Oh Happy Day!

Do you ever have those days when you think “things” are conspiring against your plans and decisions? I’ve been practicing the law of attraction – again – and it’s like an avalanche of negative things were poured out on me as a test. I decided yesterday, after much thought, that I’d like to blog about my life here in Colombia: specifically as it relates to art and the local culture. I like to sit with my cup of coffee and write in my journal while Jerry watches the news in the morning and after putting down some personal thoughts in my hard copy, decided I’d come upstairs and post an entry here. Well…yesterday and today have been two of the worst internet days I’ve experienced. We may have a connection for 5 minutes and then it goes away for 15; comes back for 20 minutes and goes away for 3. Frustrating. Especially while trying to find and book flights Friday night and yesterday or load pictures here, etc. It seems to happen with more frequency in the morning and since I don’t speak Spanish – yet – I can’t even call the company to complain (Pedro does that for me) (He doesn’t complain nearly as good as I do) which wouldn’t do me any good because sometimes the attitude here seems to be “the way it is, is the way it is”. So…I’m again learning patience and the law of attraction helps tremendously. For those of you that haven’t heard of it, I’ll try to explain it in a nutshell without getting preachy. What you focus on, with emotions (feelings) is what you’re going to attract to yourself. So…if I get pissed and focus on how aggravating the internet is and how frustrating not to be able to communicate my problem due to my lack of Spanish – then I’m just going to attract other feelings of aggravation and frustration that make me pissy about not only the internet problem, but anything else. Instead of letting the problem get to me, I’m writing this blog post in a Word document and will copy and paste it as soon as my connection is restored. It makes me feel good to ‘get around’ the problem so it’s win-win. I’ll also spend some time today learning the Spanish language which is beginning to not seem as hard. So, my focus has changed, actually just since I’ve started writing this and I’m feeling good; hence I believe I’ll attract good.




P.S.(My family knows how badly I need to practice what I preach).


We have a doorbell that rings at least once a day and sometimes hourly. The Colombian people are very industrious and vendors continuously walk (or drive donkey carts) the streets shouting out what they’re selling. Some ring the doorbell to make sure you see or hear them. My friend calls it the traveling yard sale but I don’t think of it that way because they aren’t yard sale prices. I do love the practice though. I learned the names of fruits and vegetables and the voices of who is selling what. We have vendors that sell the aforementioned fruits and veggies along with shoe repair men, ladies who carry bowls full of candy on their heads, donkey carts full of plants and pots to put them in, cleaning supplies such as brooms and mops, a sweet corn drink that we haven’t tried yet, ice cream, and bollo (pronounced boy-YO) – which is made from white corn (I think), is tasteless (at least the white variety is) but very popular as a side dish here in Barranquilla. We’ve been collecting plants and large pots since moving here and finally went to the nursery last week and bought a couple more to complete a grouping for the front yard. We have NO grass in our yard – just concrete but we do have a planter along the wall in the back around the terrace. I wrote all that because the doorbell rang a few minutes ago by the man delivering soil. He sold us pots last month and then brought back a bushel of soil the next day. These terracotta pots are very large and heavy and he had three on his shoulder the first time he came by, which we bought, and then again yesterday, another three. He also carries the soil on his shoulders and I’m here to tell you that Jerry and I together can barely lift it. And this man is always smiling and happy and extremely fair with his prices.


Anyway, it looks like we have an internet connection now so I’m going to copy/paste this and post it online with a picture of our beautiful plants. This  was taken from the far corner of the driveway which shows the house next door along with part of ours. Those little pieces of fabric hanging on the line up on the balcony will be described at a later date.