ABCs

My adult ESL students are creating a fun set of photo alphabet cards for the classroom wall, an idea I got from the teaching artist at my elementary school who lent me the book Secret Games by Wendy Ewald. I took some of the photos but they took most of them, chose which would represent each letter, and created the cards on which these are now mounted.

A is for apple.
F is for flag.

I is for intelligent.

L is for list.

M is for mothers.

P is for push-ups.

Q is for quiet.

X is for x-ray.

Z is for zebra.

This project has been so fun and I've been impressed by their photographs!

What we've been up to

Helping with the Community Table food pantry. We received over a ton of food from the post office food drive last weekend!

Planting and watering veggies in the labyrinth garden. Jazmin kept saying, "This baby is heavy!"

Checking out new places to eat. This restaurancito is just three blocks from our house and was recently opened by Guadalupe, who I know from my time volunteering with Adelante Chicas, and her husband. That's Guadalupe in the window.

Guadalupe and her family are from Mexico, but one of the cooks is from El Salvador and makes the most amazing pupusas, which are basically thick tortillas stuff with cheesy, beany goodness. This here is a delicious quesadilla full of fresh spinach. So good! Eric says it's his new favorite place.

Enjoying the gorgeous, summery weather that finally showed up! We're on the hunt for a good used bike for me, so yesterday we walked across town (which takes about 15 minutes) to check out a place (with no luck).

We rode our bikes to Forest Grove for pizza, coffee and more window-shopping for bikes. Still no luck. But we had a great time, of course.

This picture is from Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia, when we decorated portraits of displaced people in Colombia with requests for President Obama to end military aid to the country. Andres is our neighbor and is just about the cutest kid around.

During an ESL class last week, it poured down rain and then this beautiful double rainbow appeared, so we paused class and just hung out by the windows for a bit.

We've been super busy with church work and with school. This spring has been the most scheduled couple of months I've had in years--something that has helped us get to a better financial place but that has also been quite challenging. My days are full of wonderful people and good things but my current amount of rest time and social time is just not enough. I am loving my days with the K-3 kiddos but have decided to not return to my position as an ESL assistant next fall so I can focus on my ministry and be more present in my own community and with Eric. And now only four weeks remain until summer vacation!!!

Birthday boy

Ann and Brody came down to celebrate Eric's 32nd birthday with us last weekend. We watched the Masters and movie and ate lots of good food, including some indulgent b-day treats.

On Friday afternoon, Eric met me at school and we took the MAX into Portland and wandered around for a bit.





We met up with Ron and Cathy and Ann and Brody at The Montage, a great Cajun place under the Morrison Bridge. We hadn't been there since Sarah's birthday a few years back. I love that they make foil sculptures with your leftovers inside.

A few blocks away is the Miracle Theater, where we saw How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents, based on the novel. It was an excellent play!

The lovebirds:

Spring is full swing here! Flowers are blooming everywhere--especially tulips! They remind me of home. And neighbors are outside, mowing and playing and just hanging out. I love it.

Just what we needed

Some time away. Can't believe we waited this long to get out to the coast again. Cannon beach is less than an hour and a half away!

A hike up Neahkahnie Mountain on the most gorgeous day ever:


Wow.

We slept lots, read lots, sipped coffee in bed each morning and watched old movies, walked on the beach and talked and laughed. A pretty great couple of days!

Walk There: Hillsdale

Our walk through the Hillsdale neighborhood in SW Portland was gorgeous. It was a clear spring day and we had great views of Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens every time we turned a corner. It still amazes me that we were within Portland city limits the whole time!

Walk There: River Walk

Along the Willamette downtown Portland. Just lovely.

Stuff and things

Late graduation gift from Ann and Brody. Don't worry, this picture was taken in January :)

Valentine from my Little. She is a sweetie.

Eric and his cute little 'puter:

The biggest huevos I've ever seen, courtesy of Phil from Yamhill:

After a lovely V-day dinner at Thailand Restaurant. The best Thai food we've had out here!

