Upgrade for the terrace

Yesterday Kassandra wanted to do another makeover.  She insisted she had found a lovely Spanish tile for the terrace, and nothing would convince her to maybe wait because she could change her mind again.

So we stripped the terrace of the previous floor and installed the new.  Even I must admit that the change suits the terrace well:

Before

After

"I'll admit, Kassandra, that the new floor is very pretty".

"Isn't it?  I absolutely love the central ornamental piece!  The other tiles just looked old, and since this is a new and modern home I did not like that.  Besides, the lady that made this floor is really talented.  I also bought from her the floor in the conservatory.  I must admit that I peruse her new creations often..."

"Surely you won't pretend to change another floor, will you?"

"Oh, no, dear, not anymore.  I think I am happy now will all my choices.  But in the future, who knows...?"

Off topic: English and Spanish languages

My mother tongue is Spanish. I have learned English along the years, since I was in middle school.

Of course, when I have learned the most is when my husband and I moved to the States from Spain. It was the first time that I had really to rely on my skills to talk to and understand people. There was not a teacher in hand to help me or a book to tell me the translation of something that was being said. The lovely people that I met were SO helpful when they talked slowly and looking to my face! To this day, I dread talking on the phone because representatives often talk very fast and not pronouncing clearly.

I have read a lot of books in English - I am talking classics from the XIX Century, as well as modern literature. And naturally, spending A LOT of time on the world wide web helps too, specially to learn new vocabulary. I am better writer than I am speaker - when I talk, my mind goes very fast and I tend to mix up the pronouns (he and she) and the verbal tenses and forms.

It cost me a little bit to understand TV and movies, and we still rely sometimes in subtitles - for example with series such as "The Sopranos". Song lyrics still are tough, depending on who is singing them.

When I began to think in English, as well as talking in English in my dreams, my husband told me that I should be happy, because that means that it's becoming like a second tongue, and that I am almost bilingual.

Well, now I am writing a book in my mother tongue. And to my dismay, I am finding myself relying on my dictionary to find the translation for Spanish words FROM English! I had to look up today "involve", "cue" and "vindictive", because for the life of me, I could not find the equivalent in Spanish. In case you want to know, they are "implicar", "señal" and "vengativo", respectively.

And this happens beside the fact that I talk to my family in Spain every day through Skype, obviously in Spanish. I don't know if I should be happy or worried...