A Walk in the Rain

I went out looking for beauty this afternoon.
I found some.
I got damp.
I have a new niece!

Football, Fall Picnic & Indoor Fun

Ezra and I haven't been letting the dropping temperatures keep us in! We were lucky enough to catch Uncle Nate's last football game of the season, as is captured in the first photo. It was chilly but Ezra kept snuggly and well briefed in Grandpa's arms. Nate's team the Park Rapids Panthers got creamed by Detroit Lakes Lakers (pretty clear who has the lamer name, however), but they got less creamed than they thought they would, so that's good!

The next pictures in the series capture Ezra hanging out around Grandpa's house. He and Uncle were having a lot of fun on the rug, and I took a video to be seen here to show exactly how much fun. (The music may be nostalgic for you too.)

The next few pictures were just taken this morning when Ezra and I took a trip to Deep Portage Nature Reserve. We took a nice long hike to the bog where we had a picnic of turkey sandwich, chips, carrots, and an orange. To wash it down we brought mango lemonade, although by Ezra's expression you'd think it was Wild Turkey. It was a lovely walk, even though it was cloudy, windy and gray. Ezra had a lot of fun running down the hills, as is showcased in this video. When we were done with our hike we went into the main building and found that there was a quilters' getaway going on! We watched some quilting (there were approximately 40 quilters sewing, cutting and pinning like crazy!) and then were invited to share in the candy buffet they had put together. We were sad we had forgotten desert for our picnic, but the Hershey kisses, double chocolate cookies, and candy corn made up for that. Quilters don't move around much, so I think it was best that our active bodies absorbed some of those sugary calories.

The last two photos showcase Ezra's new blocks! Holy cow, there are so many blocks. I bought them at the local thrift store on Friday, 10 bucks for a vacuum cleaner box full. I think Uncle will really enjoy this collection as well.

Ezra finally decided what he's going to be for Halloween. I will give you a hint, in Spanish he will be a caballo. Photos soon!

Ezra's cousin will be born any moment now too, so congrats to Mama and Papa Finc!

Minnesota Fall

Fall is quite a lovely time of year, isn't it?

Guatemalan B-Sides

Something is still certainly amiss as while I am posting this the photos that are seen above are only weird computer coded words, but let's see if I can remember what they are.

I know there's a picture of Ezra sitting on some lavish sofas: that one was taken at the hotel in Fort Lauderdale on our way to Guatemala. I wanted to stay in that hotel for much longer than the 9 hours that we occupied it. The photo of Ezra in the huge bed with oodles of pillows was also taken at the hotel. I slept on the right side of him in the tiny space between his little body and the edge of the bed. Parenthood=wasted bed space.

Yes, that hotel was pretty swell, complete with continental breakfast and transport to the airport. The transport was a little spotty however, as every half hour was really more like every hour and a half, and then when we finally got to the airport the chauffeur couldn't open the back where our luggage was! He grappled with it for at least half an hour until it finally just popped open quite magically. We didn't miss our flight, good thing we're Minnesotans who show up for everything extra, extra early just in case these exact crazy things happen.

There's another picture of a big, colorful hammock. That was a plus down in Guatemala. I miss it, I really do. There's another picture of some cloth napkins hanging from a clothes line. I think in this picture our home actually looked kind of homey for whatever reason. While we were there I had a very limited wardrobe and as I got sick of my clothes I started cutting them into different styles and then using the scraps for napkins, dish towels, rags, etc. These lovely plaid cloth napkins had previously been the upper section of a dress that turned into a skirt a month into our visit. My biggest regret is turning the majority of my pants into shorts, as now in Northern Minnesota with the looming winter ahead pants are at a premium. It's not too much of a problem at the moment since I don't have a job and could technically spend the day in my pajamas as many other people do here in Northern MN.

It's interesting to me how here in MN people seem to take a lot more pride in the appearance of their homes than in the appearance of themselves. Grimy, in pjs and unshowered for a week they'll head out from their immaculately manicured lawns and wash their cars. In Guate on the other hand if you leave the house you better be bathed, primped, wearing coordinating colors, and smelling good. However, the house is probably half painted and with random crap strewn about. I can't decide who's right, no one right, but it is an interesting contrast.

