Jared and I had our neighbor, Claudette, over for dinner on Saturday and it was so nice to get to know her and make another friend here. She is a middle aged woman who makes a living as a dog-sitter. She has a new dog she takes care of almost daily and they all are so cute and well-behaved. After meeting our two kitties it was evident that she is not just a dog-lover...she is an animal lover. She made such a fuss over Tot it was funny! She was feeding him table scraps, talking sweet talk to him in French and even suggested we enter him into a local contest because of how "cute and animated" he is. As she was leaving she shared that her own dog had passed away in recent years and how she used to feed him leftover chicken off the bone and offered to bring those scraps over for Tot now that her dog was gone. I thought that was such a sweet gesture and proof of how much she enjoyed our little boy! :) I am a proud Mama, what can I say?
Marley is not the extrovert that Tot is and typically hides when new people are around, I brought her out in my arms so that Claudette could see her and her reaction was the same as everyone else who sees Marley for the first time which is: "OH! She is gorgeous!" and then she quickly witnessed that Marley KNOWS this about herself as she "princessed" across the room with this attitude of "Yea, I know I'm gorgeous!" It's always made me laugh at just how different cats personalities are. Especially these two. Love them both to pieces!
Claudette speaks EXCELLENT English and we were able to share stories of the differences in our cultures. She has never been to the United States and asked questions like "what kind of foods are unique to America that you can't find here?" Our list was long! :) I was able to share with her a Reese Cup that my parents had brought with them during their visit, something they don't have here. She loved it! She confirmed that they don't have anything like that here. She promised to have us over in the future and she would cook authentic French food so I'm excited about that! :) I'm glad to know she is nearby. She gave us some suggestions on things to do here and is going to give us some information on affordable French lessons. I'm certain I will have more stories about our new found friend in the future because we plan to have more get togethers from now on!
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Jared had another break through with his chemistry recently but as I've come to find out...chemistry is an up and down battle. You make some headway and then the next week you stall out, and then another breakthrough can happen and so on before you ever get the finished project. It takes several months and is challenging all along the way. But despite him being in a tough spot right now, he remains optimistic and so do I. I'm so proud of him! I'm anxious to see how God ultimately uses him in all this.
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I caught a cold over the weekend so I have been taking it easy the last few days. I think it was the quick change in weather. One day it was snowing and literally the very next day it was warm and sunny enough that I had all the windows open in our apartment. I'm not at all complaining. This has been the most enjoyable winter of my life. I'm used to frigid cold winters in the Midwest so this is definitely a nice change! I can enjoy the snow but it doesn't stay around long enough for me to be miserable or get sick of it. I hate to be cold so this type of winter is perfect for me! :) Some of the locals claim that this is a cold winter for them and to that I say....SERIOUSLY?? It's even better than this?! (Sorry to all my family and friends back home...I'm not trying to rub it in!) I'm mostly trying to encourage more visits! ;)
Hope all of you are staying warm and healthy! Cheers!
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