Domestic Affairs

While I was surfing the web last month, I chanced upon Alison Day’s website and got a free online tarot card reading. I also marked a little X in the box asking if I wanted to have a tarot card, with its symbolism explained, e-mailed to me each month. Last time the card arrived one week ago it was The Tower card.

After the Death card and the Devil, The Tower is likely to be the card that causes most fear and consternation to the receiver. The Tower represents sudden and sometimes shocking changes in events and can often represent problems or delays relating to your home. At the time I didn’t think much about it, I just hoped nothing awful would happen.

Then just a few days later Esperando and I were having a discussion about how much traveling he has been doing, and how I don’t like being down here alone quite so much. After some intense discussion and pondering, we decided to temporarily abandon our little casita in Santa Rosalia to relocate to Northern California for several months. We've only been living in Casa Abeja since January, poor little house to be abandoned so abruptly! But he will be where he needs to work, and traveling will be easier in and out of the Bay Area than the 2 ½ hour drive to Loreto for a flight that is only available on Tuesday, Thursday,  Friday and Sunday. I won’t have to be alone so much of the time. It is an abrupt change to our home life, just like the card said. In my wildest dreams I never would have imagined such an outcome.

Lupita will go with us and become one of those spoiled Chihuahuas like Beverly Hills Chihuahua. The down side is our other children (pets) will have to stay here and be minded by the muchachas. Thank God for the muchachas; they love my pets like they were their own. I know that they are well cared for when I leave, even the feral kitties that live outside get proper attention.

On another domestic note we gave the big dog a bath today. It took about 45 minutes. First I called him, he knew what was up and ran away from me. I had to chase him all over the yard. I finally caught him and led him back to where the hose was. Since the city water only runs 2 hours a day on no particular schedule, it can’t be counted on. So we connected the hose to the hot water heater. We gave him a good soaping—he actually likes the bathing part. Then, on the advice of his Denver groomer, we bought a big air blower to dry him. This is how you get the loose and matted fur off; I never could have imagined it, but it works like a charm. The only problem is that Sweet Pickle hates the blower so we have to muzzle him or he will bite us. It was all going on like a charm and he was being very cooperative—then the next thing I knew he was attacking me. I really appreciated that muzzle, and the fact that I had Esperando there helping me. After the bath I was as exhausted as the dog. That was yesterday; today he is dry and shedding like hair was going out of style. Everything is covered with dog hair, the floor, our furniture, our clothes, even our food!!! Gross.

Casa Abeja, a Stuff Story

A friendly little Talavera bee greets visitors at our front door

You may remember that Esperando had been remodeling Casa Abeja (so named Bee House because when we bought it the attic was full of bees and honey.) Well, after a year of hard labor he has finished it! We have spent the last four days moving over. Right now it looks like a disaster zone, with loose Stuff, and bags and boxes of Stuff piled up everywhere. It brings back memories of past moves, every one of which I have hated--packing and unpacking is the pits! My feelings about this haven’t changed one whit. I feel like I am trying to solve one of those hidden object computer games but one of my own devising. You’d think with all the practice I have playing those that finding things would be a snap. But it isn’t. This was not one of your anal organized moves itemizing the contents of each box, but a random Stuffing of items into empty cartons and bags. Today I finally got the last pickup load of Stuff packed up from our two rooms in Casa Boleo. I never could have imagined that we could have so much Stuff crammed into our two small rooms there.

Our new home

Maybe I should explain a bit. Half of our Stuff was purchased when we lived in Australia and were planning a move to Ghana six years ago. Esperando was working in Ghana at the time so all our Stuff was moved from Australia to Ghana and stayed with him for several months there before we realized that the Ghana thing was going to south. Then all that still packed Stuff was sent back to Denver where it sat in it’s unpacked boxes in our basement for the next 5 years. Well--except for some minor tweaking of boxes trying to figure out which one might hold Esperando’s wet suit. (We finally decided that had been pinched by the packers in Australia). The trouble is, that other than a general idea of what sort of Stuff I bought in Oz for our Ghana house, I couldn’t remember the finer details; and I had NO desire to open and repack boxes just to inventory Stuff.

