Author: iagardener55

So much of our time, when we leave the house, is to stand in one line, or another, and wait.

We go to the grocery store, and wait in the checkout line. We go to the building downtown, to get my residency, and we wait. We go to get Ivan’s drivers license, and we wait. We go to Toks, for a cup of coffee, and we wait.

From the first time we went to the government building, and we waited for 2 hours there, I decided I was never going to be bothered by having to wait again. There is no point in getting upset by it because it is the way things are here. No one is ever in a hurry. So, in defense of my fragile mental health, I just started bringing things I can do with me.

One of those things is writing another post about having to wait for my blog.

It has made all of the difference in the world in my mental state.

I am trying to watch a show from Amazon Prime on my tablet, but the internet keeps stopping. I will try again later. Until then, I will tell you another tale.

Ivan said the furniture was delivered yesterday, the new couch, and the matching chair; the loveseat has not been delivered yet. I cannot wait to see them, however. Hopefully we will go later today so I can take a photo of them for you. But here is what they looked like when we bought them.

They will need cushions, obviously, which will probably be leather. Then we will buy bright throw pillows for color. Little by little, things are coming together to make our new home a reality.

I must tell you, though, that we walked for about 2 hours, going store to store, looking for “our” furniture. (If you did not read about the furniture buy, that is ok. I am always up for a little replay). We walked down the Main Street in San Pedro Tultepéc, just outside Toluca, all of which is about an hour to the Northwest of México City.

Ivan, Enrique, and I met up with Luis, (you remember Luis, our contractor), in San Pedro, and we walked the street, (it is one, long street, about 2 km), looking on both sides, for the furniture we knew, (read hoped), was waiting for us. I will say, that it did not take us very long to find the living room furniture, in the above photo, but dining room chairs, in the photo below, took us the better part of an hour. Plus, we had to stop for some soup (sopa) and tacos. It was close to the lunch hour.

But eight of these chairs were delivered two weeks ago, after having been spruced up. Originally, when we looked at them, you can see that the spaces between the spines have no stain, or top coat. Also, the bottoms of the legs are dinged, and needed to be refinished. Well, all of that was done, to all eight of the chairs, and now, they are in the spare bedroom, waiting for the new table that Martín is making. We cannot wait to see his handy work- he is so talented. The table he is making is similar to the photo below.

The biggest difference will be that it will probably be solid oak pieces, and the legs will be oak as well. (I told Ivan that somewhere in our home there has to be some wrought iron. Somewhere, or else).

Until I can get a photo of the latest changes in the condo, that is all for this post.

Last night, and tonight, as well, (the 31st, and the 1st) there has been a steady stream of children, each one cuter than the next, ringing the doorbell, and thrusting out their bags, bins, or bowls, hoping for the inevitable Día de Muertos candies. Unfortunately, I did not get many photos of them, as I was too busy writing a couple of other posts. Here are a few that I did get.

One thing I have noticed is that, at this house anyway, and, at the major stores, Sam’s Club included, there was not a single piece of chocolate candy to be found. Not one.

I told our family here that I had never seen, or been a part of, a Halloween celebration that did not include about five pounds of chocolate candies, and all that that entails. They were amazed that it was so.

Actually, now that I am really thinking about this, there is not a lot of chocolate anywhere down here. There is the occasional chocolate frosting on a donut, or a bit of chocolate as in the hot chocolate drink, but as a rule, there really is not much chocolate to be found.

Interesting, to be sure.

Cooler weather is finally here, prompting us to go to Soriana, and buy all of the fixin’s for chili. We cannot wait.

This is about the best chili recipe we have found, and one that does not require much tweaking. The few changes we made were 1) we used Abuelita chocolate, because we like its flavor better than cocoa powder, 2) we used 1kg of ground beef, and 1/2kg of ground pork, and 3) we burned, then skinned, and deseeded the chilies poblanos. We much prefer the “flavor profile” of the burnt peppers to the poblano when it is fresh. (I have wanted to use that phrase for some time now. Here was my chance, so I took it 😉

We made a vat full of the stuff, as you can see, and cannot wait to try a bowl, with some crackers, and cheese. (I cannot, for my life, find a store down here that sells cheddar cheese. What is up with that, I ask you?!?)

You can find the full recipe, along with a corresponding video on foodwishes.com or the same address on Youtube. Enjoy! We are!

Chili update: well, you will be happy to know the chili was a success. Everyone had at least one bowl, and a few had seconds. Always a compliment to the cook when someone has a second helping. There is even enough for a small bowl tomorrow, and that should taste even better, after the flavors have had time to meld. Yay!

We went to the dentist yesterday, the 25th., for Ivan’s first follow up appointment, and what she saw surprised her.

He is doing beautifully, better than she expected. He has been doing exactly what she told him to do, and is a very compliant patient.

Not sure what happens next but nothing will happen until the beginning of November as she is taking a week off for a well deserved vacation. Ivan said we should text her and offer to carry her luggage. That was so sweet.

He is still drinking a banana shake for breakfast, and soup for lunch and dinner, so all is as it should be. Thank you, everyone, for the concern.

