1/20

     Sometimes thinking of what to write about keeps me from writing at all. Sometimes trying to think of a title for the post almost keeps me from writing a post. Today is January 20, 2025. It is my mother's birthday. I called her and wished her a happy birthday in 3 languages. Then we had a very lengthy conversation about languages, learning, teaching, dance, and all sorts of other things. I told Mom my struggles and frustrations with learning Spanish. I have been working on it for more than a year and I feel I should be a lot further along. But almost every time I try to actually speak with someone in Spanish I can't remember what I need to know to communicate, I don't know half the words they are using, or I can't think of proper sentence structure. All of that makes speaking very terrifying. Which is why I should do it more. At this point, I can read a lot in Spanish and understand most of what I am reading. As long as it's fairly basic Spanish. Sometimes I can catch a lot of what is being said, if it's not too fast or doesn't have too many words that I don't know. I know I am a lot better than I was, but it is still frustrating. I have been working very hard on learning Spanish and it seems like I haven't actually made a ton of progress. 

     Dancing however is another story. I don't dance as often as I work on Spanish, I have been dancing for only about 8 months, but I know a lot more about dance than I do Spanish. I can dance with someone, and it works for both of us. I can't even hold a basic conversation in Spanish. My next goal is to learn to lead salsa, at the very least. I have led bachata a few times, but I still want to learn more advanced things as a follower. I am not as interested in dancing salsa, and am more than happy to stay at the beginner level. But if I can learn to lead beginner salsa I can help teach it. Which will give us more dancers overall. And I want everyone to dance!

    The above photo is related to nothing. It is just a cool picture of a tree on my street. We have these insane streetlights that are almost as bright as the sun and when it is foggy, this tree looks super cool in front of the terrible street light. We had a lot of fog on Saturday night. Then it snowed Sunday night. The first snow of any significance this winter. I am hoping a lot of it will melt before I actually have to clean off my car so I can go to work tomorrow. 

    As long time blog readers know, I love makeup. It is an art that I have enjoyed for years. I don't use much makeup these days because I really don't have time, and because as I get older it is hard to find products that don't end up making me look even older. Last year I discovered IL Makiage and have enjoyed that a lot. This year I took their color match quiz again, got different results than last year, and am now testing out lighter colors and a cream (which is actually a gel) that is supposed to do amazing things to hydrate your skin. And hydrated skin will not look as wrinkly. My issue these days with foundation and concealer is it often falls into my creases, which will accentuate them and make me look older. So I am testing out a couple of products and figured out if I was going to bother with makeup I might as well take a picture so I could update my Facebook photo. For anyone that is curious, this is actually a full face of makeup, just not at all dramatic. Though I can do that too. 

     New Year's Eve I woke up with a fever and ended up skipping the dance party I was looking forward to. I spent several days on my couch because I had a fever for 3 days and then, when I was thinking I could go back to work, my fever came back. So I went to urgent care and found out I had the flu. And then Travis got sick. So I stayed home for another week so both of us could get better and so we could keep our germs to ourselves. I am very grateful for Instacart so we didn't have to go into stores while we were sick. 

     With the holiday break from school and all the days I took off to get better, and get Travis better, I was off of work for 23 days. Going back was hard. But I managed it. A week ago I tried getting back to dance and did a bit and then left, but this past Friday I was finally back to normal. Being sick is hard. And a lot of people are getting the flu. One of the kids in my class was out and another may be getting sick. We found out, when I brought Travis to urgent care, that a lot of people are getting the flu now. At least for Travis and I it wasn't horrible. I had a low fever for several days, a cough, a headache because of the cough, and weakness and body aches for a few days. The cough is still lingering a bit, but at some point it will turn back into just my regular allergy cough so I won't really know when I am 100% better. 

     I have managed to get a small amount of doll work done lately. I have the above doll finished and available for sale, another hunt seat doll I don't have photos of, I finished a couple of dolls for orders (my books are still closed but I have been saying yes to a lot of orders lately), and I am currently working on a special project for a friend of mine. 

    Being sick forced me to stop doing so much and I did a lot of resting, reading, and taking it easy. I haven't slowed down in years so it has been nice. Today, when I was on the phone with my mom, I spent a lot of time doing cleaning projects that have been somewhat neglected for a bit. It felt good to clean, even though I really do not enjoy cleaning. I do enjoy a clean house so sometimes the cleaning has to get done (my house is actually always clean. Just sometimes it's really clean). I am feeling mostly back to normal now, I enjoyed the down-time, Travis and I have had more movie nights, on top of our Friday coffee dates, and I feel fairly balanced lately. January is going by more quickly than it usually does, which means it is closer to Spring. Now if I could just think of things to talk about more often, that would be awesome.