We spent another weekend up in Hays, this time to continue the process of going through my mom's house to clean it out and get it ready to sell. I can't believe what a pack-rat she was! It's amazing how much stuff she fit into the place. We've made it through two bedrooms, a bathroom, and a cupboard so far, and we've found some pretty funny stuff, like small pouches with snaps on them that were made out of some old flannel sheets with a penguin pattern. It's been fun going through all the memories. We're gathering most of her books and her teddy bears in the living room for all of her friends to go through. We've lined all the walls with bookshelves, which are now completely full of teddy bears and books. It's an interesting room to see, and we haven't even brought out the hundreds of Christmas and other holiday themed bears she has yet.
We're making good use of all the driving hours between here and there by trying to learn to speak French on the road. We've got a set of cd's to use, as well as a college textbook that Jeff picked up for me for Christmas. So far, we've learned the most important part of the language - how to order breakfast, lunch and dinner. Haha. Seriously, though, we're planning to take a vacation over there sometime in the future, and we'd like to experience some of the more back-country locations and really get a feel for the people, so we're making an effort to learn the language. Jeff speaks German rather well, and it's been quite useful on both of our trips to Germany. He's my inspiration to try and make my best effort at learning French. For me, the most confusing thing is trying to remember which words are French, and which words are from the bits of other languages I've picked up over the years: Russian, German, Spanish, etc. It's terrible when you only know a few words in each language, and they're all the same ones - Yes, No, Please, Thank You and so on. I have moments where I go through all of them trying to find the correct version for the language I'm trying to speak. It's maddening! And don't even get me started on the stupid genders of the nouns - yikes! Wish me (us) luck!
Her children arise and call her blessed...
6 years ago
1 comment:
That's awesome!! I've recently decided that I need to learn Spanish. I took 3 yrs. at HHS but don't remember a darn thing! In the neighborhood that we minister to for Literacy Club, and even at our church, there's a growing number of Hispanic families. And altho all the kids know how to speak English, it would be nice to be able to communicate with their parents & grandparents! And I've even thought about going on a mission trip to Mexico next summer to immerse myself in the culture and practice what I've learned so far!! Exciting stuff... hopefully I can stick to it... that is, when I finally start!! Hehe!!
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