Being Just hunkydory

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Money matters…both in the sense that it counts and that it’s a subject AND that I’m running out of it…already. England and the start up here has been expensive—MUY—and I’m now penny pinching for a while. It’s funny, I’ve started to observe certain things about the Spanish; for example the way the mothers wear high heels to pick up their kids from school, the late meals, the blaze mannerisms, the time they take to talk to you and help you, the way they always tell you that you have lovely Spanish (even though we all know that’s not true), their beauty in everything and their vivacious and passionate ways—especially with the children. Noticing all these things I moved throughout my day with a happier outlook than before, trying to immerse myself in the culture. The first few days here I’ve been very emotional, probably from dealing with a new culture and language, living with new people and other things; and today I had a good cry about it with my host mother Susi. It felt good to get it all out with her, so I didn’t have to feel guilty about not loving everything, she told me what I was experiencing was perfectly normal and that’s what most au pairs deal with too. She let me have some down town after that to think and that really helped me with everything. Though it wont all be smooth sailing from here, I know I shall make it work with a smile on my face!

This morning my host mother gave me the great gift of a lie in! After which I went to a Step class at the gym I just joined and then took a nice break in the sauna after working out. Following that Jen and I went into the center of town (a five minute walk from my door) on some domestic missions! When that was all said and done I headed to school to get the kids with Susi, we then and a quiet afternoon, well as quiet as you can get with four kids! We had lunch, did homework, had a visit to the park, some screaming sessions, some grumbles and rows but all in all things were fine.

I guess the thing I need to really work on is knowing that no matter what I have a blessed and wonderful life, filled with amazing things and that I may not be, I wont be, happy every minute of it, but that’s normal, that’s ok and that I can make this work.

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