Day to Day Differences

The other day I had a list of 5 or 6 things that I wanted to shop for.  Knowing what is usually available here and what is not, I figured on being in 5 or 6 stores and not getting everything on this list.  If you live north of the border this might sound odd to you; but for here it is fairly normal if you want something that is not used a lot.  Some of my baking/cooking needs/wants fall into this category.

Here was my list:
1. Ginger, ground/dried
2. Chocolate chips for cookies
3. Doughnut cutter thingy
4. Cake decorating bag
5. Paper thingys for lining muffin/cupcake tins

So I hit the following stores:  Soriana, Ley, Santa Fe, several sweet shops, a cake supply shop which apparently has gone out of business, Woolworths and Waldos.

Now out of those stores I bought exactly ZERO of the things on my list.

As a last resort I finally broke down and went to WalMart.  There I did find the Ginger and the cake decorating bag.  They also had chocolate chips; but being kind of frugal I refused to pay their weight in gold and left them there.

So out of a list of 5 items, I have now visited perhaps 8 shops and found 3 of the items on my list.

Revised List:


1. Ginger, ground/dried    FOUND
2. Chocolate chips for cookies    FORGET IT
3. Doughnut cutter thingy
4. Cake decorating bag   FOUND
5. Paper thingys for lining muffin/cupcake tins


  I have one more sweet shop to try for the rest and then I will give up gracefully and make do without or improvise.
Shopping for out of the normal range of things here is not easy.  The bakeries all sell doughnuts so I know that the cutters must be available somewhere; but to find out where is the thing.  I guess I should have just gone to bakery and asked them to begin with and maybe saved myself some exercise?

So, anyway, this got me thinking about some of the other differences here that are now normal to me; but perhaps to others would seem strange at first.

Let's see, so you are on your way somewhere in your car and you are stopped at a red light.  Now, you would not usually see this as a shopping opportunity; but here it is.

 While waiting for the light to change you can buy or have the following done for you:

1.  Buy a newspaper
2.  Have your car windows washed
3.  Buy whatever fresh fruit or veggies are in season
4.  Buy fresh flowers/roses
5.  Buy toys, balloons, or decorations for whatever holiday is coming up
6.  Watch a juggler, clown or fire guy
7.  Donate to the Red Cross or whatever group happens to be collecting at the time

So, the light has turned green and you now have clean windows, some fresh fruit or veggies and a toy for some neighbour kid, you have donated, have your newspaper/flowers, etc. and you are now parked in the parking lot where some older gentleman has guided you into an available space.
While you are inside doing your shopping you can have your whole car washed to go with the now clean windows.
You come out of the store and another elderly fellow will help you with your purchases and guide you to back out of your parking spot safely.

All of the above of course cost you a few pesos here and a few pesos there; but you are now fully stocked up and have a clean car.  You head home.

While sitting on your patio and watching the world go by, there will also be many more shopping opportunities.

The following people with trucks or on foot will pass by your residence:

1.   The guy selling fish/shrimp out of a 5 gallon bucket with ice in it.
2.   The guy selling clay cooking pots
3.   A guy selling statues of the Virgen or paintings
4.   A lady selling plastic food storage containers
5.   A lady selling health supplements
6.   A guy in a truck selling small kitchen appliances
7.   A guy in a truck selling fruits/veggies
8.   The usual trucks selling water, gas, etc.
9.   The corn tortilla truck/car
10. The flour tortilla truck/car
11.  Someone selling bedding with Disney characters on it and also soft childrens armchairs
Now while you are sitting on your patio looking over all these things for sale you can also listen to the sounds of your neighbourhood.
The birds, dogs, cats, chickens, perhaps a young goat waiting to be made into birria, children playing, neighbours chatting, firecrackers being set off, etc.,

So, for us this is normal.  Would it seem normal to you?

Day To Day Happenings

Weekend over it was time to begin a new week by heading over to San Carlos to the Monday morning art class.

I will have some of my paintings for sale at a show/sale at El Mar Restaurant in San Carlos this weekend, so if you are from around here stop by have brunch at the restaurant if you are hungry and at the same time have a look at the various artists work that will exhibited.

Art class over, I headed for some groceries and then home and did some baking.  Deep freeze is beginning to fill up I am happy to say.

Tuesday dawned sunny,breezy and chilly. I went downtown to pay some bills and then to Spanish class.  Class finished we headed for an early lunch as some of our friends are headed back to Canada tomorrow.  A tasty lunch of seafood and then home for their pup to have a farewell visit with Roy before they headed back to their house.

I have been having some pain in one of my teeth for a while now and finally yesterday I found I could no longer chew on that side of my mouth without awful pain so made a dentist appt. when I got home.