Sweet Pickle milling around in the Stuff

In Denver before we moved here, I bought more Stuff that I thought we didn’t own yet or wouldn't be able to find in Santa Rosalia. And that is why I have unpacked (I am not kidding): 2 can openers, 2 reamers, 6 spatulas, 10 whisks, 4 sets of measuring cups, 2 sets of measuring spoons, 25 beach towels, 40 packages of cute cocktail napkins, way too many wine glasses, 5 shower curtains (for one bathroom)--plus about 15 bath mats. What was I thinking? In the bottom of the last box we found Esperando’s missing wet suit. Yay! In addition to all of that I brought great amounts of emergency supplies. Stuff we couldn’t get down here such as Nyquil, Tylenol, Motrin, certain prescription medicines, hair dye for pale skinned women, dog food and cat food, etc. Now we can stock a store! The trailer we brought the Stuff down in has sat like a storage container untouched for the last 1-1/2 years. It turns out that we have way too much Stuff to fit all of it anywhere in this house. And my body is sore from bending, twisting, sorting and lifting. My calves ache, my back aches, my knees are broken and my brain is on sensory overload. Every time I try to sit down for a rest I think of something else I need to find or to do.

Despite the Stuff lost in boxes, Frida’s renewed interest in peeing on beds and couches to show her distain, and the piles of random Stuff beckoning to be put away, it is nice to have our new found privacy and truly our own space. Sunday, our first night in Casa Abeja, we celebrated by opening a bottle of Champagne that we hauled down from the U.S. Later, as I lay in bed I could see all the stars in the heavens through the window—and even though the motion sensor light outside the window came on for a few minutes to annoyingly glare in my eyes, I was still quite happy. I never believed we would move in.

Sour Pickle checking out the new digs

I am just imagining this hurricane, this can’t really be happening

Last night we were in the middle of a hurricane that had been downgraded to Category 1. Now that it was just a minor player and no longer the Category 3 or 4 that it began life as, it was as if it didn’t exist with the weather service. Last night’s trajectory still showed it passing along the Pacific coast completely skirting us, while in fact the satellite photos showed it had shifted coasts and was passing right directly over us here on the Sea of Cortez. We got up at 3 am Wednesday morning to start mopping. While Esperando and I were busy shop vaccing and mopping, the trees spun and flopped, the indoor feral cats hid and still haven’t come out, doors and windows thumped and bucked like wild animals against the wind, the air rumbled, the walls and roof leaked in places and finally all over, and water came in under the doors.

For awhile in the morning there was a long break of light wind and passing clouds when we ran errands, had a very early lunch then went back to bed for a while. Esperando periodically called his co-worker who lives in Loreto 3 hours south for status reports so we could try to figure out what was coming our way. They were totally inundated in a leaky house that was being buffeted by strong winds. At 2:30pm the wind and the rain started to intensify here and by 4pm I was sure the bedroom doors were going to burst open, they would bow inward an incredible 3 inches before snapping back into place. I finally sent Esperando off in the rain up to Casa Abeja to retrieve his electric screwdriver so we could screw the doors to the frames.

At 5pm Esperando started making a pizza while I kept the shop vac running, alternating every 5 minutes between our bedroom and the kitchen. The power died shortly after the pizza came out of the oven, somebody’s roof that was blown loose knocked the lines down just behind us. The end of electricity meant no more shop vac, and our enthusiasm for mopping expired shortly thereafter as we had been mopping all day. Then the water came in under the doors of the bedroom and kitchen and covered the floor about an inch deep in both places, merged in the hallway, then slowly began to advance across the dining room, then dribbled and pooled down the stairs into the foyer. We watched it advance as we sat and drank wine on the couch in the sitting area (up a flight of stairs on the opposite side of the foyer) and listened to the wind rave like a beast and the water drip inside. In the hallway where the guest bedrooms are located, the ceiling leaked sufficiently to inundate the floor. Water-filled blisters of paint, would advance down the wall expanding to 5-inches in diameter, before they would pop open adding more water to the floor as well as chunks of paint residue. About 9pm we finally slogged down the hall to spend the evening in the driest one of the guest rooms, no fan, no air conditioning, but the window open for the breeze that emitted little spits of water through the screen onto our prone bodies.