At the park with my Little and her friend. Alondra took this.

Leftover waffles in the afternoon.

Ministry updates

I've recently posted a few new entries on my ministry blog: wwchispanicministries.blogspot.com

Communication breakdown

Eric and I had driven separately to meet friends at the McMenamins Cornelius Pass Roadhouse for happy hour. Great deals on food and fun with great people! The place was packed and we had all parked in different parking areas. When we headed out with plans to hang out at home for a bit before meeting different friends for board games, I got into our car and the key would not turn in the ignition. After I lost our one original car key a year ago, we were left with one copy that had been slowly bending. When I couldn't turn it, I thought, "Well, this key has come to the end of its life." I called Eric to come back and get me, but...I went straight to voicemail. I tried again, then again, then finally resigned myself to waiting the 20 minutes until he arrived home when he would surely plug his dead phone in (right???). Thankfully, I had a magazine in my bag.

Twenty minutes later, I tried again. Five more minutes, tried again. Still right to voicemail. I called one neighbor--no answer. Another neighbor--not at home. A third neighbor, Lupe. She agreed to go to our house and ask him to plug his phone in and call me. Those neighbors are all Spanish-speakers, but she was my third choice because she speaks less English than the others, but I was sure that she'd be able to get the message across. A few minutes later, Lupe called back and told me that Eric was home but, after relaying the message to call me, Eric had said, "Mira will be home in 5 minutes." Are you kidding me??? I asked her to please go back, this time with her cell phone, and simply hand him the phone. I was feeling pretty tired and exasperated at this point (I hadn't been home since 7:00 a.m. that morning) and when Eric took the phone, I said tearfully, "The key is not working. Please come back and get me."

Another 20 minutes later (for a total of 1.25 hours in the parking lot), Eric pulled up. Silly me, the steer wheel had just been stuck and the problem wasn't with the key at all. I was pretty upset, blaming myself for not knowing what to do and not asking for suggestions before having Eric come back, and blaming him for not keeping his phone charged and not knowing enough Spanish (or trying hard enough, I said to myself at the time). We were going to be 45 minutes late to visit our friends, but we headed there anyway.

I was still feeling frustrated when we left in our separate cars (again), but then I heard OK Go's This Too Shall Pass on the radio and felt something shift. There's a part where it repeats, "Let it go, this too shall pass." I decided to just let it go and the whole situation suddenly started to seem really funny to me. It was just something that happened. A silly inconvenience. Even a good story. And we still made it to hang out and play games and laugh with 6 of our friends until late that evening. There was nothing wrong with the car and Eric has rededicated himself to studying Spanish--a pretty good outcome, I think. :)

funny kiddos

A few things that 1st graders have said to me this week:

"That's enough, Rustbucket!"
While playing a game: Kid-"It's my turn, Frankie!" Me-"Who's Frankie?" Kid-"Oh, Frankie's a dog."
"I know how to blow snot out of my nose really good--since I was two years old!"
"Ms. Conk, Ms. Conk!"

In the Kinder class where I was helping kids with a project, a student who had finished and was helping other kids went up to the teacher and whined (pointing to me), "I'm supposed to be the helper, but that lady's doing everything!"

From another kid in my kinder group, gesturing to his throat: "I can't talk very loud because my tentacles got ripped out."

After a fun but crazy celebration of Valentine's Day (read: tons of candy!!) with the kiddos, I am happy to have a three day weekend!

2 speeds

Life has become quite full since the start of the new year! I honestly believed that I was busy before, but now I find myself lovingly shaking my head at that former self, at that person who naively complained about too little structure. Now I seem to only have two speed settings: Sunday through Friday, I am set to hyper speed, racing from place to place, madly crossing items off the list at the last moment in my small chunks of unscheduled time; Saturdays I do absolutely nothing. Sundays I rev back up from zero to ridiculous. The good news is that I love doing nearly all of what I spend my time doing. The bad news is that I don't have enough time to do everything as well as I'd like and have me time and have time for playing with friends. As they say, something's gotta give. Most recently, that something is either any semblance of a social life or the stack of laundry. Or that one project for my church job that I keep not doing--yikes!

