Doors

 Hola! I have finally finished the first set of doors. You saw a photo of these a few years back when I started them. These doors and cupboards will go into the closet that will be in the bedroom. Below is a photo of what they looked like. I am still working on the tops and will finish those sometime in the future after Senor moves them to the closet which is also sometime in the future. He's going to need to cut the upper cupboards apart when he moves them. I don't know how that will work out so I decided to save them and finish them later after they are moved.
There is one more set just like this and I am slowly working on those.

 The inside of each door is a different color since I had a little extra paint. The paint is acrylic and most of it, with the exception of Pthalo Blue and Alizarin Crimson, I bought in town from the Comex Store. I distressed the borders using a candle and painted on a light Pthalo Blue wash. Then I used paste wax over the wash. I painted polycrylic over the backgrounds and the insides of the doors.

Just thought you might like to see what I'm up to.....

It's a holiday weekend, even though the Dia de La Revolucion is not until Thursday, our town is going to celebrate it on Monday. Most workers only worked a few hours this Saturday morning and will now have a 3 day weekend. Of course, they will still take Thursday off anyway because that is, after all, the real holiday.............................adios, Linda Lou

Walking to La Aduana

Hola, you know I love it, walking to La Aduana.

 The night, the stars, the cool air, my Mexican girlfriends prattling off 60 words a minute and walking a pace as fast if not faster than 60 steps a minute. I love the Dads coming down the arroyo carrying their babies in their arms, I love the abuelitas, on bent knees, leaning on their canes, scarves woven tightly around their heads. I love the madrugada dawn as we break through it and onto the narrow path that leads to the church, the sound of the deer dancers bells jingling in front of the church, the buen dias from all the people I know inside the church.

The smell of elote and tamales simmering in huge pots, churros, turning and twisting, barely skimming the hot surfaces of oil, champurada, hot and thick, carne asada on the asador at 6am. It's a unique experience.

Along the highway at 4 in the morning.

The walkway into the town of La Aduana, the church lit in the background.

Inside the church

The cactus growing in the church wall.

And so, once again, this year was a unique experience.

 My Mexican girlfriend did not come to the house. I was worried about her so I went to her house, where she was suffering on Day 15 from denque fever. After spending some time with her and making certain she would survive, I went home................Plan A........... my walks to La Aduana are over. I had enjoyed them all. I will not have a sleepless night and then get up in the dark and be on the highway at 4:30am.

An American friend emailed me..............was I walking to La Aduana and if so, could she go with me................Plan B...............I will have a sleepless night and then get up in the dark and be on the highway at 4:00am because I am walking with my American friend who will walk slower than my other friends.

My friend takes small, but swift steps. She is as fast as the other girls. I remind her that I am older than she is and we are going to slow down.......NOW.................she says fine, no problem, you set the pace and I go..............SLOW. With the other girls we go 6 miles in one hour and 20 minutes and it takes me 4 days to recover.

I am a little apprehensive when we get to the arroyo. My Mexican friends lead and I just go. I look at the sky, look at the sand, look at the brush and pay no attention whatsoever to where we are.

But it all looks different this morning. Now I see there are roads that lead off the arroyo to the left, to the right, to the left again. Which way do we go............. we hang out at a crossroads like we are busy watching the night stars and wait for someone to come along so we can follow them. We do this several times, but decide not to follow 4 young men off to the left and that's good because here comes a family and they go to the right. But before too long the young men come up on the left and I realize there is probably only one way and you really can't get lost after all. But it's really dark and still easy to feel very disoriented.

Finally after my ankles tell me they cannot go anymore and my left knee will not straighten out I see the first lights of La Aduana and just beg my body to last a little longer.

Over 2 hours and we are in.
Some one has forgotten to tell the Deer Dancers that it is time to be there. So there is no Pascola, no deer dancers. No bells, no whistles, no deer or wolf masks, no music, nothing. We go sit in the church. I only see a few people I know. We visit Our Lady of Balvanera in her wooden box at the altar. We go outside where there is a lot of socializing going on. We learn that there was no money for the Pascola. The dancers do not get paid, but there are transportation costs, food costs, accommodations to be paid for. How much can that cost................

We have elote and churros and wait for the Priest and the procession. When it comes, it is a large crowd. They are all slow and sleepy looking. Maybe they are surprised because the deer dancers always lead the procession into the church.