This morning very windy and cold again, heavy coat weather for sure.  Off to do some more errands and then to the dentist.  He found I had somehow broken one of my upper molars right in half and so it had to be pulled.  Several shots of Novocaine later and some wiggling and the broken tooth was removed.  Cost 500 pesos or about $39.00 CAD, this dentist is perhaps a bit more expensive than some; but we like his work, he is gentle and does not take any longer doing the work than necessary.  This is a definite plus for someone like me who has a distinct aversion to dentists.

Not sure what the rest of the week will bring; but definitely some painting time in there somewhere.

I finally finished the set of 3 Blue Door paintings, here is a poor photo of the 3 of them together.  All 3 are now for sale either separately or together as a set.

Hope your week is going well.

Blog Slacker; Home Busy

Man, how time flies when you are having fun, I can't believe that it is almost a month since I posted anything on here.

I may not have been here; but I have been busy.

At the end of December we bought a deep freeze, for a myriad of reasons.  I love to bake bread, buns, etc.; but in the summer here it is just too hot to turn on the oven.  In the winter though it is nice to have the heat in the apartment as it is our only source of heat, our electric heaters have died over time and we didn't use them much anyway.

Another reason was that we both love turkey breast and around the Christmas season is the only time we can find it here in one of the stores, neither of us likes the brown meat so buying a whole turkey doesn't make sense for us, either size wise or meat wise.  We love roast turkey breast with cranberry sauce and then sandwiches the next day.  The breasts that I can buy here are large and when cut in half by the butcher, each half with give us 2 meals.  A very nice friend also muled some Cranberry Sauce down here for us and when that runs out I will try making some with some dried cranberries which I can get here.  With only having the deep freeze portion of a 9 cubic foot refrigerator there isn't much room for storing meat chunks long term.

So you can see the need for a deep freeze.  As space is an issue for us as well as the electricity cost to run it in the summer heat, I only wanted about a 5 cubic foot one.  I was surprised to find a few freezers here in the stores; but the smallest was a 7 cubic foot, (Frigidare brand),which I bought.

They delivered it in 2 days and it was damaged, which they pointed out to me as soon as they started to unpack it.  They put it back on the truck and said they would return in another 2 days and they did.  This time it was in perfect condition.  They unpacked it and brought it into the apartment for us, (up the stairs, etc.) and we were happy campers.

After letting it sit for the afternoon and overnight I plugged it in and it seemed to be working well.  So, let the baking begin.  After a trip to the store to stock up on flour and other baking supplies I was set to go.

Since then I have baked my way through around 17 kilos of flour along with many other baking supplies.  We have enjoyed eating fresh buns, bread, cinnamon buns, raisin tarts, pumpkin pie, gingersnap cookies, peanut butter cookies, bran muffins, etc..  Some of it has made its way downstairs to the landlady for her to try and we have also eaten a good deal of it.  Roy got brave the other day and got on the scale to find out that he has gained 4 pounds, oops.  Slowly, but surely the deep freeze is filling up.  I did manage to buy the last of the turkey breasts in the store and so we have about 8 chunks of that in there also.

After todays baking of buns and french bread loaves the freezer is starting to look fuller, which I like.  Still more to go; but a grocery shopping run is in order to get more flour, eggs, etc..  Oh well, another day.

I have also been busy painting.  I finally finished one that I have been working on and have also been working on a commission painting for my landladies livingroom.   She chose a photo she liked and I had a canvas made for it, 2 ft. x 3 ft. so it is taking some time as it is quite involved.  I am also working on an oil painting of the church in Magdalena de Kino, Sonora.  I have a dog portrait to do also which is on the back burner at the moment.

My art classes at the Casa de la Cultura are on hold due to glitches in the administration change over from the election so I signed up with the Art group in San Carlos so have started going out there every Monday morning from 9 AM to Noon.  They have a show coming up on February 3 at El Mar restaurant in San Carlos so I will likely be taking some of my stuff there for that.

The cold weather we had the last couple of weeks exacerbated some health issues for me so I also have been doing some doctoring, with good results I am glad to say.

No pictures; but as you can see I have been busy, not just laying around taking the proverbial siesta.

My grand daughter received her Tutu and accessories yesterday so am waiting to see photos of that.  The package was apparently a hit with her, so all is good there.  She had her 2 nd birthday and now has her "big girl" furniture as a new baby will be arriving in May and they wanted her to be used to her new bed and not feel dispossessed by the baby in that way at least.

So that's it for now, until next time.  Stay warm and stay happy.