As for me, I got tired of showering everyday, but around here I wish folks would get a little dressier just for fun. I like how the 60 year old Guatemalan ladies wear their little yellow heels with matching yellow blouses and accessories. It's adorable! Like screw you I look good.

Maybe it's the weather. It's hard to get to the hilt while bundling for warmth.

I hope I sound a bit more positive, in general I feel more positive most times of the day. Today I was a little bit down thinking about what I may have to do if I can't find a job that I consider respectable, such as manage a gas station in the sticks and live in a crappy, airless apartment. Today I thought I would rather roam the land like a yogi than do that, but then there's the question of Ezra. Surely child services wouldn't handle it well. And it surely would be less zen with a little boy demanding food, sleep, and all of the things yogis don't have time for.

I guess I just wish the world were different, my life were different, Ezra's life were different. I'll get over it, see the positive, be thankful for what I've got. Uh oh I sense some negativity coming back. Maybe I should wait until I have a job and/or a house to update here again.

Ezra specific news:
Ezra had a fever today but he seems to be better. All he wanted to do was read books and drink tea, good medicine for anyone.
Yesterday Ezra helped me with my sewing project. As I removed the pins from my project I gave them to him and he placed them in the pin cushion, which is a tomato. As he placed the pins in he said he was "planting a garden." Cutie.
Ezra loves, loves, loves to play in the leaves. I rake 'em, he scatters 'em, and by the end we both have leaves in our hair.

Videos & Pictures Over Yonder

I have decided to give up on putting pictures and videos here for now- I just don't have the patience!! (Thanks for the link though Howard, I will figure it out one of these days.)

In the mean time, click here to see a video from Ezra's Guatemalan Grandma's 44th birthday.

Click over here to watch Ezra drive a helicopter with no hands!

Ezra running around the back patio is over here.

I have also gone ahead and created a Picasa album with photos from Guatemala which you can find over here.

So much clicking to do! I certainly prefer to just put the gosh darned pictures here on the blogeroo. Someday. I figured out that the problem is that my new spiffy camera is just too spiffy for blogspot.

But in other news: we are back in the U.S.! What the? I know, here I am finally showing you life in Guatemala and we are no longer there. What happened? Many things. I will just list them because I don't want to go into it right now:

1.) no plumbing- this wasn't as much of a big deal when I lived there before, maybe due to the washing machine we'd had, maybe due to not having a little boy who didn't like to bath in cold water. To give my sweet boy a bath I had to lug pots and pans from the kitchen to the pila to the kitchen to the bath basin (see photos). Basically no plumbing meant approximately 2-3 hours more work daily.

2.) extreme rainy season- I had mentioned before that Ezra's grandpa's house was flooded this past summer, and the rains never stopped. When your mode of transportation is a motorcycle unending rain storms put a real damper on things (ha ha). We couldn't leave the house, meaning on top of all the extra work there weren't fun outings to distract myself. Also, there was no dryer so the clothes were perpetually damp, leaving them smelling less than desirable. Oh and there were several leaks in the roof, meaning constant puddles of rain/mud (coupled with the duck sh*t=major bummer).

3.)fixer-upper house- no one had lived in the house for years so it was pretty filthy. Every room needed to be painted, the floor was always in need of cleaning, the yard was full of random garbage, it took sometime to acquire a proper kitchen (see photos), and on top of all this to complete the projects I relied upon Cristian purchasing the supplies which meant bugging him daily which annoyed him and annoyed me and leads to number 4.

