Savoring every last second

We've been packed for days--a total first for us! We are just aching to get back to see friends and family. I've been blasting the Christmas music and both David and I are looking forward to being with our families for the holidays.

The last few days we have been trying to squeeze in some good meals and really savor this place just a little longer. Being packed early has really allowed for us to take advantage of our final time here. Today we woke up to the smell of roasting chestnuts. Yeah, chestnuts!! Right outside our apartment and up a little. Apparently this time of year, the small shops on the street right above ours, set up tables with items to entice the Christmas shopper---sweaters on sale, handmade scarves, handmade jewelery, hot chocolate, baked pies and other desserts of doughy-goodness and even a vendor for roasted chestnuts.

After my super star husband brought me a cafe con leche from the cafe just outside our place (something that he has been doing for me EVERY DAY and has earned him Major brownie points), we headed out together to return the stroller we borrowed from a GBU Staff worker. After handing over that compact, purple, God-send and thanking said staff worker profusely, we thought we would try and explore a little and try and find ourselves a quaint little cafe down one of the thousands of picturesque streets to have lunch. We walked and walked. Down streets we had never been down. We marveled at how much there is to experience and just how long it would take to actually see everything within a several mile radius.

Amalia was uncharacteristically mellow and we finally happened upon a small and very packed restaurant. This was our place--the kind we had hoped we would find for our last meal. Our food was incredible! (In case you are wondering, because I know I always do, I ordered a baked chicken with roasted oranges and garlic mashed potatoes served with a wilted spinach, bacon, raisin and pine nut salad and for dessert I had something like a cross between a piece of french bread and a doughnut and of course a cafe con leche!)Amalia has never behaved so well in a restaurant. A true treat!

This evening after completing our "checkout" (which really only consisted of kind farewells and our landlord asking us to rent from him again if we ever come back and even saying he would not charge us a deposit), we thought we wanted just one more evening stroll through the city. Amalia was game--she almost always is when it involves the outdoors and especially Christmas lights.

We headed up to a Crepe place we had been eyeing. It was a little cold out, so walking into the small and tellingly crowded crepe place dazzling with tea lights, warmed us right up. We sat down and ordered a savory crepe with spinach and goat cheese and honey and then a sweet one with butter and sugar. Those crepes were out of this world delicious. Again, Amalia ate well and behaved well and we headed out before any potential meltdowns. We took our time walking home. Tomorrow would be all hustle and bustle again and off to the airport and onto a full day of travel.

And now I am off to bed, thankful for this experience and the ways I have grown and am growing and eager to see what God has next.

Preparing to leave

Hey friends, it's been a long time. Sorry--again. Moving here and having all these new experiences every day made for really obvious topics to blog about. But, as soon as we really started settling into the groove with daily routines and 2-year-old rearing, I no longer felt like what I would share was really that interesting. So I just kept putting it off. But, this is not good documentation. And, a lot of cool things really did happen in the last 6 weeks...like having 11 visitors, for instance.

We are now approaching our final days here in Barcelona and though my entire being aches to be with my friends and family again, I just know I am really going to miss this place!

Stay tuned for hopefully a few posts on some of our final adventures as well as a final "what I have learned: Things I should have brought" post.

We are so thankful for many of you that reached out to us while we were here through emails, cards, gifts and visiting us. This experience has been so rich.

Now, let me get home so I can celebrate Christmas with the ones I love!!

Love you guys!!

10 down, 10 to go

Guess who is down 10 lbs??? I have 10 more to go to reach my first goal :)

Goal 1: Wedding Weight by New Year's

Goal 2: Early college weight by 30th birthday

I Plan to write more about this at a later time, but I was so flippin happy to jump on the scale this morning and weigh the lowest number I have weighed in a long time!!!

Spanish ladies, watch out!

Sickness and Nightmares

Hey there. A quick update today. Well we all got sick :( Bummer, as we hadn't gotten sick at all in the last 3 months or so. Wouldn't you know, just as David was flying out for a quick visit to a buddy in Palermo, that we would come down with a bad cold. Amalia was hit the hardest. I gave her a little triaminic when she had trouble sleeping and calling for me every 5 minutes to come and wipe her nose.

Everything seemed fine until she woke up screaming for her life at 4 in the morning. She was screaming about "the scary lady". I don't even want to type out all the details of what she was saying. You guys, it was really disturbing and frightening. This went on for an hour and a half--settled down--then continued off and on for the next several days. She was seeing snakes, scary people, little people--you name it.

