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Infinite Country by Patricia Engel | Thoughts

   Published : 2021   ||    Format : print   ||    Location : Colombia ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆   What was it about the country that kept everyone hostage to its fantasy? The previous month, on its own soil, an American man went to his job at a plant and gunned down fourteen coworkers, and last spring alone there were four different school shootings. A nation at war with itself, yet people still spoke of it as some kind of paradise.. Thoughts : Infinite Country follows two characters - young Talia, who at the beginning of this book, escapes a girl’s reform school in North Colombia so that she can make her previously booked flight to the US. Before she can do that, she needs to travel many miles to reach her father and get her ticket to the rest of her family. As we follow Talia’s treacherous journey south, we learn about how she ended up in the reform school in the first place and why half her family resides in the US. Infinite Country tells the story of her family through the other protagonist, El

Spring means Hope | Weekly Snapshot

Hello you guys! I seem to have forgotten how to blog with everything going on around here. I'm sure I'm not the only one. Hope you all are coping okay?

Last week

Things finally got to some semblance of a routine this week and I've been finally feeling better and in charge of my emotional faculties. I've taken over one of the upstairs bedrooms and set it up as my office-cum-homeschool room. In other words, the room is a big mess, but both my daughter and I are able to navigate the room fine as everything in the room has a meaning in our own brains. We're both very organized that way. I've been using a sit-stand desk for my work laptop and I'm a little glad that I got to try this system finally. When I'm not working, I'm helping the girl with her letters, numbers, or fun activities. Trust me, this is difficult but we worked through the system this week, and think we have it under control. My father-in-law watches my son during the day as the little man is too little to be doing school but also he is uber-naughty and will mess with my best-laid-plans in a jiffy, which is one of the reasons, I moved into the bedroom rather than work in the open office room.

This Weekend

The weather has been looking up this past week so we've been doing daily walks in our community, and practicing social distancing. Yesterday, we were all outside and either basking in the beautiful weather or getting the yard ready for the season. We realized that if not for the necessity to stay home, we wouldn't be this relaxed on a weekend. Usually, we are either tired from the work week or catching up with the weekly chores.

Loving, Doing, Enjoying

Since I'm not doing much of anything and a little of everything, my brain's also working that way today. So here are some tidbits of what's going on around here.

  • We discovered the Dalgona coffee this weekend. It's a ton of work but well-worth the effort. So creamy, so delicious, and a very enjoyable drink. If you check out the #dalgonacoffee hashtag, you'll see just how viral this drink is now. The joke is in not having much to do while being quarantined and having all the time to whip up a coffee drink, when you could much quickly and easily make your usual drink.
  • We ordered delivery for the first time since the stay home started. To be frank, despite all the confidence outside on ordering takeout or delivery, we've been feeling terrified about it. We finally mustered some courage this past week and ordered pizza from our favorite place. It felt good to lay claim to one more piece of normalcy and gobble up that pizza like nothing else matters.
  • Spring. I'm going to miss not being able to drive through the city and checking out the Spring flowers. In this time of great tragedies, something as routine and predictable as Spring can lift one's spirits and dare you to feel hopeful. I'm fully aware of how lucky I am to not have to get out of my house daily and how I can work from home. I hope no matter where you are, you have something to keep you cheerful, even if for just a moment.
  • For some reason, I decided to rewatch the movie 2012 this week. That was a bad idea. I slept with thoughts of just how much worse things could get and what if a climate tragedy happened while we were so busy fighting off this virus only to turn around and see this other monster destroying our home. I'm going to try to stay off apocalyptic or dystopian media for now.
  • No matter how much I struggled with this new normal over the past couple of weeks, I've realized that I've never in the past been able to see my kids so much or spend so much time with my family. I've also not ended a workday in the past with so much energy.
  • My daughter is already measuring at Kindergarten level and my son is saying "What?" a lot. We're having a riot of a time with these kids. 
  • Our dog never likes it when we leave her alone but she's been getting used to it over time. Yesterday, however, when the husband stepped out to do a grocery run, she was loudly moping about. She's going to be distraught when the stay home order is lifted and life returns to the old normal.
  • I'm reading nothing right now. It's not that I'm not able to, but goodness, it takes a LOT of time to prepare lessons or activities for the girl. I'm myself trying to figure out how do you ever learn to differentiate between "p", "b", "d", and "q", and I'm sometimes cursing that these letters aren't unique enough or that some rogue letters make different sounds (cake vs cent, axe vs ace). Why isn't English more predictable? And why do 5 and S look similar?
If you're doing any kind of homeschooling while school is closed, I'd love to hear all about it.

On the blog



Linking with The Sunday Salon at Readerbuzz and The Sunday Post at Caffeinated Reviewer.

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