible. I gagged because it was disgusting, but I wasn't really surprised, because the temperature and humidity levels here make Grenada any insect's dream vacation location. (And any human's dream vacation location, really. Bugs and humans--really not all that different, apparently.) Anyway, homemade tortillas were immediately ixnayed from the agenda.
I pouted about it for a minute while I clawed at the 200 mosquito bites I acquired at a beautiful cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea during a romantic 30-minute dusk date with the hubs last night. It was one of those "what are we doing here, and whyyy??" moments (the bugs-and-mosquitoes incident; not the romantic date). But then I remembered that our front yard runneth over with delicious tropical fruits, so I set out to see what I could find to lift my mood.
After I brought in my spoils, I decided to make a starfruit lemonade. I have a friend here who told me that she makes starfruit juice and it tastes a lot like lemonade, so I thought I'd combine the two. I squeezed the lemons into a cup and tossed the starfruit slices in, and then blended them up with water and a little sugar. You have to strain the juice so you don't get a mouth full of starfruit seeds and pulp, but it was worth the extra step.
So I grabbed my flour, opened the bag, and . . . ew. Tiny black bug infestation. Like, all I could see was black. No flour was even visible. I gagged because it was disgusting, but I wasn't really surprised, because the temperature and humidity levels here make Grenada any insect's dream vacation location. (And any human's dream vacation location, really. Bugs and humans--really not all that different, apparently.) Anyway, homemade tortillas were immediately ixnayed from the agenda.
I pouted about it for a minute while I clawed at the 200 mosquito bites I acquired at a beautiful cliff overlooking the Caribbean Sea during a romantic 30-minute dusk date with the hubs last night. It was one of those "what are we doing here, and whyyy??" moments (the bugs-and-mosquitoes incident; not the romantic date). But then I remembered that our front yard runneth over with delicious tropical fruits, so I set out to see what I could find to lift my mood.
^^This is a starfruit tree (or if you're Grenadian, it's a carambola tree). My lens was all fogged up for this photo because that's what happens when I take my camera straight from my air-conditioned bedroom to my 80% humidity front yard. It's cool though, right?
^^These are lemons. Yes, they are ripe. Oranges look like this here too, but they're a little bigger.
^^A slice of a starfruit . . . selfie. Time for a funny story. Jared and I both walk past both of these fruit trees (the lemon tree and the starfruit tree) multiple times a day, whenever we are leaving or coming home. I didn't notice the lemon tree until we had already been here for about a month. I think it's because the green lemons just camouflage in with the rest of our lush green yard. The starfruit tree is really close to the house, and for some reason I never looked closely at it to notice there was fruit on that one, either.
Jared walked into the house last week with a starfruit in hand and said, "Look what I found!" Then I yelled, "Hey I love starfruit!! Where did you find it? I didn't see any at the store yesterday." When he told me we have a tree full of 'em in our yard, I think I might have attacked him. Starfruits have a really mellow flavor, and I think most Americans can take 'em or leave 'em, but I'm crazy about them. They're really watery and have a texture somewhere between a cucumber and an apple. They're sort of sweet and sort of tart, and nice and subtle. They look pretty in salads, but I like to slice them up and eat them plain.
Mmm, so refreshing! Like cucumber lemonade, but better. Get over her and I'll make you some!
I realize that since I started working a week or two ago, I am no longer a "full-time beach bum." But I figured that I should write about what my life was like each day during the three months when beachin' was my job, because really, when is that ever going to happen again?
^^Jared's only been to the beach like three times since we've been here, so . . . this photo is a deception. But I think he's cute in those pink sunglasses, so his face gets to be in this post anyway.^^
A Day in the Life of an [ex] Full-Time Beach Bum:
8:30 a.m. Wake up naturally to the sun flooding into my bedroom. Consume a banana-strawberry-mango smoothie for breakfast. If the husband is still around, pack him a lunch and smooch him on his way out the door.
9:00 a.m. Check various social medias. Read all the blogs. Figure out an important new braid.
10:30 a.m. Do some more reading (scriptures, World War II books, etc.) and think about life. Some days my thoughts are along the lines of, "What have we done? Two years of sweating and discomfort and loneliness and a culture that I don't understand. I feel ill." But more and more often, my thoughts are along the lines of, "Wow, what a cool thing we are doing here! What other newlywed couple gets to move to a tiny island to pursue their dreams?" and, "Holy cow, I have no idea where we'll be at any point in the future beyond 20 months from now, but there are some pretty exciting options." and, "Hm, should I do Ramen or a Snickers for lunch today?" Turns out when you're a beach bum and your husband's a med-school student, your food budget is hilarious. (Editing job for the win--now I can eat apples and cheese for lunch. Playin' in the big leagues.)
