A new year

Gosh here it is January 3 already! January 1 came and went without much fanfare from us as we were in bed by 9 pm, but we were awakened at midnight by firecrackers, car honkings, and the fire siren going off. What a bunch of dull people we are. We have been having a nice quiet vacation from household staff and guests over Christmas. The guesthouse has been shut from Christmas Eve through January 5.

We have been doing our own cooking and enjoying that, but I am not as good at keeping the house clean as my staff is—just plain laziness—can’t blame it on anything else! The mopping part is the part I hate worst, I have to walk all the way back to the laundry room, try to get the mop not too soppy and manage to wash the floor in my room and the kitchen on one mop’s worth of water. Then of course I have to wait 20 minutes for the floor to dry because of course the mop IS too soppy. All my nice long fingernails have broken off over the holidays with the housework and are back to the nubs that I used to have in Denver. I will be glad to have maids back who do a much better job of this than I do. Also I have been digging around in the cook’s recipe files these last few days looking for some new dishes for her to try in the coming months. I also finally found and bought shelf lining paper so that should keep them busy for a bit since we are minus houseguests at the moment.

Esperando has been busy working every day up on the Casa Abeja. Yesterday he got the main electrical in, and today he and the Lads have pulled all the old tongue-and-groove off and put all new beautiful tongue-and-groove on the north side of the house. No way a bee could squeeze between those boards now. Today Esperando found a receipt in the wall for some guy that owned our house in 1977, it was stuffed in the wall to an addition that was made. Apparently the guy was an engineer at the mine, and the Lads know of the family. We are curious to get our hands on who has owned our house. We believe it was built in 1885 by the French.

January 5 all my staff will be back, Esperando will go back to work, and the Architect will get the bathroom roughed in. Then it is for us to buy a tub, bath sinks, faucets, toilet and the like so we can have a functioning bath. By the way, Penelope is pregnant again.