I'm woken up at 5:30 am by the chickens and dogs. I try to roll back over for some more shut eye. 6 am and the radio station starts praising God at an ungodly volume. I can never actually understand the man, so I just assume that's what he's doing. What else could he be talking about for 30 minutes? I toss and turn, trying to smother the garbled words with my pillow, but to no avail. So I resignedly get out of bed. Besides, it's creeping up to 80 degrees already and I for one don't like sleeping in that kind of weather, so up and at 'em Carol, let's greet the day!
But first I have to acknowledge Monkey. As soon as she hears me stirring, she tries to stick her nose under the mosquito net. Some days she's successful. Most days she's not, so she just lies down to wait. Right where I put my feet. So sometimes I step on her. Oops. As I get up and head to the bathroom, she follows me. Don't know if this is normal dog behavior (and I know it's not a proper conversation topic among gentleman and ladies, but who am I kidding, you guys aren't any of those things!) but she really just likes to sit there while I do my morning business. Sometimes she'll put a paw up on my leg, as if to offer moral support or something, but most of the time she just curls up in a corner for another cat nap and waits for me to move on the next morning task. (I swear, dogs really do sleep about 16 hours a day.)
Lately the winds have been blowing ridiculously hard and frequently, and that combined with the dry season means lots of dust and leaves inside my house every day. So I begin the Sisyphean task of sweeping out all the dust and leaves. And it blows right back in. That, combined with the incredible amount of shedding that goes on in the house means that it's quite impossible to keep the house clean. Oh well. I tried. On to the next task.
The dishes are starting to sprout legs and arms so I decide I should wash them. The first splash of water from the guacal sends the ants and other creepy crawlies that have set up shop scurrying. The frogs hiding in the moistness of the drain pipes come hopping out much to Monkey's everlasting enjoyment and I get on with the washing.
Then I proceed to water the worms. Yes, the worms. I have a worm box where I put all my kitchen scraps, save for meats, fats and oil etc. The worms are a happy as pigs in mud, or worms in dirt I guess, eating away at all the awesomeness I throw in there. And for little to no work, I get organic fertilizer. Well, except I have to water them. Which if anybody were walking by and saw me dumping water into a box full of dirt that never seems to be sprouting anything, they meet just consider me even crazier than they already think I am.
So with all those tasks out of the way, it's on to my workout – thanks Jillian Michaels for proving that it IS possible for me to sweat even more than I thought I could! Oh and she's right, she will get you 6 pack abs if you follow her workouts religiously. Mine are still hiding in the little blue igloo cooler, but not as much as before. So onward shredded one!
Next is breakfast, with Monkey underfoot, hoping that just this once the delicious creation will be for her and not the food from that stinkin' bag of dry dog food! It's now about 9 o'clock or so and time to do some real work. The new school year is just around the corner, so I've been heading to school to help the teachers get the classrooms ready for students. It feels like kindergarten because it's lots of cutting and tracing and gluing up decorations and signs around the rooms. Just the type of “creative” things that I'm good at, so yay for artistic therapy!
In the afternoon I head back to my house where I work on project ideas, proposals, calendars or paperwork. I also spend some time reading, and every once and a while I have to test out the hammocks just to make sure they are still functioning. Because even though the siesta is not an officially recognized pasttime in this country, I think it's a shame to lose this marvelous tradition and am doing my part to bring it back! So I practice my hammock napping skills and then it's time for my afternoon rounds. I go to visit my neighbors in the women's group and we chat about future or current projects. How their shampoo is going, what they want to learn next etc. Evening rolls around with the cool breezes – the plus of being in a desert, the sun goes down and the temperature drops about 10 degrees. So that's my time to be out and about. I visit until I'm hungry and then I excuse myself and head home.
Once home, I make dinner, then relax and read as late as I want. But not too late. Cause I need to get my sleep so that I can get up at 5:30 again when the rooster crows!
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