11:00 a.m. Force myself to do dishes and laundry in-between watching shows on Netflix.
12:30 p.m. Scrounge around for some semblance of a lunch, or meet Jared on campus to split a Subway sandwich on a picnic table by the campus beach.
1:30 p.m. Afternoon activity. Common afternoon activities include pool time, beach time, volunteering at the LIMES after school program (Grenadian kids are the cutest!), and grocery shopping.
6:00 p.m. Either make dinner or meet Jared on campus to grab some nearby Greek food or shawarma. The latter option is preferable because, as it turns out, we love lamb and gazing into each other's faces as we wait in a lovely tropical breeze for our dinner. Also, since we tend to split an entree, we've discovered that eating out is comparable in price to making a healthy meal at home. This is less because restaurant food here is cheap and more because groceries here are expensive.
7:30 p.m. Watch a movie or write a blog post while Jared studies (sometimes he's at the library, but sometimes he's at his desk in the same room as me). Pep talk myself into doing the last of the dishes.
7:45 p.m. Bribe Jared with a back massage in exchange for him finishing the dishes.
10:00 p.m. Watch an episode of Regular Show with my cartoon-loving husband.
10:30 p.m. Bed timez.
On beach-bum days when I was feeling ambitious, I would fill in the gaps with a project or YouTube videos of BYU writing lectures so that I could further my education. On days when I was feeling like a slug, I would fill in the gaps with TV shows on Netflix.
Now, I don't want to give anyone any false impressions. As dreamy as the above schedule looks on paper, those days were sometimes extremely mentally taxing. The problem wasn't so much the schedule as it was the every-dayness of the schedule, and the fact that it was done alone in a foreign country and I didn't feel like I was doing anything important (don't get me wrong--I know that being here for my husband is extremely important). I have a lot I could write about that, but I'll save my fingers and link you to a blog post written by another med-school wife who lived in Grenada during the two years before we came here. I don't know this girl personally, but her words about the pros and cons of living in "paradise" as a med-school wife are spot on. Go ahead, read:
http://allisonawayfromhome.blogspot.com/p/the-pros-and-cons-of-life-we-chose.html
(If it starts out a little dry for you, skip to the section titled "The Unparalleled Experiences." Also, bear in mind that I stress a whole lot less than this girl, so don't worry that I'm a basket case over here. I'm not. Nonetheless, I can see where she's coming from throughout the post, and I know that each "pro" and "con" is legitimate.)
So anyway, yes it is an amazing privilege to be here. Yes, it is wonderful to have lovely beaches on all sides and delicious tropical fruits in our backyard (really, I'll do a post on that tomorrow). But in too large of a dose, even a good thing can be challenging. The first term is the hardest here--at least for the wives--but by the end, no one wants to leave. Here's to 19 more months of finding our groove and beach-bummin' in our beautiful Grenada!
A Day in the Life of an [ex] Full-Time Beach Bum:
8:30 a.m. Wake up naturally to the sun flooding into my bedroom. Consume a banana-strawberry-mango smoothie for breakfast. If the husband is still around, pack him a lunch and smooch him on his way out the door.
9:00 a.m. Check various social medias. Read all the blogs. Figure out an important new braid.
10:30 a.m. Do some more reading (scriptures, World War II books, etc.) and think about life. Some days my thoughts are along the lines of, "What have we done? Two years of sweating and discomfort and loneliness and a culture that I don't understand. I feel ill." But more and more often, my thoughts are along the lines of, "Wow, what a cool thing we are doing here! What other newlywed couple gets to move to a tiny island to pursue their dreams?" and, "Holy cow, I have no idea where we'll be at any point in the future beyond 20 months from now, but there are some pretty exciting options." and, "Hm, should I do Ramen or a Snickers for lunch today?" Turns out when you're a beach bum and your husband's a med-school student, your food budget is hilarious. (Editing job for the win--now I can eat apples and cheese for lunch. Playin' in the big leagues.)
11:00 a.m. Force myself to do dishes and laundry in-between watching shows on Netflix.
12:30 p.m. Scrounge around for some semblance of a lunch, or meet Jared on campus to split a Subway sandwich on a picnic table by the campus beach.
1:30 p.m. Afternoon activity. Common afternoon activities include pool time, beach time, volunteering at the LIMES after school program (Grenadian kids are the cutest!), and grocery shopping.
6:00 p.m. Either make dinner or meet Jared on campus to grab some nearby Greek food or shawarma. The latter option is preferable because, as it turns out, we love lamb and gazing into each other's faces as we wait in a lovely tropical breeze for our dinner. Also, since we tend to split an entree, we've discovered that eating out is comparable in price to making a healthy meal at home. This is less because restaurant food here is cheap and more because groceries here are expensive.