I prayed for her, I prayed with her, I tried to make light of what she was seeing and yet she continued to be so traumatized by this dream. I didn't think I'd be dealing with nightmares and being scared until she was at least 4. I feel really bad because a part of me wonders if it had anything to do with the medicine I gave her (1/2 a dose). The other part of me isn't surprised that we would experience this sort of thing especially while David was away. Please keep Amalita in your prayers. she has been sleeping much better since Daddy came home.

Getting pretty excited to have a little bit of a break when my Mom arrives here in the next week.

Love you guys!

The Not-So-Lovely Side of Barcelona

I'm wanting to keep it real here, and in order to do that, I need to tell you about some of the not-so-lovely and downright gross things here in Barcelona, lest you start thinking this place is some sort of picturesque paradise.

Let me first start off by saying, I really do like this city. I am growing to like it more every day. I like the fusion of old and new, the array of cultures and people and food.

But, for the sake of keeping an accurate account of our time here, I want to post about some of the disturbing things of living here. In no particular order here I go:

1) Dog poop and pee
It seems everyone and their brother has a dog or two. They roam the streets with their masters. While most people are careful to pick up the waste from their dog, obviously many still do not. There are not any fields or empty lots scattered throughout the city, so as you can imagine, dogs go wherever they can. They urinate on walls, bushes and streets. It often smells here. When I take Amalia out for walks she says, "Don't step on the hotdogs, Mommy". Lol, I guess I can see how she might have come up with this name--yuck! I am just thankful that she is a skilled enough walker to avoid them.

2) Graffiti
I have an artistic appreciation for thoughtful and skilled graffiti--I do, but this is just a lot of seemingly mindless "tagging". It's everywhere. Every single garage-like door that covers storefronts and even some first floor residences is chalked-full of graffiti. Some of the nicer stores it seems have commissioned an actual graffiti artist to create something beautiful on their door and all the other "artists" seem to leave it alone. If I ever had a store here, that would be the first thing I'd do, pay off a graffiti artist to cover my door.

3) Children pee on trees
I saw this happen a couple of time when we first arrived, but then, didn't see it again until a couple weeks ago. I thought maybe what I had first witnessed was just a by-chance-incident. Nope. I think kids peeing in planters and on trees is just a way of life and maybe even related to potty training? Now that I have spent significant time at the playgrounds, it definitely seems "the norm" to let your kid run to the nearest planter, pull down their pants and pee. Hmmmm, ok....I can see how that would be convenient for potty training...

4) Meat
I enjoy eating meat, but I wouldn't call myself a "meat lover". I don't enjoy seeing all the parts of the animals body out on display and something about the over-obsession with meat bothers me too. Well, this place can be tricky to navigate if you are easily turned off by meat or are even like me and eat it in moderation(I am kicking myself for writing this as I am currently trying to talk my vegan brother and sister-in-law into coming for a visit). Just know, that if you enter a market, you will see animals hanging, pig heads, blood, fish with eyeballs and your chicken will be de-headed right in front of you as well. David likes this and thinks it speaks to the freshness of the meat. Agree to disagree.

5) Water
The tap water here isn't so good. It is tolerable and we are told it is safe, but you kinda just have to gulp it down and get it over with. Buying purified water gets expensive--not to mention the walk home and the flights of stairs that I have written you about on almost every post ;)

6) Prostitution
Though I myself, have yet to see any prostitutes, everyone tells me that they are all over. When I cry out to God for this city, this is one of the things that I pray--that these women would come to know true love, that they would find freedom, that their families would have some other means of support, that the forceful perpetrators of this money-maker would be brought to justice.


7) Panhandlers, pick pockets and thieves
Daily, I am confronted by people for money. Some just extend their cup out to beg and others get a little more aggressive. I judge by their eyes. Street musicians are also seen as "beggers" here, but I see them a little differently in that they are actually doing something. Amalia gives to them pretty generously. Sadly, purse snatching, wallet stealing and other pick pocket type stuff is all too common here. we haven't had anything from us taken, so we still feel like this place is safe, you just have to always be aware of your surroundings--which can be challenging with a 2-year-old.

And this has got to conclude my list for tonight. Maybe an update or addition in the next day if I remember I've left out something important

So who wants to visit huh???

Peace to you all
Cristina

Whew.

* Thanks for the comments you gave about money and debt and communal living. I love that some of you emailed me directly and really poured your hearts out. Let's keep this convo going*

The three of us spent our weekend at a retreat with GBU students. It was amazing, refreshing and exhausting...and remarkably similar to the Intervarsity conferences back home (biblical exposition, seminars to choose from, small groups, ice breakers,etc)

One thing very different though, was the amount of physical work that went into getting us all there. If we were back home, I would've likely complained about all the "work" I had to do getting us all packed up---what with having to bring supplies for tracks, kiddo, and hubby for three days and all. But, then we would have plopped right on down and driven an hour or so, parked no more than a hundred feet or so away, and unloaded everything into the nice hotel or conference center where we were staying.