This morning we walked downtown to discover that nothing was left of the main road. Several large bulldozers were running trying to re-establish some semblance thereof. Tons of dirt, rocks and debris have been washed down from the north-south road to the bottom of the east-west road to bury it the major intersection with the highway in cubic yards of mud and rock or undercut it, leaving behind 10 foot deep ponds filled with water here and there. Everyone was out walking around with muddy shoes looking to see what had happened. Tin roofs were blown off, power lines down, part of the Eiffel church steeple ripped away, cars and trucks had been washed down the road and in some instances tumbled and buried in muck. Mud everywhere, everywhere. One of the unoccupied sailboats in the harbor broke loose of its moorings during the night and punched a hole in her side. This storm so much more severe than the one we experienced last year, I am glad it was not any stronger, Other than totally flattening the town, which a Category 2 would probably have done, I can’t imagine how the damage could have been any more severe. Luckily for us the mine got a generator up and running for the guesthouse so we now have running water, fans and an oven.

The tree that the fire department chopped back in our yard yesterday is still standing. Our antique French house was saved from obliteration when the security guard realized a big tree in the backyard of the guesthouse was going to fall on its roof. The mining security crew came, climbed up that tree that was being tossed around with dangerous high winds, and chopped a bunch of huge limbs off which saved both our house and the tree. The guesthouse also lost two of its big mango trees, and a bunch of smaller trees. A neighbor lady lost two really big old trees, ripped out by the roots. My guess is these trees were probably planted about 75 years ago and this storm is the 100 years’ storm. I don’t believe Santa Rosalia was ever the center of a storm like this before.

It is now 5:30pm a full day later, Thursday. As for the weather, it is still overcast and spitting rain on and off, breezy. The sea is gray and leaden, churned up with dirt. Our internet service is down so we have no way to know, but I believe the storm has stalled out over us and is just there until it spins itself dry.

Like the Queen on a chessboard, Hurricane Jimena advances

What exciting and alarming things will happen today, I wonder? The storm advances, now a Category 5. The sky is dark and threatening (this morning we had the lights on inside the house, it was too dark without them on); this morning we had thunder and lightening and the hurricane had not made landfall and was south of Los Cabos yet. The Muchachas (my maids and the cook) and I stood outside taking pictures of the darkening sky and it started to sprinkle a little bit. They helped me carry all our little pots of cactus starts that we have been raising inside and put them on the sideboard which we have covered with plastic. I don’t want them to get soaked and sloppy before we can get them in. I will drag the roses to a protected corner, the pots are too big and heavy to bring inside.

Sometime today we will have to bring in the patio furniture and other outside accoutrements so the wind doesn’t blow them away when it really starts to get nasty. Esperando will need to put up the home made storm shutters (plastic sheeting over window frames so we can prevent some of the water that the storm will dump from coming into the house). It isn’t expected to be more than a Category 1 storm by the time it reaches us. I know from past experience that all the hired help is not expected to come work when they have their own homes to attend to, so it will just be Esperando and me and the mops (we have just had Señor Jueves go out and buy us two new large mops, the kind you use for sopping up water, not cleaning floors.)

Photo of Arbol de India on right before being trimmed by the bomberos.

This morning the vigilante came to the kitchen and told the girls who alerted me that something was happening up at our ‘new’ old house. Since I couldn’t understand what they were telling me, I walked up to the house to find the fire department, accompanied by the only fire truck in town, chopping the limbs off the enormous shade tree (with a machete) that stands by our old French house. Last night our vigilante suggested we should have some of the limbs over the roof removed so that the hurricane winds couldn’t damage the roof. This morning without any inducement from us, here is the fire truck and crew. I am sort of staggered. Esperando is gone off on his morning walk with the dog. I ask them to please wait before they cut down any more as he will show up shortly. It is such a grand old tree I would hate to see it hacked to death. I feel a little embarrassed that we are getting such preferential treatment even though the Mine did donate the truck to the town. When Esperando comes in he has already passed by the fire truck and bomberos, he said it gave him a bit of a heart attack to see the fire truck parked in front of the house we are remodeling. The bomberos told Esperando that we are going to get a lot of water out of this storm, and they would just take a little bit off the tree. When he started going through his emails there was one from the mine safety guy telling us that the firemen would come to deal with our tree this morning. When you can’t keep on top of your millions of emails 24/7 you just don’t know what kind of interesting notices have been sent to you.