Getting Scrubbed

We've been gradually working towards getting our upholstered chairs cleaned.  They were very dirty/dusty.  Our street is dirt/gravel and you could dust the furniture daily, if you were so inclined-- me, not so much.  Anyway on one of our trips to immigration when we were working on getting our documents ready for renewing our FM3's we walked past a cleaning place called Chem Dry, so we went in and asked them for an estimate.  The receptionist made sure that we understood that it was just an estimate and that when the guys saw the furniture the price could change depending on size, etc..  It wasn't a bad price, pretty reasonable actually; but we decided to wait until mañana lol.  In a conversation with our landlady I happened to mention that I was thinking of either buying the spray cans of foam and cleaning them myself or hiring these guys.  She said that she knew of a guy that did good work.  He is a friend of Nancys dad apparently.  Sometimes it is who you know lol.
Anyway Tropical Storm Jimena intervened and we did nothing.  One day the landlady asked if I still wanted the guy and I said yes, I guess she had forgotten about it and we were in no rush so I hadn't mentioned it either.
On Monday night the landlady came up with this guy and he looked at what we wanted cleaned and gave us a price.  We agreed and he asked what time Tuesday would be good for us.  I explained that I had a class in the afternoon so he said he could come at either 9 or 10 AM and we agreed on 10 AM.
Yesterday morning he showed up at about 5 minutes to 10.  We took everything outside onto the patio and he went to work.
When we were at Chem Dry we noticed that they had the power shampooers and were working on some mattresses out in their yard, well we didn't expect the same type of equipment from this fellow and our expectations were met.  He arrived with a vacuum cleaner, a bucket, a brush and a backpack full of his cleaners and went to work.
It took him about 3 hrs. or so to do the work and he worked steadily, only taking about a 5 minute coca cola/cigarette break with Roy.
His boss came by a couple of times to check on him to see if he was ready to go yet and on his last pass he came upstairs wanting to know what was taking him so long as they had another job they needed to get to.  The worker explained that the recliners were big and Roy had taken the backs off of them so that he could get right down inside to clean so there was lots of area to do.  The boss watched for a bit and then started to help him out and they quickly finished.
We paid the bill of 720 pesos, about $56.00 CAD at yesterdays exchange rate, tipped him, (factoring in the pack of cigarettes that Roy had given him) and they went on their way.  I got their phone number/name for next year.  A good job well done.  He and Roy were having some interesting chats together throughout the morning.  The worker didn't speak English and Roy doesn't speak much Spanish; but they were yakking away out there and was funny to listen to from the sidelines.  I, naturally stayed inside so as not to impede the work progress, lol.













I headed uptown in the afternoon to go to the bank and do some shopping before Spanish class.  I was looking for a necklace to match a certain outfit and haven't been able to find what I liked.  I tried a few places and the staff helped out without finding anything.  Did what I needed to do and headed to Woolworths to use the bathroom before class.  Here to use a bathroom you usually have to pay about 3 pesos; but then you get a fairly clean washroom with toilet paper, etc..  Well yesterday the ladies were collecting 5 pesos and I went hmmm; but then they gave me a discount slip for 5 pesos to use when I went through the till.  Too funny.  So if you actually buy something there your trip to the washroom is free.  The bathroom there is really supposed to be for customer use; but it is one of the few that I have found in Centro to be fairly clean and tidy so I don't mind paying for it.  I passed a fellow, his mom and his little boy in the aisle on my way out.  The little boy maybe 3 or 4 yrs. old was having fun trying on Hallowe'en masks.  His dad pretended to be scared of him and then he took the mask off.  He noticed me coming down the aisle and put it back on, so I pretended to be scared and got a good laugh from him.  Later I noticed them heading towards the check outs so I gave them my bathroom discount ticket to use.  Too funny.
After a good Spanish class I went necklace hunting again and did find what I was looking for.  I then went looking for a torta place as I had promised to bring back tortas for supper, all the places were closed at that time of day (too early for Mexican dinner) so I got on the bus and headed home.  At one of the stops a little boy and his brothers and mom got on the bus.  He and I both recognized each other, as he is one of the students at Hogar Paz y Bien where we go in the winter to teach the children some English.  He smiled and giggled when he saw me and then as they sat behind me he was telling his mom who I was.  I turned around and asked him if he was using his English words, he assured me that he was, yah right, anyway I said to him, maybe a little and he laughed and agreed.  I told him we would probably be back in November as the other ladies don't live here they live in the USA and Canada.  I told him that I was the only one that lives here and his mom laughed.  When I turned back around I could hear his mom telling him what to say to me so he then called me and said that he hoped to see me in November, so I told him the same thing.  He kept chattering to his mom about the classes and when I got off we said our goodbyes.  A nice encounter and good to see that he didn't frown when he saw me anyway.