Month: January 2023

It has taken some time, but, finally, it is coming to fruition.

I enjoy using that word, and don’t get enough opportunity to use it, so I use it here.

The other day, I took the covers off of the stovetop heating elements, (I use that term because I cannot, for my life, remember what they’re called; where the flame comes out to heat,) and cleaned all of the burned on food, grease, what have you.

I scrubbed with Ajax, with steel wool, with a butter knife. Absolutely nothing touched the stuff. I had half a mind to order one of those foam sprays I keep seeing on the SM sites, where the grime just rinses off.

I didn’t. When the light bulb came on in my head, I went to the pantry, got my handy dandy putty knife, and within 15 minutes, the stovetop looked like new. I’ll show you, only the after though, as the before got away from me.

After that was done, I looked around, and saw, to my horror, the exhaust fan was filthy. The fan is worthless, and doesn’t exhaust to the outside, just blows in further into the kitchen, so I rarely use it; except to draw in air from the laundry area, like a small breeze. Then it works.

Caution required at this point. What you are about to see may shock you. (Shouldn’t really though.)

I have to wipe it down again with water, but I have temporarily lost the impetus. (Another favorite word 😉

So, this morning, about 1:30am, I was unable to sleep, again, and was tired of just lying there, trying to turn off my mind so

I got up, went into the living room, cleaned off the long, foldable plastic table, and put away as much of the stuff that was cluttering it all up as I could do without waking Ivan, or the condo. Went back to bed at 2:30am, got up at about 10, and finished what I had started. Soooo much nicer, I think. Once I get rid of the totes, and boxes by the folded table, I will have enough space to start exercising.

Lord knows I have to do something to help me lose weight. I can’t stand this any longer. It just isn’t me.

I have gotten out my resistance bands, put them into a semblance of order, have printed out a few weeks of 15 minute workouts, and will begin working out

Hopefully soon. I certainly don’t want to rush into anything. 😉

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

I’m not sure why, but I don’t really care.

He bought me a new MacBookPro.

I can sit here, typing away on this amazing new convenience; except I have no idea how to do anything with it.

Ok. That was a lie. I figured out how to do the italics symbol, so now, I can do that.

Never mind. I just went to some page from who knows where.

We made an amazing whole chicken, (with Baby Ray’s Barbecue sauce), sopa de fideo, and all of it was soooo tasty, so succulent, so juicy.

We sent some upstairs, to them, then, some to the guards. They all loved what we made.

I spatchcocked the whole chicken, covered it in honey, and vinegar, then sprinkled tons of spices on it before we baked it in the oven. When it was close to done, we put Sweet Baby Rays BBQ sauce on the whole bird, and let it bake another 20 minutes.

AMAZING.

While we wait to see what Gaby thought of the whole business,

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

I am compelled to tell you that here we no longer use facial masks; employees in stores use them, but the clientele do not.

Speaking of, I’d rather not, but here goes.

Last year, we found an agenda book at our local Office Depot, and I used it to keep track of our bills, and payments thereto. It was exceptional.

Why? Because of the colors, the art, the images. They were, and are, amazing.

Here is this years agenda book.

Above are the first pages in the agenda book, showing the beauty of the artwork, the bright colors, and the images. You won’t find these in an agenda book in the US I’d bet.

Not looking forward to paying bills this year as things here are using up our income too quickly. But, if I have to do it after looking at this agenda book, so be it. I will do it a bit less hostilely than before.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Marinated jalapeños, or pickled jalapeños in vinegar.

We brought about a dozen jalapeños, 10 carrots, and a dozen spring onions back with us from Los Altos this time. They’ve been in the fridge ever since. Doing the math, that was 8 days ago. Suffice it to say, they were getting a bit, how can I type this accurately, withered, shriveled, old.

What does one do with the above veg?

We made chiles en escabeche, (CHI-less n ess-cah -BEH-cheh). Take a look.

Normally, we buy them in the can, but decided to make them ourselves since we had bought the veggies home with us for that purpose alone.

