Household

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Home Delivery In México

In México, you can have just about anything brought to your home. (In Spanish, that’s servicio a domicilio) Here’s a rundown of some of the items that we see delivered often here in Mazatlán.  Most items are delivered using small motorcycles with a box on the back. Pharmacies – All pharmacies have home delivery RestaurantsAll sizes of restaurants deliver, from taco stands to carnitas places, roasted chicken stands, juice bars, sushi, pizza etc. Paint– They actually act surprised at the...

Salitre and the tropical household

Salitre is a fact of life in the tropics.  When we moved here we had very little idea what it takes to deal with salitre in a climate like ours. What is it?  It is the powdery stain that leaches through the paint – basically salts moving out of the mortar and concrete through moisture.  Sometimes the moisture is coming from a leak – and sometimes it is from the humidity, rain, or groundwater seeping up.   This patch isn’t...

In México, workers make good use of old buckets

Nothing goes to waste in México. Plastic pop bottles turn into small paint containers, musical instruments or a soapy water squirt bottle for a windshield washing business. Discarded cardboard is used for a door mat when it’s rainy.  I believe that the 5 gallon paint bucket is the most coveted item of all. At the top of this post you’ll see how the car wash man on our street locks up his buckets when he goes home for mid-day comida. They...

Just a few more days…

Paul has been gone for more than two weeks taking intensive Spanish classes in Puebla. He returns this weekend, at long last. Three weeks is a long time to be apart, and it felt much longer than I expected. This is the second intensive Spanish course he’s taken – a couple of years ago he went to Guadalajara for two weeks and this time for three in Puebla. We’ll be doing a blog post on his experiences when he gets...

Happy days are here again!

I love a clean house. The feel.  The smell.  Just knowing it is really clean.  I’m a pretty good cleaner, too.  In my past I even cleaned apartments on turnover. I always hoped that giving a new tenant a perfectly clean apartment would inspire them to leave it clean when they moved out.  Of course they seldom did, but I learned to start at the top of a room, clean the moldings, doors, windows, etc. and the floors last.  I...

Let the sun shine… umm, 360 days a year, more or less

Paul and I are so happy that the rainy and gloomy Pacific Northwest weather is just a memory – we love living in sunny Mazatlán.  We love all the new plants we can grow and waking up every day knowing we can enjoy the outdoors.  But lately we have been pretty jazzed to finally be taking advantage of the sun for a practical purpose. Earlier this week we had two solar hot water heaters installed on our roof.  Originally we...

Restoring El Chalet de Salvadora Chávez

Long ago when the city of Mazatlán was a small city, Calle Principal was the main drag through town. Actually, that’s what Calle Principal means – Main Street. Many of the houses were quite large and imposing. Now the street is called Belisario Domínguez – not the only change on this special old street. Many of the large mansions have been broken up into several houses, some are restored beauties, some have been left to crumble away, and some are...

April wildlife adventures

Every April there are a couple of weeks where the termite hatch is on.  When we were new here we were surprised one night when jillions of these flying critters invaded our well-lit home.  We asked our housekeeper what they were and she said they are “things that go to the light.”  Now we know that we just turn out the lights for about 15 minutes and they find some other light to go to and not bother us.  They...

Move over, hummy

We have been feeding the hummingbirds around here for several years and have a nice bunch of hummingbirds enjoying our feeders and fountain every day.  There are three species we see all the time.  They fight – and sit in the trees and click – and fly through the house from one feeder to another – and even nest in our bamboo. My favorite is the Cinnamon Hummingbird.  They are the biggest of the three that we see a lot....

Little cuties!

I love geckos.  We have them all over the house, and enjoy their kissing noises in the evening.  They are considered good luck, and since they eat bugs and are cute, we are happy to have them living with us! They like to run around at night, and in the morning we have evidence of where they’ve been!  They like to hang out above one of my kitchen counters (yes, it get’s cleaned first thing in the morning) and on...

Now this is really our last project…

Paul and I (and you, if you’ve been reading for a while) have lived through a number of projects on our house here in Mazatlán. And while it has been challenging for me to live with the dust and the pounding and the need to restrict the dogs, every project we’ve done has been very worthwhile. We have never shared pictures of our bathroom-dressing room because it was always a bit strange. The room was way too big and the...

Now we’re cooking

When I move into a new home I always feel a sense of urgency to transform the space into one that reflects our taste and is more efficient for us to use.  I don’t know why the urgent feeling is there – because really it is almost always better to live in a space for a while to see what you really need.  In the past we’ve wasted money and time doing things too quickly. I am proud of us,...

Another garden update

Well, it has been just over one year since we planted all the pots on our upstairs patio.  They had been growing quite happily when the tropical storm season hit and they were mauled by both a tropical depression and non-hurricane Rick.  All’s well that ends well, though, as you can see! At the top is what it looked like right after we finished planting: We’ve done a lot of rearranging and have even bumped a few plants to other...

Progress pics

Three years ago when we bought our house, the courtyard was a mess!  Above is a picture so you can see for yourself! We moved in here in September, and by October we were already having the courtyard overhauled.  If you want to see the step by step, visit the Photos page or click here.   The work was finally done around Christmas, and it wasn’t until February 25, 2008 that we actually planted the beds.  The pictures above and...

There are always chores to do…

Paul and I are lucky, and we know it.  Guadalupe comes to our house two mornings a week.  She cleans upstairs one day and downstairs the other.  She sweeps the floor, dusts, cleans the bathrooms, and mops.  And I am grateful for everything she does! But… there is still plenty for us to do around the house.  Windows to wash.  Landscaping to water, mow, and  trim.  Fountain to clean.  Ceiling fans to clean.  Hardware to oil.  Oven and fridge to...