This time was Very different. we packed one large suitcase full of snacks, clothes (both warm and cold as we were staying near the ocean), diapers, games, toys, bedding and then carried a separate bag with the emergency snacks, Mali distractions, laptop, bible notebook and kindle. David packed some of his work in a separate messenger bag. We walked about 1/2 mile to the metro (30 pound Mali strapped to my back), rode that for about 15 min, then boarded a train for an hour, then walked maybe a mile and a half or 2 up a steep hill and then the last stretch up an even steeper dirt driveway--in the dark!!! I know this is nothing compared to what some people have to walk every day, but I'm telling you I felt like a champion.

Jumping right in, meant stumbling through some awkward conversations with our broken Spanish, but we had a really great time. We got to sing, and reflect and discuss and even make a little small talk. It was a good weekend, but I am glad to be "home".

Here's my attempt at a nice mother daughter pic :)

Money

So I have had a bit of time on my hands lately, and I have been doing a lot of thinking about money. We don't make a lot of it, we try to be generous with it and we owe a fair amount back upon David's graduation. So that's us and money in a nutshell.

Here's what I'm thinking---and I have to apologize to you now, this is very much still in progress. Being the extrovert that I am, it helps me to process this here with you now.

I have been wrestling with the notion of independence. I wrote about it on a previous blog, and truthfully, I think about it every day. To sum it up again---So here we all are working our jobs, paying back our student loans, paying for childcare, paying for vehicles, paying the rent or mortgage on our place, buying and preparing our own food---and doing it all by ourselves just about every day.

Friends! This doesn't make sense to me. I know of so many people that owe so much money and are literally killing themselves to make ends meet all so they can live out "The American Dream". I am not trying to be a hater here--I want a nice home too, with kiddos, and nice furniture, and reliable vehicles, but its time I reconsider some of this.

David and I made a commitment when we were first married. We agreed that because God had given us so much, that out of our gratitude and desire to be obedient to Jesus, we needed try and be generous with others. For us that meant people staying in our home, feeding students that were hungry, sharing our vehicles when asked and generally trying to fight the "this is mine" mentality.

This went alright for awhile. It was even fulfilling to live like this. It really didn't throw us out of our comfort zone too much. But I am starting to sense it's time for step 2. We are living in Spain, on so, so much less. (In case you need the reminder: 400 sq ft,one room, no vehicles, lots of stairs, no elevators, minimal cell phone plans, and the very minimum in terms of clothes and household appliances)And all I can think about is how we really could live on so much less.

This might be crazy talk to some of you. But I dream and wonder what it would be like to hunker down and choose to pay off all our debt within a year or two. I know at least one other couple that has done a similar type thing and they are an inspiration to me and a reminder that it can be done.

I even dream of moving into a home with another family. We'd call the home "Our Last Year of Debt". It would be tough and I'm sure very inconvenient, but we'd have the same goal: sharing living costs, sharing some meals, maybe taking turns watching the kiddos and saving somewhere between 50 and 75% of our total household income. Right now we spend one of our incomes on rent, utilities, renter's insurance and the cost of operating and maintaining one vehicle, plus a few meals here and there. I imagine what it would look like to apply all of that to David's loans and even pay them off before we have to start paying them back upon graduation.

What if both families had a heart of generosity and would even trust God enough to continue to be faithful and generous with what they were living on, knowing that God would continue to provide for their needs? For single people (and even married ones too), what if after college, people moved home for two years to both bless their parents, offer some help around the house and pay off all their debt with their first years of salaried jobs?

Many other cultures offer a version of this, but ours seems to really be bent on the notion of self-earned independence. I can hear you now saying, "There is no way I could move back in with my parents" or "There is no way I could downsize to splitting 1 or 2 bedrooms in a shared home--I have too much stuff, etc,etc". I get it. I really do, go look through all the stuff I have in my home ;)

This experience of living in Spain without all of the extras has been quite liberating. It has really put what we "need" into perspective. I am beginning to understand that I am not powerless against my debt or against all of life's "necessities". I can take charge of this and put money back in its proper place. Some of you are years ahead of me, so I appreciate you bearing with me. David and I are talking and praying about what will be next for us. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Do you ever have these same thoughts? Have you recently gotten debt-free? Is it do-able to live in community?