Having left those nice boys the bomberos en cargada of our tree, it was with great dismay that I returned an hour later and saw what was left of it. It made me sick to my stomach. The poor tree has been hacked and chopped and will not be offering us any shade for another 10 years. I knew in my heart that this cutting back of the tree was a really bad idea left in the hands of these guys. After all it had weathered countless previous nasty storms. They told Esperando, oh don’t worry it will grow back in no time. I don’t have the least confidence in this statement, it will take the tree many years to recover.

We went to run a few errands and I sat in the truck while Esperando went into the paint store, it is on the main drag. There was quite a bit of traffic, all the fishermen were hauling their boats out of the water on rusty creaky trailers, many with flat wobbly tires such that the trailers were scraping the ground in low places. The pickups hauling the trailers were loaded for bear with all the accomplices and relatives of said fishermen riding along in the bed. The trailers were piling into a vacant lot to unload boats and the in-coming trailers with boats and outgoing boatless trailers were creating quite a traffic jam. A cop held up further back in the line had his lights on and was sounding his siren to signal his displeasure. Three sailboats are still tethered down below in the harbor, I guess they are not planning on leaving or would have done so by now. They are owned by people (gringos) that live here year round. I am surprised they didn’t decide to get out of Dodge while the going was still good. There is a sense of hurried preparedness downtown; lines to get water griffons; lines to get money at the bank; lines of jumbo plastic terracotta colored tubs for catching water that drips from your ceiling water for sale on the sidewalk in front of the hardware store; and lines of military vehicles in front of the main plaza. Most remarkable is the utter silence that accompanies all of this, especially in Mexico the land of music with no music playing anywhere.

Esperando has gone off to board up the office windows. I sent the Muchachas home early, about 10 minutes after the sprinkles first started up. I sent the dog out to poop. Now it is pouring down rain, no wind yet. I think we have a wet 2-3 days ahead of us. It must be a very broad storm mass as the eye is still considered to be 33 hours away from us and we are already getting a steady rain.

Arbol de India after getting butchered by the bomberos.

Casa Abeja update

Even in the absences between Esperando’s business trips and my current situation side railed in Denver with my shoulder, work proceeds on the reconstruction of Casa Abeja, our cute little bungalow in the historic French district of Santa Rosalia. We have been working on it now since last December. I am ready to move in, but of course it is not ready yet and I am not there to do the moving in. When Esperando is there he continues working on the house, and then leaves his lads to carry on while we are gone. Above we start with a photo of the house as it looked when we bought it.

In addition to Jorge and Francisco who work directly for us, we have several principal players working on our house: Ramon the plumber, a trustworthy hardworking guy but hard to find for add-on work even when you owe him money; Ruben the talented tile/concrete/roof man; and Carpintero, the carpenter (or Carpy as some refer to him). The prices we are charged seem low for what we would pay in the U.S. for anything similar to what we get, but they seem high to the Mexicans lads that are helping us out who tell us we are being ripped off. Esperando finds small town life in Santa Rosalia like it used to be in our country; the hardware stores let him take stuff away without paying right then and there, knowing that his credit is good and he will be back with the money later.

The tile work is now completed in the bathroom and the interior is all painted, we are still missing the chair rail on some walls which Carpy is to provide. We still lack kitchen appliances and finished plumbing in the bathroom. The windows and doors are in, the exterior has been painted and re-roofed and new railings are under construction around the perimeter. It is all taking shape. The concrete base has been put in for fence railing.

One of my worries is whether the large dining table we bought at the Galeria de la Paz (to ultimately bring back with us to Denver) is actually going to be able to be juggled through the door frame of Casa Abeja. The doors are fairly narrow and the table is a large heavy piece of furniture that is one piece of construction.

Esperando sent me some photos recently to update me on how the house is looking. While we were admiring the tile work in the bathroom I lamented that I wished they had left an inch of rust colored tile between the blue of the edge tile and the sink, at which point Esperando said they needed the room for faucets—whoops! What is wrong with this picture? Ruben left the room for the faucet but not the opening. I suppose it may be ready in two more months as Esperando keeping telling me!