So, now we have enough to last us for a few months; Ivan gave a container to Jesús, and Lizbeth. If we run out, voilà, we make more.

I didn’t remove many of the seeds, as it was too time consuming, so it’s a bit spicier than what we are used to. Ivan told me that that’s why we have salt. I chuckled.

As I was cooking this, he came into the kitchen to express helpful suggestions. We were both nearly asphyxiated from the fumes of the chiles. We coughed for about 10 minutes, even when we went back to the bedroom. It was horrible.

I turned on the air circulators in the bedroom for another 10 minutes, and finally the chile fumes were noticeably gone. Breathing easier.

That’s about it for this exciting week.

Side note: We did go to Costco, Sam’s Club, and Soriana this week, to the tune of about $500 USD. What’s a person to do?

The cost of everything here is going through the roof because of the current President’s administration in the US. The cost of growing wheat, corn, oats, etc., costs more. It costs more to raise cows, pigs, and sheep. The rise in gas prices is making it difficult for the farmers to transport their crops/animals to plants for processing. The cost of living has skyrocketed these past two years. Cripes. It’s making it more difficult to buy some of the things we can only get from the US.

That said, we spend our “limited income” on the things we need, paying our bills first, food last. We’ll not go hungry anytime soon as I am learning to make something from little, or less.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

I have been unable to log onto my credit card websites since the end of October.

They keep trying to send me a code to submit to verify I am who I say I am. That would be lovely, but one of them will not allow me to put in our address here in Mexico, much less our phone number. The phone number they have is my old phone number from Iowa. Needless to say, it doesn’t help me a bit.

Ivan told me he thought it was a precaution for the holiday season. As it turns out, it must have been. This morning, I was able to get on all of the websites, except that one. I will try to call them one day this, or next week.

Happily, things are as I wish them to be, and that is what I needed to know to relax. Not sure what I would do without the ability to connect with (fill in the blank), via the internet.

Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Not much to be done without electricity. We’re still in Los Altos, but back home when you read this.

There’s no internet; no internet, no programs; no programs, or movies, what’s a person supposed to do?

We went back to bed.

He went right back to sleep; me? I didn’t have the use of my CPAP, so I didn’t sleep. I snore too much, so, in being afraid of waking the whole house, I got up, and have been playing my word search games which only require online access to record the scores.

I am also able to listen to my audible books as they are all downloaded, and do not require the internet.

Lord knows I should take a walk, but that will have to wait until I’ve shed a few kilos over the next few days/weeks/months. I’ll get there, however, slowly, but surely.

Until that, and until the electricity is restored, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

I HAVE TO LOSE WEIGHT.

That’s all there is to that. I can’t continue to carry these extra pounds on me. My back just can’t take it anymore. So,

I am going to try making some low carb soups from about 50 recipes I found in a search yesterday. They look delicious. I can’t wait.

As we are still in Veracruz, I can’t start until we return home. I took a “before” photo last night that was horrible, and no, I’m not dumb enough to post it. Suffice it to say that it’s an exceptionally good starting point.

I will share whatever progress I make as I make it. My inactivity is the root cause, so that will be the next thing that changes.

Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

México. MasterChef Latino, MasterChef US, MasterChef Ireland.

I’ve watched every season, every episode, at least twice, and have now landed on MasterChef México Junior.

It’s a show with 18 kids, several of them quite small, ages 8-13 years old, competing against each for the title of, wait for it, MasterChef Junior.

They cook amazingly well, better, even than many adults I’ve known. Certainly better than me.

The three judges are so patient, and helpful, not only in their encouragement, but their criticism of the kids end products. They always have something constructive to teach the contestants, something for them to learn.

They also teach them to show pride in their heritage, there state, and their country. There are many foods that contain the colors red, white, and green, the colors of the Mexican flag. Pride. The show is full of it.

It is also full of how proud the judges are of the contestants efforts, and how far each has come since the beginning of the competition. Also, they remind each contestant how proud of themselves they should be, as well.