7:30 p.m. Watch a movie or write a blog post while Jared studies (sometimes he's at the library, but sometimes he's at his desk in the same room as me). Pep talk myself into doing the last of the dishes.
7:45 p.m. Bribe Jared with a back massage in exchange for him finishing the dishes.
10:00 p.m. Watch an episode of Regular Show with my cartoon-loving husband.
10:30 p.m. Bed timez.
On beach-bum days when I was feeling ambitious, I would fill in the gaps with a project or YouTube videos of BYU writing lectures so that I could further my education. On days when I was feeling like a slug, I would fill in the gaps with TV shows on Netflix.
Now, I don't want to give anyone any false impressions. As dreamy as the above schedule looks on paper, those days were sometimes extremely mentally taxing. The problem wasn't so much the schedule as it was the every-dayness of the schedule, and the fact that it was done alone in a foreign country and I didn't feel like I was doing anything important (don't get me wrong--I know that being here for my husband is extremely important). I have a lot I could write about that, but I'll save my fingers and link you to a blog post written by another med-school wife who lived in Grenada during the two years before we came here. I don't know this girl personally, but her words about the pros and cons of living in "paradise" as a med-school wife are spot on. Go ahead, read:
http://allisonawayfromhome.blogspot.com/p/the-pros-and-cons-of-life-we-chose.html
(If it starts out a little dry for you, skip to the section titled "The Unparalleled Experiences." Also, bear in mind that I stress a whole lot less than this girl, so don't worry that I'm a basket case over here. I'm not. Nonetheless, I can see where she's coming from throughout the post, and I know that each "pro" and "con" is legitimate.)
So anyway, yes it is an amazing privilege to be here. Yes, it is wonderful to have lovely beaches on all sides and delicious tropical fruits in our backyard (really, I'll do a post on that tomorrow). But in too large of a dose, even a good thing can be challenging. The first term is the hardest here--at least for the wives--but by the end, no one wants to leave. Here's to 19 more months of finding our groove and beach-bummin' in our beautiful Grenada!
>>>My new editing job is keeping me so busy! I think it's because, since I'm new, I take twice as long as necessary on each project, just in case someone higher up decides to take a look at my work. Does anyone else have new-job paranoia, where you spend the first month(s) of work irrationally scared you'll be fired for making a little mistake? I know I'll be fine, and I've loved being able to do what I love from sunup to sundown and make money for it, but I'm also a teensy bit exhausted.
>>>Time is a funny thing. So are seasons. Today I met Jared on campus for lunch. The original plan was peanut butter sandwiches, but this whole "earning money" thing is getting to my head so we bought food from some Indian guy instead. Indians (and nuns?) swarm SGU campus during lunchtime to sell really good food at darn-right decent prices. It's the best. As we chowed down, we had a little conversation about time (and Italy--always Italy). It's weird to me that it's November. Back in Utah, November is a time when I realize that the next 5 months are going to get progressively colder and grayer, and time seems to slow down a little in the meantime. Here, it still feels like summer, and it always will. In my head summer ends in August and so, obviously, it must still be August. Based on that alone, it doesn't feel like we've been here nearly long enough to be going home for Christmas in a month!
>>>After lunch, Jared walked me to the bus stop so he could get back to studying and I could get to the grocery store. Although I spent only 25 minutes in the grocery store, the trek there and back took me nearly two hours. 25 minutes were spent on bus rides, 25 more minutes were spent shopping, and the remaining hour was well spent playing Whale Trail on my phone while waiting for buses to show up. Granted, on days when the bus drivers stick to their schedules I should only have to wait maybe half an hour, but Island Time is definitely a thing. Now that I'm working, time is money. We just put a deposit down on a cute little old car (!!!) to take over at the end of the term, and with all the combined hours I'll be able to spend working instead of waiting for buses, the car will basically pay for itself. Really. I did the math in my head. At a bus stop.
>>>My phone stopped connecting to WiFi about a month ago. It's not a super big deal, but I guess it would be cool to be able to post to Instagram again and stuff. I've already done all the obvious things like checking my settings and turning it off and on. No luck. Any phone geniuses out there? Help? I have an Android . . .
Update: Psych, I fixed it! I had to do a factory reset, but it's all good now.
>>>I threw a Halloween party in our bedroom, because our bedroom is air conditioned and I'm really into that. The camera sat in the corner the whole time, so all I have to show for it is a little snapshot of the setup. All party supplies were provided by my sweet ma-in-law. Thanks Mama Lambert! A bunch of us med/vet school widows laughed all night long, sitting in a circle and eating waaaay too much candy and telling hilarious (and scary) stories. Don't worry, I still got to party with my Jared on Halloween. We ate pizza and watched Halloweentown.
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