Two more months—ha!

Esperando has been dedicating every spare moment to the remodel of Casa Abeja (when not at the beach). You may recall this is the old French style house we purchased that is adjacent to the guesthouse. Through the town doctor, who is well versed in Santa Rosalia’s history, we discovered that our house was built in 1886 and was the only house on Mesa Francia (French Mesa) that was occupied by Mexicans instead of Frenchmen. The occupant was the government official who represented Mexico’s interests at the Boleo mine during the years of 1886 through 1953 when the French ran the original mine. We do not know if a Mexican official lived there that whole time but that was our house’s original purpose.

Esperando has taken the house apart board by board and replaced them on the outside to maintain the French style, and on the inside where the original lumber could not be used he has replaced it with drywall. As Esperando and the Lads have gone through room by room they usually find some coins in the walls. We have about a cup’s worth of old coins, most with no value, although there is an old silver peso, and another smaller silver coin from 1937. He also redid the plumbing and electrical to modern code. The corrugated metal sheeting on the porch roof has been replaced. We now have new cabinets and tile in the bathroom and the kitchen. Carpintero was so proud of his cabinetry he brought the owner of one of the better grocery stores in town over and he was so impressed that he declared it the best ‘rustic’ kitchen in town and wants one just like it. All the doors and windows have been replaced and the exterior is painted a darker turquoise.

Interestingly a fellow coworker whose wife is from Santa Rosalia told us that when her sister was first married many years ago she had lived in our house. The house had fallen into such disrepair that when she saw it the last time several years ago she cried because she had such fond memories of it. I keep asking Esperando when it will be ready for us to move into and the answer is always the same—two more months.

Color has taken possession of me

Today the moment of truth came for painting the exterior of Casa Abeja. Last week I had selected paint colors for windows and doors, window and door frames, and exterior wall colors based on an especially attractive color scheme Hermana and I saw in Taos. Today Esperando had me go up to the house and look at the colors I had chosen which were roughed out so I could verify that I liked them. It was then I realized the exterior wall color was identical to the existing one and somehow it wasn’t our house if we didn’t change it a bit. And without the adobe colored walls that had made the jade green doors and teal frames look so fantastic in Taos, the aqua paint I had selected didn’t work so well. The upshot is we had to stop the painter from finishing out the wall color and make a new trip to the paint store to change the color scheme.

When we first started discussing exterior paint, Esperando told me we were only going to buy a small quantity to “test drive” because of my propensity to want to fine tune colors, so he was expecting this reversal. We drove slowly through town so I could look at a few other buildings and focus on exactly what color scheme I really wanted and by the time we reached the store I knew what to get. The frustrating thing at the paint store is that their paint samples are bound in a 15-page book with 30 chips on each page and no way to check to those chips you like against the other chips on a backing page. I decided I better keep my scheme simple with colors I knew would work together because I couldn’t easily do any chip comparisons. So now I have selected a much deeper shade of aqua with more of a blue cast, an off-white trim for frames, and deep golden yellow stain for doors and windows.

Still that was probably the easy part—now we had to get the paint mixed and pay for it! You wouldn’t think a store that just sells paint could be so busy in such a small town, but I swear 15 people came in after we had selected our paint. The paint mixing machine was broken so the paint had to be hand stirred. The stirrer person got involved in an extended conversation with some other person wanting to buy paint, so our paint was seriously overstirred while we could have been paying for it. Then they waited on an old lady, even though we were there first. By the time we left the store 40 minutes later you could barely move so many people had come in. We bought two gallons of oil-based paint and one container of thinner to the tune of US $70. Esperando thinks the paint is highly expensive here especially considering its poor quality. And he still doesn’t believe me when I tell him that the color choices I made today are perfect. Just like a man to not believe a word you tell them.

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.

Home owners

It’s ours now—Casa Abeja—sadly the bees had to go, but it will still always be Casa Abeja in their memory. We own it lock, stock and barrel. Its either a great Mexican investment property or we’ve squandered our hard earned cash (its sort of like looking at the glass as half full or half empty). Anyway you look at it its not going to be one of those houses that is ready to just move right into.