Many of the kids are little girls that scratch, and spit at each other like angry kittens. She’s copying me; she said I should be sent home. She looked at me. It makes me laugh out loud.

The hardest part is listening to their voices. So high pitched, and whiny. Makes me almost want to watch something else. Not giving up just yet, though.

Side note: Chapo is no longer crying, but is being processed for dinner. Gabi went along with his dad, Jesús, and his Abuelito, Ramón, to a neighbor that slaughters animals for them. He is learning the meat he consumes doesn’t come from a cling film covered piece of styrofoam in the grocery store, but a real, live animal. Good for him. Good for them.

In the meantime, stay happy, healthy, and safe Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Post script: Liz is pregnant again. Hoping she’ll have another happy, healthy baby. They need a girl this time as their second baby, that died, was a tiny baby girl. Prayers, if you remember. Thanks.

Post post script: one of the young ladies was given a protein known mostly in the Northern states in Mexico as “el rato del campo”, or, as you can probably guess, the field rat. She made a lovely broth, with celery, carrots, a bit of tomato, salt, and pepper, and her pieces of rat legs. The judge said he wouldn’t have minded if she’d shredded the meat off the bones, putting it that way in the soup, but he was really going to have a hard time eating it the way she served it. Let me know what you think.

Long underwear.

My husband bought me a pair two weeks ago in anticipation of the week we have just begun here in Veracruz. I poo pooed him for it but am now so very blessed that he did. It’s down to 37°F at night.

Last night, as I wrote about, I started the night in my trusty flannels. Wrong. We we under the mountain of coverings, (also in the post), and it was unbearable. I actually began hyperventilating a bit. He encouraged me to get out of the flannels, and put on the long underwear he bought me. I did as I was bid.

Imagine, if you will, leaving a very warm bed, about 2:30 am, and digging through the backpack that contains your stuff. Then, as if that’s not enough, stripping out of your overly warm flannels, and changing into your ice cold new long johns. Brrrr!

Trust me when I say it was worth every second it took.

They are from Nautica, and I have to say they are amazing. They are so lightweight, and warm, but, if you happen to sweat, which I didn’t, they wick it away from your skin.

As we didn’t sleep the night before we left, we finally got to sleep about 3 am. Didn’t get up until 1:30 pm this afternoon. In fact, el señor has gone back to sleep, bless him.

I forgot to say that we also slept with a short stocking cap on our head, my CPCP straps under the cap. That was the first night of the 10 years I’ve used the mask, that I didn’t lose sleep messing with the straps that hold it against my face. Score!!!

Wait just a minute. I swear I can hear a baby goat crying. Not sure why. Gonna check it out.

There is a baby goat, crying downstairs, in the room off the kitchen. I knew I heard it.

He’s crying because tomorrow he’s going to be dinner for the whole family, on New Year’s Eve. Sorry buddy. Everyone, thank Chapo. I named him that, for the sacrifice he’s going to make.

I looked all over for him; on the floor, under the table, to the far left, behind some supports, but couldn’t find him anywhere. I asked Sarai, Jesús’ S-I-L, to show me where he was.

Speaking of, we wish all of you a Happy New Year, and a healthy one. Stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.

Here are the photos I promised of the bacalao we made for NYE.

You can see almost all of the ingredients we used; the small potatoes, red bell peppers, capers, parsley, chiles güeros, and the cod. As the cod has been shredded, it is the clumpy stuff you see. It smells like a Mediterranean kitchen here. Can’t wait to dig in.

This is how much 2 k of cod made for us. One 6 qt. pressure cooker full, plus 3 large plastic containers full. The containers are resting in the freezer, and the pressure cooker is in the fridge here. It was Ivan’s bright idea to put it in the pressure cooker so it wouldn’t open, and spill in transit. He’s so smart.

When we get to eating it, I will let you know how that went.

Until then, stay happy, healthy, and safe. Wash, cover, and protect yourselves.