Slow Progress

Things are puttering along at a slow rate here. Not "Winter" enough to get excited about, but not yet Spring.
This morning I let the goats out to play in the yard and so Champagne could introduce Cornelius to the herd. I wish I had taken my camera out with me, but, forgive me, I forgot!
The goats loved stretching their legs and reacquainting themselves with each other. I was worried that Molly (our farm bully) would get aggressive towards little Cornelius, but she behaved herself.
Cornelius was entranced with the great wide world outside his pen! He wandered off from his mama and suddenly realized..."Mama is not here! Where's my mama!?!" and started up a baaing and squalling that brought his mama running.
After letting everyone play this morning, I lured them back to their respective pens with the goat equivalent of candy...oats mixed with raisins! Oh my! The look of bliss on their faces is quite funny as they chew, lol! It's like giving me Godiva chocolates.
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I am piddling along on my Declutter challenge. I think I will make much more progress in February as I am still organizing. Gotta post a few pics of "before" and "after" for you guys.
I have found that I sometimes work better when I dangle a reward in front of myself....so, I have decided that when I have the kitchen, dining room, den and living room decluttered and organized...I will paint them! And make new curtains. Since we have an open floor plan, I think I will go with a pale green in the dining room, a light caramel tan in the living room and a medium chocolate in the den. The kitchen...I dunno...trying to find a color that will work with the green, tan and chocolate. Right now all the rooms are white. Blah, bland, boring white. I really, really don't like white rooms. I LIKE COLOR! I think that comes from growing up in base housing where all the walls were white and we didn't live there long enough to repaint.
When we finally moved into our own house after my dad retired from the military, our color choices were....uhmmm...a.....little extreme. My oldest sisters room was electric blue.Seriously bright! I shared a room with my other older sister and our room was lilac. My mom and dads room was coral.Bright coral. The kitchen was teal blue and the living room was mint green. The bathroom was pink and brown.
My father said it looked like a paint store threw up in our house, lol! It took a few years for us all to calm down our color choices, but my moms house is much more sedately painted now.
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I received a call from the kids school yesterday. That, in and by itself, was not unusual. What was different was the person calling had a HEAVY Hispanic accent and was having difficulty in speaking English.I could barely understand her! After I had asked her 3 or 4 times to repeat herself, I was getting frustrated (and I could tell she was, too). I told her that because of her heavy accent, I was having a problem understanding her. She retorted with "I don' hab a hebby aset." So,I calmly asked her if she could please have someone call back who did not speak English as a second language. Ten minutes later, another call from the school.One of the vice-principals telling me that there would be an open house on the 31st to explain the schools new tutoring program.Then the vice-principal asked if I was the one that had a problem understanding the young woman that had called before. I told her I was, and she proceeded to tell me that the young lady was born in the US and spoke English quite well  I let her finish her speech, then informed her that I was NOT born in the US and yet, no one had ever complained  that they could not understand me since I was 4 years old. I also told her that the young lady (turned out to be a student intern) needed to work on speaking English as she was extremely difficult to understand on the phone. I was informed that MANY of their students spoke nothing but Spanish at home and the transition to English at school is not that easily done.
...sigh...
Fine. I told the vice-principal to please make a notation that any calls in the future should come from an English speaking person, as this family does not speak Spanish. She told me that in this school district, we are in the minority.
I have lived in other countries. When in other countries, I never expected everyone to speak my language. I know enough French and German to get around. The Darlin' Man knows enough German and Korean to function in those countries, and a smattering of Dutch, Italian and Chinese.
I don't feel I was rude to the young lady. I was calm and polite. I think that since these kids go to school in the US (regardless of how close we are to the border), communications from the school should be in English.
Just another day in the Borderlands....