Author: ana

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weeknotes 17/24

this week it was our 18th anniversary! :) we celebrated by hiking a bit more of the coast, between portimão and benagil. it was a really nice day, overlooking the ocean, made even prettier by all the wild blooms that show themselves this time of the year.

later in the week, we went north by train on april 25th, and i wore my carnation to celebrate 50 years of democracy!

because the boy is still only eating a reduced set of things, i cooked and packed our meal, but forgot to pack some utensils… so we ended up eating it with coffee sticks from the train’s bar… 😅

and then up in the north we spent 3 days taking care of this chubby little piece of joy!

we and the grandparents took on babysitting duties to give my brother some peaceful time ahead of the wedding, and it was great. how is she so happy all the time?! it feels implausible that an 8-month old should be this easy to care for… but she’s just a delight, eating, sleeping and charming us all.

weeknotes

weeknotes 16/24

where were we…? i’m writing these weeknotes some time after the weeks they describe and they feel like ages ago, which isn’t ideal as my head tends to forget things quickly. still, i don’t want to let the habit die, so here we go!

on week 16, we went to the vernissage of a friend’s exhibition in tavira. he takes pictures and modifies them with digital filters to get something new. a lot of the images focused on birds, which is always a nice thing on my book. i got the idea that i could also do something like this for my double-exposure shots… but i think i’m too lazy to set everything up — and also to stay in the gallery all day, waiting for people to come by. maybe something for retirement!

after much stress about the upcoming wedding we went to loulé to buy a dress, after a recommendation from the knitting teacher, and it was wonderful! the lady runs a shop that specializes in this kind of fancy gowns, and immediately understood what i would be more comfortable in. so i was in and out of the shop in half an hour, which was bliss. :) the boy also found a tie in the same color, so we’re all set.

i also did the first run of the “couch to 5k” zombie program, which was cute. not sure if it will stick, but i think i’d like to give it a go.

at the knitting group, we made some crochet carnations, and i was so proud of mine!

general

weeknotes, 14-15/24

a couple of slow weeks.

the good news is that the boy’s blood markers have been excellent lately! they’re better than they’ve been in the last year and a half, which is amazing. the boy did take a higher dose of OCS for a while, and is now tapering it off… we’ll see how it goes.

we’ve been keeping to the potato diet, while slowly adding other ingredients to see the reactions. the first was dairy, which was a disastrous reintroduction on the first day, but quickly improved. the second ingredient was chicken — so far, so good. it’s nice to discover these flavors again, one by one. the diet has slowly transformed food from something that was always on my mind, to more of a background thing. i no longer think about going to places with the perspective of eating something there, which was something i’ve always done… it’s weird, but also kind of refreshing.

we’re crocheting carnations in the crafts class, and i’m so pleased with how it’s turning out. i hope i can wear mine proudly on april 25th! speaking of flowers, i bought some tulips at the market, and they made me very happy.

this week, i also installed a watering system on the raised bed, that will hopefully help the garden endure the harsh summer. the system came as a pre-made kit, but was missing some pieces… which made putting the whole thing together a very frustrating experience, with sub-optimal results. :( hopefully we’ll be able to find some more connectors to expand it.

we’ve seen a couple of nice movies these weeks, perfect days by wim wenders (which was so, so beautiful), and at eternity’s gate, about van gogh’s last years. since returning from france, i’ve been curious about his life and work — maybe we’ll go see a few of his paintings on an upcoming trip to the netherlands.

and just today we went to a birdwatching activity in the sapal of castro marim, and ended up seeing a couple of new birds: a red-crested pochard and a pallid swift. swifts are notoriously difficult to tell apart, so it helps to have the experts nearby to point them out. on the way back home, we made a detour to check out a lake that the boy had run by once, and ended up seeing another new bird: a great-spotted cuckoo! we also saw a mama coot with her 2 babies, and the bee-eaters are back in town, their gurgling chirps filling the sky once more! <3

weeknotes

weeknotes, 13/24

there’s not much to report, and yet (or maybe because of that), this was such a nice week.

the chinese classes took a break (easter holidays) and so the pressure to study and prepare also eased. the boy upped his medication and stopped coughing. it rained most days (a welcome change for algarve), and i tried to battle the caterpillars that plague my kale plants. we played a frustratingly difficult (yet hilarious) game of robo rally with friends and i came out last! and we watched oppenheimer at last.

i guess the biggest thing this week was that we started an elimination diet, in the hopes of ruling out food allergies that the boy couldn’t test for. basically, we eat just potatoes for a while, and then slowly re-introduce foods one by one, to measure and see the reactions (if any). this is not our first potato rodeo (just a more extreme form of it), but since i like potatoes, it’s not a big deal — i actually find it rather soothing not having to think what’s for lunch or dinner… it’s potatoes all the way down! :D

algarving weeknotes

weeknotes 12/24

funny, how coming back home is strange in the way we just smoothly slip back into our routines, into the netflix series and songs we were obsessed with before we left — and into the worries too. it’s like taking a week off from life, and then coming back… but everything is still here, still the same.

the first half of the week was overwhelming. chinese classes are going well, but each 2-hour class requires another 2-3 hours of prepping in advance… and to do that twice per week gets really intense. so much so that i didn’t go to the pool at all this week. :( i need to be better at managing my time, the eternal struggle.

the skies have been yellow for days now, and a thin layer of dust makes everything a dull color. the air quality this week has been amazingly poor, and the wheezing boy has been safely hiding inside, blasting the air purifier all-day long. it looks like we’ll get some respite next week, and hopefully some rain too, to wash it all away.

because of insomnia, i finished reading bride (which was quite a bit more explicit than anticipated 😳), and also listening to an artist of the floating world (which featured more post-war political guilt than expected). we also watched a couple of movies, barbie and the man who knew infinity.

the boy found out about some guided tours in a local olive processing factory, and so we went to check it out. we were the only portuguese among all the americans and dutch doing the tour, but it was quite fun to see all the things that go into processing olives for consumption. plus, the tour guide (one of the workers there), besides being super knowledgeable, was really funny too! and at the end, there was a feast of olives for tasting, as well as bread and folar made by her mom. truly, a delight! i want to see it again, once the olive season is in full swing.