Grandma couldn't drive my car.

So the other day went really well. It was a beautiful day in all honesty (the picture says it all). And according to my friend, my Spanish is pretty decent (although she might have been just saying this)... at least enough to spend the day with each other not staring off into space :) So yes, I can count that as a good experience to add to my confidence building list. For some reason though, my war against myself to speak Spanish with my husband seems to be a losing battle. Yes, yes I know. This is probably the most ridiculous psychological trick that I have played on myself, but it just doesn't seem natural or comfortable, but this has to be the year that it changes. I know that part of it is because we started our relationship speaking in English, partly because he wanted to practice his English and also because his level is higher than mine was in Spanish. And it still is. And that is partly his fault, partly mine. Well, mostly mine... let's be fair. So yeah, gotta keep working on that for sure. It's funny really. I wrote a really really long paper talking about identity and second language acquisition during my last semester of grad school though at the time I never really thought that I would experience the things that I was reading about in such a personal way. It really does depend a great deal on motivation and personality much more than I ever realized. Please mind, set me free of this absurd straightjacket.

Totally unrelated, in the end I decided to turn down the opportunity of the second job for the sake of wasting precious time for very little compensation. This was in the interest of me spending more time on the language, getting my permanent license, homologating my degrees and other things that are pretty important in my search for independence here in Spain. But I have to admit that even though I know that the things I usually spend my time doing (aside from wasting time on stupid facebook, this, etc.) make my husband's life easier, I feel a little guilty sometimes that he has to work so much harder than I do. Maybe part of the guilt is that I'm just not used to having so much free time, in addition to not making as much money as I used to when I worked in graphic design. Not even close, actually. I have been working since I turned 15 and I have always had a full time job with the exception of parts of college and some unfortunate bouts of unemployment. I try to tell myself that this situation is only temporary and that once I have jumped through some hoops for the government here, I can have a job that is closer to what I feel I should have, having spent all that time and money on graduate school. I try to tell myself that after everything that has happened in the last 18 years I sure could use the mental break. It's working for now, but I have days when I feel like a pretty useless person. Is this what my grandmother felt like? She didn't work much and even worse- she never had a license to drive. Sorry early twentieth-century- I'm not sure I would have survived you.

In other news, I am trying out the new Wilco album and I'm just not sure yet Mr. Tweedy. I'll have to revisit this subject sometime after I give it a real chance. But I am super excited about this new album: http://www.crookedfingers.com/