A stolen moment

It’s a little after midnight and the dogs wanted to go out.  Rather than just send them, I followed and snagged one of our lawn chairs.   So I’m sitting in amazing warmth with the subtle glow of our decorative solar lights keeping it just light enough to navigate the patio with a soft blue tinge.  

Sasha and Tucker are thrilled to be out here and it’s warm enough we seem to be bug free.  Sasha stays near me although doesn’t understand why I won’t throw anything for her (too late to risk excited play barking) while I’m occasionally granted glimpses of Tucker’s shadow when he strays by a light in his yard patrol.  

There is really very few simple pleasures better in my world than a hot summer night with no mandatory wake up time the following morning.  It’s the kind of night where fairies run wild and magic happens.  Instant happy place.

Sweet dreams.

Happy birthday to me :)

So it was an amazingly perfect summer day.  So I was pretty pleased to not spend it at work :).   As per my norm, I continued the trend of taking my birthday off work.   Enjoyed a lazy morning that then became remarkably productive.   Lol did a ton of Spanish, some laundry (not so fun, but necessary), painted my bathroom, finally dragged a dead light out to the curb, and even did some running around.  Crazy for my day of nothingness, but resulted in me feeling completely justified in doing nothing more strenuous than throwing the ball for Sasha while I sat outside with my book all afternoon.  It was fairly perfect.

Birthday flowers to make me smile :)

So the last trip around the sun has been pretty good -- Africa of course was amazing.  It'd be pretty hard to beat that.  And we're pretty happy in our little house -- it's almost a year since we moved in.  Sasha's sleeping beside me on the couch right now.  Things are good.  Work is the only meh -- super frustrating, lacking in challenge, and disappointing.  Childhood me would not be impressed.   I'm working on fixing that, but it's definitely taking longer than I like.  Hence the intense Spanish efforts -- I need something to keep my brain going!   As for what's coming up, super excited Mum and I are going on a road trip this summer.   Pretty stoked.  Where?  No idea as of yet :).  Suggestions?  Drivable from Toronto -- not planning to fly first.   Stay tuned!

The next adventure...

Setting the bar low...

So I'm at that point in my Spanish studies that is mostly frustration.  I understand the vast majority of the concepts, but basically just need a ton of practice and vocabulary.  I cannot consistently apply several concepts correctly (most notably the two forms of past, extraneous usage of direct and indirect objects, and anything beyond the real basics of subjunctive).  I can speak and understand if done painfully slowly, but not at speed -- resulting in failing my last listening test horribly.  Blah.

So looking for things to keep life interesting and still grow my abilities and got the brilliant idea to go to a teacher supply store, where I found:

Sadly, this is actually about the level I'm capable of...

lol yup, I'm working my way through grade 4-6 science ;).  The premise of this one is for teachers with bilingual classes.  So it basically has a unit in English and then the same unit in Spanish.  Each unit has about two pages of reading and then a few pages of exercises.  And so far, this is working out for me.  It's moderately interesting since it was a *long* time ago that I did core science and I'm enjoying the refresher.  The grammar usage is well within my capabilities.  The vocabulary is a stretch.  lol I'm still working on basic conversational vocabulary, the periodic table of the phases of cell division really haven't been priority.  But it's interesting for just that reason.  And the length of the reading is about right for my capabilities ;-P.  Sad though that may be.   And if I really get stuck -- the same exercise is available in English just a few pages away.  Lol haven't resorted to that yet, but may be useful.

Also still working my way through Harry Potter.  It is definitely the stretch goal of the year, but slowly making my way through and some of the vocabulary is slowly sinking in.  So I have to feel that's a win.

To improve the listening I've found "Gritty Spanish" which is moderately entertaining.  Basically Spanish overheard on the NY subway system.  I'm also working my way through the duolingo podcasts which are exceptionally well done, but they speak very slowly.   Awesome, cause I feel brilliant and can understand pretty well all of it, but less helpful when it comes to understanding at real speed.  And then of course there's Netflix, which is all the amazing.   Spanish shows with spanish subtitles.   At the moment I still understand more by reading than listening, but even the reading practice is a win in this case because of the speed required.

And of course old-fashioned grammar exercises.   I make sure to work those in too, but trying to mix it up.  Haven't done duolingo in a while -- I tend to go back there when I need to feel like I've actually learned something ;).

And all the flashcards.   It's probably the most used app on my phone at the moment.  lol

Ah well - the battle continues.  At least my brain is busy :)