We have had great weather here these last three weekends. During the week the temperatures drop, the clouds come out and it’s Winter. But without fail, every Saturday morning the sun pops out. It pours into our bedroom windows and wakes us up early.

The plants are loving the weekends as much as we do and so I decided to clear out and plant another garden bed. I worked the soil yesterday and hope to plant it tomorrow full of salad greens and braising greens and whatever other seeds we have floating around the house. I also hope the ‘mice’ (rats) stop eating my kale.

We’ve also been having fun getting to know our new dog Stella*. We adopted her from a friend of mine who could no longer keep her in Santiago. The first month we had her was rough; she injured herself badly on our fence a few weeks in and had to get emergency surgery and lots of stitches. A fairly big veterinary bill and some typical puppy shenanigans later and we were ready to give her up. I’m glad we stuck it out with her though as she and Peter ended up being perfect insane playmates, thereby eliminating my need to give him constant attention. Everybody wins! Anyways, we’re all  in good spirits lately.

I kept thinking how nice this particular Fall has been compared to the past few here and I was attributing its nice-ness to the unseasonably warm weather. Today when I brought it up my husband reminded me that it’s likely the weather has always been this nice this time of year and that we just didn’t enjoy it before. I guess between dealing with car issues and money issues and homesickness we were never calm enough to appreciate the weather (or much else). I remember feeling jealous a lot. I felt like I was missing out by not having the same experiences as other people were. I was most definitely not having much fun for the majority of the house building process because it was hard and lonely and I sometimes regret not having been more purposeful about the whole process. Because I rebelled against it I missed out on a lot I think. It was so hard for me to let go of home that I didn’t give myself a chance to adapt to my new one.

Last March I started this blog with the intention of writing down my experience here in Chile before moving back to the States. (As I write this my husband is taking measurements for an addition to the house so clearly we’re not going anywhere just yet.) It’s funny how quickly things change and I’m so glad we decided not to leave. We’re both thankful that things have turned around enough that we can look back on those darker days and see lessons instead of just drudgery. I’m fairly certain there will be plenty more of those tough situations in the future but at least we got one down, right?

In other news, we made pizza for dinner last night and it was cheap and awesome. We also finally changed the clocks and gained an hour. And randomly, here’s a picture of the smoothie I made this morning.

Hope everyone is enjoying their Sunday. xo

(*We changed her name from Ella to Stella, if you’re reading this Tor I’m sorry!)

**This article I read got me thinking about this post and I think it’s worth reading. It also reminded me of this quote that I have to recite to myself a few times a week at least.