Adios Boston, Hola Antigua

Maddy and I are leaving Sunday for Antigua, Guatemala. I was invited by one of my professors to work on some child development projects there but first (minor detail...) I need to build my Spanish skills from practically non-existent to at least conversational.

So we're heading there for two weeks of immersed language study. As luck would have it, the town where my professor lives and where I'll be hopefully doing some work later just happens to have a concentration of highly respected and inexpensive language schools (here's a link to ours). So, with Greg's encouragement and a little blind audacity, we decided to give it a try.

{Moment of my nervous and excited dance. Think Snoopy but more scared.}

We'll be staying in the home of my professor and doing one-on-one Spanish classes every morning for 4 hours, then spending the afternoons and evenings exploring and trying out our blossoming linguistic abilities. It sounds like the school and the home where we're staying both have wireless internet so I hope to post semi-regularly while I'm there.

Although I've had my moments of nervousness, I'm getting really excited to try this and to take my spunky and sunny Maddy with me. That quiets the anxiety I have about whether I'll be able to learn Spanish, if Maddy will like it, if it will live up to my high hopes, if we'll be safe, if Maddy will eat the food, if my professor will get tired of having us there so long, etc., etc.

See you soon...

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p.s.

I came across a really cool site while I was researching Antigua. Dozens of cities around the world participate jointly in a daily photo project. Sometimes they have themes, like colors or typical breakfast, but mostly they are simply fascinating views into life in locations around the world. You could spend hours here. I couldn't find a main coordinating site but the Antigua page had a list with links. Enjoy!

A bouquet of sites, from me to you

What's a girl to do with thousands of hours on her hands while she bides separate "four hour windows" for the cable guy, the paint company estimator, appliance delivery, the piano tuner (okay, he gave me an exact time not a time window), and the furniture deliverer?

Finish unpacking? Hmmm...interesting idea, but no.

Overhaul my entire bathroom in a day? Sorry, not that ambitious of a homebody. (But hats off to you, friend!)

No, I have been surfing the internet on the one rogue open signal in my new neighborhood. And now (in a bid to make it seem more productive than it has been) I'm sharing the fruits of my labors--fun tools and sites to wow your friends and amaze your neighbors.

Big Huge Labs has a great menu of fun tools to use, including the frame function I used here to turn a photo of Maddy into a postage stamp (not to be actually used by the USPS, of course. Especially since they're not 39 cents anymore). You can also do other stamps, a polaroid-style border, film frame, etc. It's very easy and you can upload photos from your computer, Flickr, or any URL. So cool. They also have the mosaic maker that I used to create yesterday's post. To upload photos from your computer (and not flickr) for the mosaic you just have to do the free registration on the site. Trust me, you can lose hours here just playing and experimenting.

I don't own this, but it looks really great. Do you know anything about it? Curio 4 (for macs, sorry pc owners) lets you create digital bulletin boards for projects. I think I'm especially swayed by the testimonials of novelists and writers. Hmm....maybe this could finally be the trigger to writing that novel that's been wandering around my head (or at least meandering through my intentions). A little digging found a review here.

I have a fondness for the old card catalogs of yore. When I came upon this Catalog Card Generator I had to use it. (In fact, I used it to make my earlier blog banner.) You can type in whatever you want (the prompts ask for title, reference number, text, and scribbles). Each time the handwriting scribbles are different so if you don't like how it looks, run it again for a change.

Colorcharts is the ultimate paint chip site. You can view color palettes from virtually every paint company and it provides a matching service between brands. For instance, my painter is using Benjamin Moore but I saw a color in a magazine I loved that was from Farrow + Ball. So I just entered the color and it pulled up all the nearest matches in the other brands. Perfect for those decorating geeks among us...{me!}.

MIT (yes, that MIT) has opened all their course lectures, syllabi, and other course materials to the public. For free. OpenCourseWare is a "a free and open educational resource (OER) for educators, students, and self-learners around the world." How cool is that? Browse through the departments, download a lecture, or engage your brain in a whole course. Next time you are chatting with a co-worker or neighbor, you can drop the nuggets of knowledge in casual conversation. When pressed you can say, "oh, I learned that at MIT" and be telling the truth.

Enjoy!

Armchair travel

I love a good trip: love the planning, the anticipation, the new experiences, different perspectives, glimpses of different styles and ways of living. When I don't have a good trip brewing, I love to travel vicariously. Here are my latest picks for some good journeys from the comfort of your own computer chair.

-Basic French: Carol is the proprietor of Basic French, a great shop in Red Hook, NY (and online, too!) of everyday French things. (I've never been there but had a great experience ordering from her...she even sent a handwritten note along.) A couple of years ago, she spent the summer in France with her daughters. I loved her stories about their time there + only wish she would take up the blog again. Still, like a favorite book, I like to look in and re-read now and then.

-Palazzo to Do: Suzy has purchased a 200+-year-old Italian home in the south of Italy. It's great fun to check in on her ideas and progress. She's living one of my alternate realities, where if I could live multiple lives I would be adventurous and live abroad. Plus, she has great ideas and links about home design + decor in general.

-Happy Campers: One visit to this site and you will be hooked. It's a combination camping site (for the British Isles), blog, and wonderful seasonal ideas. Beware: you will want to book a flight right away.

-See the World with Your Kids: I have this fantasy of taking a year off, buying five "around the world" tickets (did you know you can do that?) and seeing the world together. In fact, when it looked like we were going to sell our house but not have a house to move into, I seriously considered it (notice I said "I" seriously considered it...Greg just humored me and laughed). After all, two of my kids are the youngest in their class so missing a year of school wouldn't be that bad, right? This is a great site with ideas and advice for real travel adventures with kids.

-Matt and his crazy dance: Have you seen the videos of the guy doing a funny Elaine-from-Seinfeld kind of dance, in locations all over the world? Well, he's off again and blogging about his adventures.

Well, bon voyage, fellow armchair travelers!

People watching

Who doesn't love a good dose of people watching? The Sartorialist takes the past-time to a whole new delicious level. It's like sitting on a bench in New York City, taking in the comment-worthy, sometimes outlandish/sometimes wonderful/often both, but always distinctive style choices of the Apple dwellers. (Be sure to look at the fabulous Easter Parade outfits straight out of the 1920's + 30's.)

This is one method of urban renewal...

This is what happens when creative minds are turned loose on an abandoned estate in Scotland with 70,000 litres of paint (sorry, I'm no good at converting it to gallons): a 60-second fireworks display where the fireworks are actually paint. After you watch the commercial, check this out to see how they did it. I love creativity running amok (amuck?)!