My daily life (as of late) is more or less summed up by the above photo.  Take care of Diego, study some French, sew some stuff, make some food – Voilà!  Obviously this is punctuated with seeing friends and a weekend excursion here and there, but I’m talking about my typical ‘9-5’ when I don’t go anywhere.

Diego is doing well – he’s excited to come home for Christmas and to go to a dog park or two!   He’s really into lizards these days – caught his first one a few weeks back- G.R.O.S.S. !!!! Quite the little hunter I must say, those lizards are FAST!  He’s also being a sport about eating my homemade dog treats lately.  Yes, I just said – homemade dog treats.  Baking for my dog can officially be added to the list of ‘Stuff I Never Thought I’d Do‘ after: moving to Gabon, blogging, and basically all the other activities in this post.  But you know what they say – “When in _____ (any place where you have alot of time on your hands), one dabbles in all kinds of stuff?” haha!

Also on the aforementioned ‘list’ – studying! My french is coming along.  I recently started classes at L’Insitut Francais du Gabon.  Its a big cultural center that does language lessons, puts on shows, etc!  I go three times a week for 2 hrs a day, and THINK I’m learning something.  (j’espére bien!/I hope so!) My class is small- there are only 6 of us, and it’s an interesting group.  There is a girl from Eritrea – double points if you know where that is! I had to look it up.  A guy from India, he’s very charismatic. Then there’s the guy from Angola who just moved to Gabon with his American wife and their baby – they have lived in Namibia, Angola, South Africa and will soon be moving to the south of Gabon in the jungle jungle to open a practice with the Red Cross.  Really nice couple!  We have a lady from Canada, (my neighbor) she lives in my complex, and lastly – a Spanish woman.  Imagine French in a Catalan accent!  Awesome sauce!  She is constantly speaking in Spanish, it’s like I’m taking two languages at once.  Haha.  Anywho, we are still in the beginning stages – covering material that I had a jump start on – numbers, regular verbs, and a handful of other things.  I am enjoying the class so far, but ask me again when all the material in new and I’m totally overwhelmed! Haha.

Dude.  I’ve been sewing lately!!!  (I know.)  Say whaaaaat? Studying AND sewing? Hell hath frozen over. Well, the opportunity presented itself and I’m really enjoying it, I may even be slightly addicted!  I had made a few small things with a friend’s guidance about 6 months ago, but recently I was able to borrow a machine from my neighbor and I got to experiment!  Much different game when you can sew whenever you want. I’ve been on a rampage!!! Never really took into consideration how technical sewing is.  It’s very math based and takes a good amount of pre-planning, so I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.  But with the bounty of fabrics here… it’s a relatively easy hobby to maintain and a handy skill to have, too!  I recently operated on a pair of Brandon’s swim trunks.  Not too shab!

Then there’s the cooking.  Nothing too surprising there – we gotta eat! There are restaurants here, but the longer we’re here – the less we go out, because eating a meal out is a minimum 2.5 hour time commitment.  Not to mention, mega expensive, food usually comes out cold, and there’s a slew of other nappy details I won’t disgust you with.  So yeah, lots of cooking.  When you eliminate eating out (including take away) which doesnt really exist here, thats a lot of food prep! I went through a burn out period a little while back but have found some inspiration lately! I have dialed in my Dutch Babies and they are perfection – thank you Foodwishes!  I borrowed some bravery from a friend at the frozen meat store and discovered the pork shoulder! It doesnt look the way it does in the states, but it does taste good!  Did that up in a braise of burgundy wine and coriander – tastycakes! I also re-created the Smokey Blue, our favorite pizza from FireWorks Pizza in Leesburg, delish!!   My friend and I did pumpkin custard filled beignets last week – UMM! LEGIT!!!  I kind of want to open a beignet food truck now.  Most recently I was stoked on some homemade flour tortillas!  I will definitely be buying some Masa Harina when I’m in the states next so that I can make a decent corn tortilla.

So yeah, more or less – that’s been my jam lately!!

In other news, I will be in SD by the evening of December 6th (with Diego!)  Brandon will be out shortly afterward!  Looking forward to: eating everything, going to a grocery store, going to the dog park, binge listening to christmas music, and hangin out!

L