Yesterday as we were walking around it a nicely dressed older Mexican lady came over and started taking pictures of it. Was she trying to document it, does she want to show how we aren’t going to keep with its heritage nature (which we are) so the government can sue us, is she taking photos for her friends or the previous owners? We didn’t think to ask her, but it seemed rather strange to us at the time, especially since she didn’t even speak to us and was doing this right in front of our faces. I would have to say she wasn’t especially friendly. We are really curious what that was all about.

The owners came up from La Paz to clean out the rest of their stuff and get their money. When we walked through the house yesterday we found the previous owner had forgotten to remove a lot of stuff including religious poster art, an old brass crucifix by the window, a cowboy hat, some men’s shirts, an Eskimo cooler in the kitchen and a child’s toy. They were surprised that anything was left as they thought they had emptied the house. I guess they weren’t very attached to any of this stuff or maybe just couldn’t see it for the shock of finally selling the house.
Esperando had it fumigated yesterday morning for creepy-crawlies and the fire department hosed out the beehive. The Lads removed the large dead tree that was growing right against the east wall. All this has happened in the space of 4 hours. Next on the agenda was the removal of the old water tank. Esperando and the Lads borrowed a forklift to pull the old concrete water tank off its tipsy stand. This morning was the big day. The forklift came hauling down the road with Esperando driving. Next was the sawing of attached piping and securing the tank with a rope. I was sure one of them would get crushed while the pipes were being sawed through. The nimble Gardener climbed up on the roof and over to the lift which had been raised level with the tank. Flaming Mike had tied a rope around the tank already, so the Gardener tied the knot onto the liftblade and we were in business!! This is only the beginning. Next will be hauling away a yard full of large trash such as an ancient refrigerator, the old water tank and stand, and other large metal debris and garden trash.

How will we keep our hands off bringing it to life? It’s his nature and mine to want to fix things up, but is now the right time with the economy so sour? It needs re-roofing, new exterior doors, entire rewiring, plumbing, bathroom and kitchen remodel, not to mention cleaning, polishing, stripping interior floor, drywalling interior walls, painting interior and exterior walls, and the list goes on.

Pistol packing mama

Yesterday, with false information about Esperando's FM3 card status and the time frame for bringing in personal goods (6 months after card issue, which turns out NOW not to be true) we convinced ourselves that we HAD to send all our personal things and household goods for Casa Abeja during this little hiatus while Esperando is grounded. First we were going to have movers to do all this, that evolved into they move it we pack it—now we are buying a trailer in the next few days to haul it ourselves. I wonder what I did in some previous life spend this life packing boxes?Our trailer will be hauling our 12 boxes from Australia (those that were yawing in the basement); a few more local boxes; the stuff bought yesterday at Costco—TV, DVD, toaster, coffee pot, cuisinart, etc.; and couches, mattresses and a coffee table purchased yesterday at Sofa Mart.; bbq grill;vacuum; some framed prints and books; the list grows and grows!! No wonder I was so wiped out last night, even for a power shopper I was overwhelmed.


The thing that really makes my hair stand on end is that we don't actually own the house yet, that happens in late August if all of the cards (Mexican bureacracy) fall into place right. And then beyond that we still have to remodel the house before we can move in (give that another 6 months minimum). The advantage of the trailer is that we will now have a portable storage unit where we can store everything until we can move in. I see it now—the next two weeks will evolve into a frenzy of packing and snarling at each other—and lists! You should see how long the lists are! Before we were planning on hauling all this down there so soon, I had actually thought I had a lot of time on my hands. Shows I shouldn't go thinking these random pleasant thoughts. I still have to figure out what clothes to take and get those suitcases packed too. My brain just goes fuzzy when I try to figure that one out. If anyone of you try to call and I am snappy blame it on the pistol packing mama syndrome and forgive me.


Today I get my nightguard from the dentist. I am told I will be there 1 to 1-1/2 hours while he fits it to my mouth. Apparently multiple fittings are involved and for the first week I just wear it after dinner, then progress to wearing it at night once the fittings are more finalized. I must say that its not any wonder I am grinding my teeth.


Tomorrow night our housesitter is coming over for dinner. If I was better organized I would have everything she needs to worry about written down, but I don't feel like doing that yet.