Feliz Ano Nuevo!

Buen dia!

Feliz Ano Nuevo!
Between Christmas Day and New Year's Eve, we attended 7 events: dinners, parties, open houses, gatherings that included just gringos and gatherings that included gringos and mexican families.

On New Year's Eve, we attended two parties, one during the day and then, one in the evening. While each event was unique and fun, that is way too busy a social calendar for us..............we are done for awhile, I hope.

Knowing it would be a busy week we asked Umberto to take several days off and we have been trying to sleep in at least until 7:45 (Umberto always arrives at 7am), but it is not working out. The tortilla truck comes by at 6:35am. I can hear his music from the other side of town, then his loud speaker announcements. Then, the music gets closer and closer and the announcement is louder and louder and suddenly.................he is outside our casa.....and then, well, we have to get up. I bought tortillas from him once, but for 10 pesos, I got a kilo of tortillas. It would take us a month to eat a kilo of tortillas. So, I get them in the mercado instead, where I can buy less.

On New Year's Day, the tortilla truck did not go by, so we slept in and around 8am we decided to go to Obregon, where WalMart and Home Depot and Sam's Club are located. As we drove down our street and through part of the Alameda, we commented on how quiet things were....we were the only car on the streets. The drive to Obregon was quiet, very little traffic; we were the only vehicle at the toll plaza between Navajoa and Obregon and the usual folks were not selling their wares.

In Obregon, there was no traffic, and all the American franchises were closed.......Subway....KFC.... McDonald's....Domino's Pizza.......Baskin and Robbins.............Panda Express.........all closed (and yes, I am not kidding, those businesses are all down here). We finally found a Carl Junior open and then, went to Home Depot where we had planned to get a hot water heater.............and it was closed.

We then drove through quiet streets to Wal Mart which happened to be open, but did not have any customers. At Walmart we discovered that we can have rib eye steaks cut to whatever thickness we want and so for 56 pesos we got two of the best cuts of meat we have ever had. We have decided to take our cooler with us when we return to Obregon for the water heater and stock up on rib eye steaks. I just hope it was not a New Year's Day special....

I have been really busy with the glasspondstudio website and my etsy shop, trying to figure out how to keep my business going from Mexico. Gringos don't exactly get a booth at the local market..........

Big kiln full of glass pendants......................
Afghanistan belly dancing pendants ready to be listed on the website........................
stuff everywhere.....................
at least I get to work outside....if you recall, our wi-fi does not work.......because senor sabe le todo cannot remember the password..............

we just bought a very long cable.............40 feet from the bedroom plugin to the hilton garden room...............................

nail biting work here...............
4 hours later.........................

The exciting news is that we are closer to getting a new roof on the first section of this casa. In the photos you can see what Bill has been working on.....
The photo above shows what will be the laundry room, which presently has a tin roof and sounds great in the rain. But, look at the cement column in the corner that attaches to the new cement beam up top. The column holds the beam and the beam will support the new roof of cement, dirt and styrofoam.

Below, is one of the many wood forms Bill has made. This one was coated with oil, cement was poured, the rebar form was inserted and it was all allowed to set............and below, is how it looks after the form is taken apart. The rebar and conctrete in the ground will support the columns and the floor........ below, you can get a better idea of where the new portal will be. It is about twelve feet wide and goes the length of the casa. Most of the rebars are in place and Bill is making the octagonal shaped wood form that will make the actual columns. The form will surround the rebar and the cement will be poured down into it.........then, voila, we will have columns to support the roof of the portal.

Hopefully, we will have the roof for this section of the casa and the portal done by sometime in February because I want to go to Mazatlan...........................