4.) cultural differences- if I say I'm going to do something, I do it in pretty speedy timing. Cristian? Not so much. There's always some reason (excuse) why he couldn't do something that I asked him to do. It got really really really old. For example when I needed my wisdom tooth removed I had asked him to call the dentist because he's much better at speaking Spanish than I am and the dentist had to tell me where his office was and I don't know Chiquimula like Cristian does. Anyhow way to long passed with me in way too much discomfort so finally I called and made an appointment and took down some directions that I thought might lead us there. We drove around in circles for 20 minutes looking for the dentist because my directions didn't make sense and then finally Cristian called the dentist as I had been asking him to do for weeks. The gutters were leaky and he waited until it was POURING rain to fix them, etc. The leave-it-to-the-absolute-last-minute technique severely stressed me out. I like to do it and move on, not think about it for weeks/months. On top of this he was constantly late, indeed very late and I just couldn't get used to it. I've had perpetually late friends, but not the man who I am living with trying to make it work for the sake of our son. Can't do it.

5.) business plan met several dead ends- I wanted to start a little English school, remember? The vacant room attached to the house would have been perfect, and I even had some potential students! But then the owners of the room decided I couldn't use the room for no good reason, and I was left with the prospect of putting it in our house. However, due to the aforementioned reasons (especially the leaky roof, how much can I charge someone to learn English sitting in a mud puddle?) this wouldn't have been possible until much more work was done on the house, which meant bugging Cristian, which might have made him do things even slower... I will never know.

Other contributions included: no friends in town, hardly any interaction with extended family, extreme littering and pollution (Ezra and I gazed down at the river from the bridge one day and were almost hit by a bag of garbage a woman threw into the river next to us- when Ezra asked me what was that, how do I answer?), poor eating habits (kids eat sweets, chips, and coca cola all the time- Ezra fell right in), very little stimulation (no parks, no museums, no events, just housework and cold showers), no libraries (only Christian book stores) and no internet at our house to allow me some communication with friends and family.

It was actually the internet that spurred the final showdown that lead to our departure. Since arriving in Chiquimula I made it very very clear to Cristian that I wanted to have the internet at our house so that I could keep in touch with people. Two months went by and I still didn't have it. I needed to buy a modem and Cristian had said that a friend of his sold used ones for cheaper. Since money was tight I was waiting around for him to call her. Days, weeks passed and everyday I asked him if he'd talked to her and everyday he hadn't. Many days he complained that there had been no work and he had spent the day sitting, reading the newspaper, even napping. Why can't you call you friend about the modem in all of this time? I asked. My battery was dead/I didn't have any minutes/etc. he would answer. And when I asked him he would get really irritated and often times huff off into the yard and refuse to talk to me. So one day I told him he should move out because it didn't seem like we were happy living together. He didn't have anywhere else to go (so he claimed) so the next day while we were out he removed everything from the kitchen and made it into his private bedroom. If you've already looked at the photos you see how far my kitchen came along, but let me tell you it was an uphill battle to get it to that state. But then all of a sudden I didn't have a kitchen again and I was expected to prepare food on a tiny table with no room to do anything. It was too much. I spend a lot of freaking time in the kitchen and with the new arrangement I knew I couldn't be there another moment. So I threw the damp laundry into my backpack and the toys and books into the suitcase and we left for the airport while Cristian was at work. I do feel very bad about leaving without saying goodbye but I was nervous that he would try to a.) take Ezra or b.) talk me out of it. It had been a rough road and I wanted it over.

So, here we are in Minnesota, back in Hackensack under the protective wing of my mother. I don't feel that much better just yet because I don't know what the heck we're going to do. I feel pretty lost, and it's a very nerve racking thing to not have a plan of action. I am hoping that something will come along soon, it's just hard because here in the tiny town of Hack there's not much for employment opportunities but I don't have any money to go anywhere else.

My plan for now is to try to do a bunch of little things to make some money like sell stuff on ebay and make funky baby pants to sell at a little boutique. Any body have any other ideas for making money?

I've felt pretty down, about leaving Cristian so abruptly and I'm still worried about him but he's not answering his phone. I don't know if what I did was right, but it's the situation so I'm just trying to move on to the next thing, whatever that may be.

My horoscope tells me to... "keep a running list of all the ways life delights you and helps you and energizes you. Describe everyday miracles you take for granted . . . the uncanny powers you possess . . . the small joys that occur so routinely you forget how much they mean to you."

Maybe I can have that ready for the next post.

Happy Fall folks.