July 28, 2008

Archive

Some of us love our new life in Mexico

  • July 28, 2008
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  • Dogs

“Pick up after your dog” sign in Mazatlán   “Pick up after your dog” sign in Bellingham, WA (with bags provided)   I’ve heard stories of a number of people who moved to Mexico and decided to move back to the US before their first year was up. Some are firsthand stories of people known to our friends and family. The stories were told to us in a loving but cautionary way by people who were worried the same thing...

Eating Close to Home

  • July 27, 2008
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  • Food

Gas costs a lot. Refrigeration costs a lot. Loading and unloading do, too. So it makes a lot of sense – even in just financial terms – to eat food that is grown locally. A lot of people are beginning to question our desire for out of season foods – why eat strawberries in January in Seattle when they’ll be fresh in May? Especially if they’ll have to be shipped from South America? How good can they taste after travelling...

Rejas or Bars or Protections, whatever you call them

In most of Mexico, bars on the windows are a fact of life. I love them! What a sense of freedom there is to be able to have any and all windows in your house open whenever you want! In the summertime here in Mazatlán, it is hot and muggy. The thing that saves us is air movement. We get some from the ceiling fans but we really count on the breeze we get through our open windows and doors,...

Happy Dogs

  • July 24, 2008
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  • Dogs

What dog doesn’t look happy when they are face down in their food dish? It hasn’t always been that way for us – both our dogs were off and on picky eaters most of their lives. Henry had been known to not eat for more than a day for no reason that we could discern. When we moved here the dogs had been eating a fancy designer expensive dog food. I liked that it was more real nutrition and that...

Yin and Yang

Erica and Owen on Lake Whatcom   I knew that ten months separation from the US meant there would be some culture shock for me during my trip North. A few observations: Driving was almost boring. I clicked away at the XM Radio in my rental and waited and waited for people to wake up and drive! Merging is a little practiced art in Washington. People don’t just GO when it’s their turn. Turn signals were blinking everywhere I looked....

Washington Week In Review

I just got back last night from my week in Washington State. I had a wonderful time and am really glad I went….but also am glad to be back! Here’s a little summary of the fun I had: Sunday evening upon arrival in Seattle I picked up my rental car and headed to my sister’s house. We drank wine and duty-free tequila and caught up on everything. Monday we took a wonderful walk on Ruston Way in Tacoma – along...

Trying to learn some new tricks

  I read Theresa’s blog post about missing her reference books, and it made me think about how many adjustments I’ve needed to make in my cooking since moving to Mexico. I guess I should clarify. I am a vegetarian, and I brought my favorite five or six cookbooks with me when we moved. But it is challenging to make anything out of them without substitutions since so many things are hard to find or unavailable. I was looking through...

Meltdown, an update

My Spanish class meltdown was back on June 18 – so I thought I would give an update now that a couple of weeks have passed. First, I am really glad it happened. I talked to so many people, thought about it a lot, and had wonderful feedback from many blog friends. But the bottom line is that sometimes the really bad day is what you need to get you to analyze the situation, and from that, make progress. I...

Say Cheese

I’m probably not the only blogger who keeps a pad on my desk where I jot down blog ideas. Sometimes the idea is complete in my mind and I just need to take a few pictures and sometimes I need to chew on it for a bit to decide how I want to present my ideas. One idea that I’ve been chewing on for quite a while has to do with taking pictures. Whenever I see a picture of a...