Thankful Thursday 3-19-15

Unsurprisingly, it is Thursday again, which means time for a new Thankful Thursday post. I know some of you have been anticipating pictures from my trip to Honduras, and I do intend to share some. We combined all our pictures together at the last team meeting on Sunday and so I’ve been sorting through over 700 pictures this week. 🙂 I hope to start posting some soon.

Along with being thankful for all the pictures and wonderful memories they capture, I am thankful for many things this week. I’ll start with the four I thought of five minutes after I posted last week’s Honduras-trip-inspired thankful list and then go on from there. 🙂 I am thankful for:

• discovering a delicious new way to eat beans and tortillas while in Honduras, called a baleada [ball-eh-ah-da] – you spread black refried beans on a large flour tortilla (or a baleada, I think it might be made from a different, thicker mix than regular flour tortillas, but I’m not 100% sure on that), then you put a layer of queso, a certain kind of fairly salty white cheese that is sort of between mozzarella and colby, which Hondurans use in various forms on everything, then crema, a less-sour, less-viscous variation of sour cream. Then  you fold the whole thing in half like a quesadilla and munch away. I got one at the airport on the way out with chorizo sausage and hot sauce, cooked on the flat-top after folding till it was crispy on the outside: so good. 🙂
  

  Sunset, Honduras
  3/5/15

• getting comfortable enough in my Spanish to carry on several conversations without any other English speakers to assist (I think I’m at about a first or second grade level, maybe)
• experiencing the multitude of yummy things Hondurans can do with pork (I didn’t write any of the names down, so I don’t remember them, but they were all good)
• that I have yet to get tired of rice and beans (most likely because I have the option to eat something else anytime I’d like 🙂 – I do genuinely like the flavor, though)
• one afternoon this week that was warm enough, sunny enough, and wind-free enough for sitting outside on the patio for a little bit. The combination has been rare – yesterday, for example, it was very sunny, but only 35 or 40-ish (2-5 C), and the day before that it was 65 (18 C) but very windy. We are now forecasted to get anywhere between 1 and 4 inches of snow late tonight and tomorrow morning. *sigh*
• coolant to refill my car that is slightly leaky 😛
• learning to use Photoshop better to make improvements (color corrections, straightening, etc.) since I have been self-taught so far and it is fun to see the results

Alright, I have been distracted long enough looking up spellings for foods and variations on things (such as crema vs. creme-fraiche – same idea, different countries) that I’ve taken much longer to make this post than anticipated. But, hey, the internet is a fascinating and wide jungle, with some useful things in it along with the mud. 🙂 Do you like beans and tortillas, or beans and rice? What is your favorite way to eat them? How’s the weather been in your part of the world? You’re welcome to add anything you’re thankful for this week to my list!