Tuesday, August 25, 2015

Week 34: Project 365, the 2015 Edition

Friday, August 21

Our strawberry plant has a blossom!

Saturday, August 22

Ivan was pretty upset with himself when he accidentally broke our oil bottle.
This was a gift from a dear friend a number of years ago and has traveled with us as we've moved the last five times. It was a well-used item in our kitchen and we do miss it (the spout allowed just the right amount of oil to pour out, not too much, not too little) but I have hopes we'll be able to find another servicable oil bottle in the future. It won't be as interesting (this was shaped like a fish), but in the end, stuff is just stuff. Just because we no longer have this particular bottle doesn't mean we'll forget our friend. In fact, I have a feeling that when we do find a new oil bottle, it will always remind us of the old one, which will, in turn, remind us of our friend :)

Sunday, August 23

Our neighbor, Felipe, celebrated his 55th birthday in style with a big party! I put together a collage of photos Ivan took with his iPhone.
Sadly I could not figure out how to get one of the videos transferred over to my computer. Felipe is an accomplished guitarist and he and several other men had a fine old time playing and singing Argentine folklore music. I loved that his cake was in the shape of a guitar! Oh, and in the photo where he's working on the meat, he's wearing the apron I made for his birthday last year. I love it when people use what I make them!

Monday, August 24

Facebook reminded me of a photo I'd posted two years ago, when Kyle and Tina had the gender reveal for Simon. I thought it would be fun to do a collage of then and now. The current photo isn't from Betsy's gender reveal, but it is the most recent photo of Tina (taken August 23rd) so closer date-wise to the one from 2013.
She's one beautiful pregnant lady! And I'm only slightly biased as her mother ;)

Tuesday, August 25

Sorry to rub it in, but this is our temperature today.
And notice the weather forecast for the coming week. Not bad, eh? Considering this is the equivalent to your February :)

(Hopefully this doesn't portend a hotter-than-normal summer ahead of us!)

Thursday, August 20, 2015

Week 33: Project 365, the 2015 Edition

Thursday, August 13

I actually can't remember what day I took this screen shot last week so I'm arbitrarily assigning it to Thursday :) I enjoy playing Words With Friends, especially when I manage to score big like this:
I waited four turns to get the letters I needed, nervous that my opponent would fill in the space with her own word before I got my chance.

Friday, August 14

Ivan attended a conference in Cordoba that started today (and went through Monday). He found this photo on facebook for me. Not sure who took it, but can you spot Ivan in the picture?

AND OUR GRANDDAUGHTER TURNED A YEAR OLD TODAY! 

Saturday, August 15

Since Ivan was at the conference all day and I wanted something light for lunch, I made a crustless quiche. First I sliced a tomato, drizzled oil, salt and pepper over the slices and roasted them for about 20 minutes. Then I chopped those up and tossed them into my smallest pyrex dish (5.5" x 5.5"). In a separate bowl I mixed 3 eggs with a half cup of half-and-half, a few tablespoons of grated sharp cheese, salt, pepper and oregano and poured that over the tomatoes. Thirty minutes later I dug into this:
Yum!

This is a screen shot from the funniest video of Adalyn's birthday party at the park today!
Natalie made the most beautiful cake which took Adalyn about a minute to destroy, but I don't think Nat minded since it was a very entertaining minute!

Sunday, August 16

For her birthday, Jon and Nat got Adalyn a play kitchen. It was one of those "assembly required" toys but totally worth the time to put it together because Adalyn loves it!
I think I should make her a little apron and some oven mitts, don't you think?

Tuesday, August 18

A friend needed to talk so Ivan met him downtown for coffee. The barista made some cool designs in their coffee.


Wednesday, August 12, 2015

Weeks 30-32: Project 365, the 2015 Edition

Tuesday, July 22

Return visit to the hematologist gave us the opportunity to stop and get some photos of this new sculpture. It's some kind of memorial to firemen but we don't know what Bird Lady has to do with it. Maybe once it's all done we'll find out.

Good news from the hematologist: my white blood cell count was back to normal, my iron is edging up and, while on the low end of the spectrum, it's now within normal parameters. So I didn't get an infusion of iron after all. We're trying to eat more iron-enriched foods and hope it will cause that number to keep rising (it's 69 on a scale of 65-175).

Wednesday, July 23

The river has gotten really low (we're in the middle of winter, the dry season). There's a section along the river that's quite popular with tourists during the warmer months and when we went to the clinic to see my doctor, I snapped this shot with my phone. If you enlarge the photo, you can see a flat area and stairs across the way.
On this side are lots of picnic tables, concrete boxes for grilling, and new playground and exercise equipment. I'll try and get some pictures of that area for next time.

Monday, July 27

We began working on the bedroom today. Ivan took outlet covers off...
...and I started painting. Today I painted by myself, but on Tuesday Ivan helped and we finished off the room. So nice to have that project checked off the list!

Friday, July 31

Went to Sta Rosa for a long weekend. First thing on the agenda was to meet with Miguel and Mari. They take care of the house for us, and are dear friends who help in other ways too. The men with our mission are going to get together at the house in September to keep working through policy issues and other items of business. Mari is going to fix and take lunch to the men each day, and Miguel will prepare an asado one evening.

We've had such an abnormally warm winter but I was still surprised to see flowers blooming in Mari's yard!

Sunday, August 2

While in Sta. Rosa I worked my way through the many boxes we have stored out there. The back storeroom had gotten out of hand, to the point it was hard to open the door. It was time to get those things organized again! Plus we had a bunch of boxes stuck up in cubby holes above closets that we put out there when we moved from Canning Street to our casita (there just wasn't enough room in the garage). What was in all those boxes I wondered? While I worked on that, Ivan prepared meals. When I make a salad, I literally toss it all together. When he makes a salad, he creates art!
Almost too pretty to eat, isn't it? But that didn't stop us :) It was sooooooo good!

Wednesday, August 5

Ivan prepared asado for lunch, grilling a chicken and a variety of vegetables. We are sure enjoying the grill he built!

Thursday, August 6

I have a weather app on my phone and snapped this screen shot to show you what kind of winter weather we're having.
I think there have been days when our temperature has been about the same as where we used to live in Michigan, where it's summer!

Saturday, August 8

Self-explanatory collage:

Monday, August 10

Lots of other stuff going on but I have been slowly progressing with the baby quilt. I finished "framing" the bottom (blue) section today and then laid the three sections out on the bed to see how they looked together.
I'm not positive this will be the final version. I may trim down the wide "frames" and add sashing and a border. The verdict is still out on that. I quite like the color block effect; it has a mid century modern feel to it, in my opinion. But I'm waiting for input from my artistic sister-in-law as well as Tina. Tina, especially, since she will have to look at it every day for a year or two :)
[Edited to add: Tina loves it!] 

Tuesday, August 11

Today ended up being our once-a-month shopping trip to Cordoba. We made a loop through the city, stopping at Walmart, a health food store that carries a lot of gluten free products, had lunch at Viejo Lobo, and did our bulk shopping at Tadicor. Across from Viejo Lobo is a new store and the sign caught our eye. It's a play on word(s). Carnear is the verb "to butcher", carne is the word for "meat" and "AR" is the abbreviation for Argentina. Cute, heh?
[I was never quick enough to get a picture, but as we traveled through the city we saw a number of flowering trees just loaded with blooms! Normally this doesn't happen until mid-to-late September, but the warmer weather has tricked the flora into thinking it's later than it is.]