Category Archives: Spanish

Holiday Order Progress – 3 Dec 2021

TGIF! Though I’m not quite sure what my excitement is about, as I’m going to be knitting/working pretty much 24/7 for the next 3 weeks. 😂 But it’s Friday, yo!

I’m currently working on a new stack of waffle washcloths for an Etsy order, and perusing YouTube for Spanish programming to watch while I knit. I’m all about the multitasking.

I hope your Friday, and your weekend, are off to a great start!

A desktop with laptop and monitor, and a colorful stack of dishcloths, with one cloth on circular needles.

Working, Learning, Living – April 2021

Three months have -=zoomed by, and I am having a difficult time understanding that it’s April. Trees are budding, the lawn is growing, and the pollen pretty much guarantees that I’m not opening the windows. Ahchoo. We’ve already had temps in the 70’s, and the AC has been on most evenings to get the top floor back to a comfortable sleeping temperature. Thankfully we still get some cool afternoons where the house temperature stays tolerable.

Bright hand knitted washcloths sitting next to a notebook and paper handouts with Korean letters printed on them.

Work has kind of been all over the place. I’ve been busy updating my Etsy shop photography and adding in some new items. I’m currently knitting one washcloth in every color of cotton yarn I own, so that I can make some new color bundles, and also have a stack of cloths at the ready should I need to redo photography. And I’m also knitting orders, (that’s an order in the photo above), when a sale appears, which is always a good day. Lately there have been several days where between photography, Etsy, and social media, the afternoon just evaporates on me, and I’m shocked to see the sun setting.

On the learning front, I’ve been alternating my time between reading and studying business books — mostly around how to sell, and how to better market your shop/items on social media; as well as diving back into language studies, which in my case is Spanish and Korean. I took Spanish in high school, which was several decades ago at this point. I am reorienting myself with mostly vocabulary, though there is some verb conjugation as well. With Korean, it’s all new, and also overwhelming at times, though I seem to push past that. My goals for the languages are different. I’d like to get fluent in Spanish — I think it’s highly useful, and if I were to go back into the traditional workplace, I think it would be helpful, if not open up some new opportunities. With Korean, I have to be honest — I just want to be able to speak it, and understand Korean dramas without having to read subtitles. I do occasionally fantasize about moving to South Korea and teaching English, or working for a company that sends me to South Korea for some unknown reason, but I think those two things are highly unlikely to happen. Still, it’s fun to think about, and if I ever found myself in a place where I was fluent in multiple languages, maybe I would seek out online tutoring. There are always options, and I feel like with the web, there are new opportunities all the time. For now, I’m enjoying studying and learning something new.

I have been lacking sleep lately, which probably explains my lack of enthusiasm for working out — I’m back to an every other day workout schedule, and trying to get back to working out 5-6 days a week. I’ve been luring myself to the treadmill with language videos or KDramas, but even that failed to motivate me down to the basement last week. I’m trying not to guilt myself too much over it. We’ve done well with salads and relatively healthy meals for dinner, while doing very small breakfasts and lunches to shave off calories. Some days are better than others. I still plan to workout tonight. too.

Lastly, I’m hoping to overhaul this blog in the next few weeks — I need to look for a fresher theme (this one is ancient), and I need to get a schedule going where I can share more about language studies, knitting and projects, mindset and goal setting, as well as Twitch and crafting for charity. And I’d just like to get more regular about writing and posting in general. I’ve been slowly inching in that direction, trying to post here when I also post on Instagram or Facebook, trying to get consistent with the habit. The blog tends to be the wordiest of my posts, and that really might be why I tend to fail at it (writer here – always procrastinating). So you’ll be seeing some more activity here in the near future.

Have a great rest of your week!

¿Hola cómo estás?

It was a busy day – boxed up an order and got that off to the post office. Completed some business related to-do items. And I began working on some washcloths that are using up all the leftover bits of skeins.

Image of a 1980's era Spanish textbook and a knit washcloth

I decided to drag out an old text book while I was working this afternoon, and see what I remember from high school Spanish. Verdict: I remember more than I thought I did, but not enough to make much sense when speaking it. 😁

Spanish Level 10, Fluency 23%!

DuoLingo

DuoLingo

I’ve been using both DuoLingo and online resources to relearn Spanish and this morning I finally advanced to Level 10, with my fluency hovering at 23%. For some reason, I can’t quite commit to memory the words cuándo (when), cuál (which), cuáles (pl. which) or quiénes (pl. who). If I read too many practice sessions using all of these words, as well as cuánto/cuántos (How much) and qué (what), I start to make mistakes with all of them. So for now, lots of notes/cheat sheets.

I also notice that now I start thinking about Spanish equivalents while writing english. John and I were playing Technodefirmacraft over the weekend, in which bears attack out of nowhere, and yelling el Oso/un oso! (the bear/a bear!) became a lively joke for a short time. 🙂

Anyway, I’m happy with my Spanish progress. I’ve been learning in spurts between baking, cleaning, laundry and writing.