We have a good time.
We have seen the Lady, the candles, the cactus, the food and drink, we have seen our neighbors. We are sad about the Pascola, but happy we made it there.
I have to think for awhile about it all.
Maybe next year I will drive new old car...................................
que le vaya bien............manana.......linda lou

Minnie's House

Hola!
Buenas tardes!

Did I just read that my most recent post was September 7? What the 5247! How did that happen.

I have been busy, honest, and here are some of my excuses for ignoring you:

From May to October I worked nearly around the clock on ancestry.com to complete the lineage for both my dad and my mom's side of the family. And I did it, just in time for a family reunion we had in Texas in October. Senor was so sick of me being on the computer.  I was able to put together a nine generation poster for our family and a book as well that traced many of our grandparents back for fifteen generations. And to put the whipped cream on the chocolate my youngest brother agreed to spit in the DNA tube and find out where the heck we came from. And, that's all another story for someday.

Senor and I took most of the summer off, rarely worked on the house; he read a lot while I was on the computer, and in October he and I drove to Phoenix, where he took a flight to Seattle and visited Ian, and then went hunting in Montana and Eastern Washington, where he got the Christmas goose. 

While he did that, I took a flight to Denver and hung out with KD for a week and then she and I flew to Dallas, and went north to Denton for a family reunion. 

Senor and I hooked up again in Phoenix and traveled around antique shopping in Globe and Miami, Arizona for awhile and then got in our shopping in Tucson and Nogales. We were gone almost the month of October and it was great!

But, that's not what this post is about.............

It's about Minnie's house.

It is being built in the lot next door to us. 

It has been going up for about a year now and it was not until last week when Senor and I took a real good look at it and agreed......it's lovely.....and it's a little close.

Originally we had planned to extend our coyote fence along the fence line between the two properties. The coyote fence, made of varro blanco posts is light and airy and rustic. You can see right through it and not lose the vista, but now as you will see in the next two photos, we are taking down the brush and any trees that are right on the property line and are going to extend the adobe wall. We are choosing to do this because if we don't, we are going to be looking right into Minnie's outside lights and her portal. It wasn't until her workers did the outside electricity that we realized this was going to be the choice.

We spent days on the portal, moving our chairs around..........will we see the outside lights from here?........from here?...............from here?

 Minnie's house did not come as a surprise .

 We knew she owned the property and planned to build there someday. And the house they are building is very pretty, but it did take away some of the views we were so fond of.

So here are our goodbyes, most of them are now behind Minnie's house...... 

Goodbye, to the car that gets driven down Loma Guadalupe Hill each evening at 7pm.

 Goodbye Teresita's tall elegant dining windows clad in sparkling Christmas lights.

Goodbye Lynne's happy and brilliant bouganvillia that covers her walls.

Goodbye to the red tipped glows of the miner's evening cigars.

Goodbye Annabelle's outdoor light that flickers on and off in the slightest breeze.

Goodbye to the lady we don't know who gets up on her roof to set up her easel and paint.

Goodbye to Addy's Christmas tree that glows on a cold December night.

And goodbye to the lush date palm that glows at night with a soft yellow light.

So good to know you, but now we will get to know new views around here that will tantalize our minds and keep us always curious.

Now I am starting to feel sappy, like I just rewrote the words to Goodnight, Moon......

Okiedoke, take a look at Minnie's pretty  house.

The house has beautiful arches .From her portal she has outstanding views of all of Mt Alamos and the hills east and west. Her house is definitely in a pretty spot.

In the photo above I am standing right on the edge of our portal. The property line is about three feet away from the edge of the portal. So right there our wall will be pretty close to the edge of the portal. As you can see, her house is farther down in the lot, right about in the middle and her lot goes from one street to the other.

Above, we are taking down the tree that is right on the fence line.We will still be able to see the beautiful tall palm trees on the right of the photo. And right about where Senor is standing on the ladder I think we will be putting a fountain in the wall and some niches for candles. The wall from this edge of the portal will be about as tall as the fence post you can see, so we should still have our mountain view and even more, the farther back on the portal we are sitting.

Our portal, looking the same with its pretty dirt floor. Senor promises we are going to be putting in the sub floor soon. I have actually grown fond of the dirt and it is maintenance free, very little sweeping.

Our cozy sala which is going to be wonderful when it is finished because it is already wonderful now.

And on Dia de Los Muertos as it poured down rain, we lit our first pinon fire of the year.

Que le vaya bien to all our blogger and facebook friends. I promise to get back to you soon!

 Love Linda Lou