So...that's more than enough complaining for now! This current 3-job-arrangement has had some big positives. First, I get to spend every day with some of the cutest kiddos on the planet and they do endless fully things are are full of hilarious commentaries about life. I find myself saying things that I can't imagine saying in many other settings. Just in this past week..."How can you see where you're going if you're walking backwards?" "You were doing a great job until you made the loud shrieking noise into the gym." "No, this shape is not a caboosey, it's a rectangle." Some get a little out of control sometime, as children do, but there's usually enough cute kid-ness and amazement at their ability to learn so quickly to keep me from getting worked up.

Second, I've appreciated the 20-minute drive I have by myself twice a day. Sometimes I listen to OPB or Democracy Now, sometimes I put on the CD Bible in (I'm making my way through the Book of Acts) and sometimes I enjoy the silence. Because I generally leave within the same 5-minute window each morning, I notice the days slowly getting longer and have seen some amazing sunrises over Mt. Hood.

Third, I appreciate my time with Eric even more than I did before. He gets up early with me and makes us breakfast and we still get to enjoy coffee together, something I thought I'd have to give up when I took this new job. We still go to the gym together each afternoon or evening and we always spend Saturdays together. In the past month, we've done a nice walk in Portland, slept late, caught up on our TV from the week, gone out for coffee, helped plan a baby shower, and enjoyed a few outings with friends. We have always shared household responsibilities, but Eric has stepped up his cooking and cleaning--without complaining! Very sweet.

Fourth, I get to spend two evenings a week with a group of wonderful Spanish-speaking women who are committed to being great parents and to learning English! After class the other night, a student of mine who is pregnant told me that she had had an ultrasound that day and had communicated well-enough with her English-speaking doctor to learn that she is having a girl! I was so proud of her!

In my work with the church, I've been coordinating a family bilingual theater class, visiting day laborers and planning for a summer camp for Latino families! All things that I love!

One final positive to mention now: we're making a bit more money and working on getting out of debt completely. With good-sized students loans, there is still a long road ahead of us, but we're making progress. This is exciting!

I know I'll be on hyperspeed for the next 4 months, but I'll be able to shift into a lower gear when summer begins. This helps keep me going.

Hope your February is off to a great start!

New job!

My adoption work ended when the agency closed at the end of the year and this past Monday was the first day of my new third job! My work doing ministry in the Latino community continues, as does my position teaching ESL to adults in a family literacy program, and I am now also an assistant in the ESL program at an elementary school in Hillsboro (one of our next-door towns). I pick up groups of students, Kindergarteners through third graders, grade by grade, from their classrooms, and bring them to the ESL room where each grade sings songs and does all sorts of language activities for about half an hour each day. I also spend chunks of time working on reading with non-ESL students and I have one block where I work with a third-grade boy one-on-one. I am always moving from place to place and have had to learn a LOT of names in a short period of time (I'm not quite there, but I'm close).

So far, I love it!

These kiddos come from all over--many are Spanish-speakers, some come from African countries, some are European. A few trust so easily and already give me hugs and want to sit close to me and hold my hand. Some are so energetic that they are almost never not in motion. Some make me laugh just about every time they open their mouths. Almost all of the Kinder kids are missing one or both of their front teeth, which makes them painfully cute.

In addition to the sweet kids, my supervisor is wonderful and I've gotten to know some other great staff. I'm so thankful for these things that have kept me going during this long week of waking up before dawn and working with only short breaks until bedtime most days! And though I'll be working tons in the months to come, I count my lucky stars that part of my job this week was to lead a group of 1st graders in singing "The Ants Go Marching." Hurrah! Hurrah!