Days Under The Sun

Boy it is hot here today. I feel like I'm sitting in an oven. A concrete oven with windows and doors. We still don't have curtains on the windows. I would think having them would probably keep the temp down in the house a little. Let's see what the temp is reading right now...Okay, It's reading at 90°F but the the "realfeel" is 99°F. There is a storm brewing for tonight and I say - bring it on! I love the coolness the rain brings. I also find that I enjoy the overcast rainy days too. I get a million more things done and have more energy because the sun isn't cooking me or the house. Poor Papa is out in the sun most of the day and it really is draining for him.

So it's been a lazy day for me. I went for a walk this morning with the kids and by 8am I was drenched in sweat. I've been trying to get more exercise and I figure the sun comes up here at 5:30 am so the earlier I get moving in the morning, the more I get done before the heat of the day starts. It seems that once I have lunch ready around noon I can't seem to bring myself to work much until at least 3pm. It's just too hot inside and outside. Anyway...exercise. I miss the health club. I miss my nice super air conditioned climate with these sweet studios where I would go for my various fitness classes. I'd drop Brother Sprout off at their super fun daycare center and off I'd go. I'm a "class groupie" as I was called by a certain personal trainer from the old health club. I just am not that self motivated to go through all the fancy equipment by myself with only me and my MP3 player. If there are other people, it's fun and it induces an aerobic heart rate while working some muscles too - I love it! One of my favorite classes was this hip-hop class. Sister Sprout and I would go together Tuesday nights and she would sit in the back of the class and dance and watch a bunch of us strut our stuff to some serious sweat inducing music. Yeah, that picture is NOT me- I'm way more babe-o-licious. Ha!

Yardwork
So what else is new around here. Let's see...we are growing some grass in our yard. Papa hired this fella that has been working around the colonia to fix up a section of our front yard with nice grass. He showed up one day with a bunch of tools and started streaming off a lot of spanish. Hondurans speak fast and they cut off words a lot so I was not understanding much of what he was saying. Even after I said "No hablo espanol" and "no inteindo" he kept going and going. Then Sister Sprout came out to find out what was going on and he starts to rattle off to her. She looked just about a dazed as I did. I finally go and get my cell phone to call Papa. I hand the phone to the man and he didn't seem to know what to do. Maybe he doesn't use phones very much and probably never a cell phone. I decided to just turn the speaker phone on and Papa started to talk. He seemed a bit startled that he could talk that way. Turned out that he wanted to tell us that he was going to work in our yard, but not until the following week because he got another job he needed to get done first.

Here is the first part of the work. The laborious job of digging up the ground. There was so much construction material and concrete pieces and he dug it all up with a pick ax and hauled it away in a wheel barrel. All that was left was dirt and a lot of little rocks. This was day one. Once the ground was leveled the next day was spent collecting pieces of good grass. I'm not sure where he was getting the good grass cuttings from. Maybe other yards he had worked on?

Well he showed up with a big bag of cuttings the next day and had his daughter with him to help plant. She is 12 years old. Obviously not in school. She seemed so sweet with a fresh face and quiet demeanor. I noticed too that her toenails were painted pink. I love her pony tail too. Still just a girl, but out working with her father to help sustain the family. The mother works too, but I did not see her working in our yard. They worked a long day planting grass. Once all the grass was planted, she kicked off her shoes and gave the grass a good long water. At the end of the day, Papa paid them, gave them a pound of meat and I gave the girl a popsicle for the road. Now it is up to us to water the grass at least twice a day and they will be back from time to time to weed. Hopefully in a few months we'll have nice soft and spongy green grass (I miss MN grass). I've been out there myself picking weeds. I actually like yard work and might have even done this job myself had I had the tools. This wasn't too much different than some landscaping and concrete work I had done in my old house in MN. I probably wouldn't be out there between 11-3pm though.

Watering duties have been given to Sister Sprout most mornings but Brother Sprout loves pitching in and helping. Here is photo of him after Papa drenched him in water for fun. Brother didn't seem to care one bit. He just loves using the hose.