We have decided to have horizontal, as opposed to vertical, Murphy beds in both bedrooms other than our own. We will put a twin in Juan’s room, because that is what he had in Bettendorf, and, we have all of the bedding for it. We will have a queen in the 3rd bedroom, which will serve as our office, as well as the spare bathroom. Since our bed will be a freestanding queen, and we have tons of bedding for it, that will serve for the spare bed as well.

We are not going to have much around the bed, simple is best. They take up no room folded up, and very little open. Win win.

We will ask Martín to build our bed as well, like in the photo above, but we will ask him to raise the base to about 18” off the ground, or about mid thigh so, when the mattress is on the bed, (no box spring needed), the height of the mattress will be just below my waist. We will have a ton of storage under the bed, just like we did in Iowa. So nice to put seasonal clothing in totes under the bed, out of sight but accessible.

Plus, we use only King sized duvets, with comforters of varying thicknesses, weather dependent, that, on a Queen sized mattress, hang nicely over the edge, quite a ways, hiding the storage containers from view.

I will, of course, show you photos as all of this takes place. But for us, with limited spaces, Murphy beds are the best way to proceed.

I have gotten so organized over the past week, I do not know what to make of it. I am not sure if it is because this is the perfect opportunity to get organized, moving into a new home, but, whatever the reason, I am glad for it.Time consuming, oh my gosh, it has taken an incredible amount of time, but it will be well worth it.

I started with the panty/kitchen food list, as you can see below, first, putting everything in English, then, translating everything into Spanish, then alphabetizing everything, then adding the prices, as we buy things, or take photos of items or future purchases.

After that came the paperwork.

We went out and bought a legal sized portable file, legal sized hanging file folders, and the same sized folders to place inside. Here is what I did in less than an hour. Of course everything is in alphabetical order, you know me so well. But I do that in the kitchen cupboards, and pantry as well. Why hunt all over the kitchen for, say, coconut milk. All you have to do in our kitchen is look for the “M’s”, because it is milk first, then it is coconut. Here we will have several different kinds of milk, either canned, or boxed, but they will all start out on the shelf as milk. Easy peasy.

When Ivan went this past week, to get a drivers license for Mexico, he needed to have three, or four, different forms of identification, PLUS, at least two copies of each piece of information. He needed have his I.N.E. card, (Instituto Nacional Electoral- a voters registration card) his passport, his CURP certificate,(Clave Única Registro de Población- the unique registration registry code), and his birth certificate, to prove he is a Mexican citizen, (he has dual citizenship here). And, since we did not know he needed all of that, we were, once again, caught unaware, and did not have half of what was required.

Hence the organizing file. Now we have originals, we have copies of the originals, we have copies of the copies, all to hand, and no doubts about what is where. This is the biggest relief, I cannot tell you! Every time we go somewhere “official”, we are, invariably, missing one key piece of paper, and its 2 copies.

We have also placed all of the “necessary” papers in a hard plastic file folder, that we will keep together, to take to these different agencies- the water department, electric company, telephone company, drivers license bureau, any dang place where we have to change our names to the account from the previous owner of the apartment.

Here, the accounts of all of the utilities are tied to the address, not to an individual. Where we came from, you called the gas and electric company, told them you wanted to start service at your new address, and you were given an account number that belonged to you. Here, the accounts belong to the address of whatever home, office, condo. Regardless of who owns it, the account numbers remain the same, only the name changes on the account.

Over the past 2 months, we have been trying to change all of the utilities to Ivan’s name, and it is taking forever. This company wants this information, and, that company wants completely different information. And, as I said earlier, we invariably do not have something that someone feels is absolutely critical to have before being able to make a simple name change.

It is so aggravating, too, because we have, usually, driven 30 – 40 minutes, in standstill, bumper to bumper, traffic, just to be told we are missing some insignificant piece of paper!!! Fortunately for us, we are retired, and, as we are often heard to say “we have much more time than money”. So we go back home, find the blasted piece of paper, make umpteen copies of it, and go back the next day.

There is an upside to all of this, and that is that it gets us out of the house, and learning our way around the city.

I mentioned in my post yesterday about our new dishes, that we had gone to our favorite mercado, La Ciudadela. While we waited for them to wrap, and box, all of the dishes, Ivan, Enrique, and I, went to one of the little restaurants in the market for lunch, and coffee. I had Tacos Dorados, and a Café Americano. Here is what it looked like.

These are three corn tortillas, stuffed with cooked chicken and onions, deep fried, and topped with shredded lettuce, Queso Cotija, and a thin tomato slice. These are frequently called flautas at the Mexican restaurants up North, or tacitos, but here they are called Tacos Dorados, or fried tacos.

This is what it looked like about twenty minutes later. I actually burned the roof of my mouth a bit because they were fresh out of the fryer when she brought them to me, and I could not wait for them to cool down. Well, after the first two bites I slowed down enough to let them start to cool off. But I threatened to lick the plate when I was done. Luckily the young lady came and took my plate away before I could disgrace myself.

We all finished our coffees, walked around the market for another 20 minutes, or so, then we were on our way. We dropped off the dishes at the apartment then came home. I got organizing all of our accumulated paperwork, and typed a couple of posts. Job well done.

We had the opportunity to go to our favorite mercado here in México City today, called La Ciudadela.

Within a few minutes, while “just looking“, we happened upon a shop called “Diana”, which just happened to have some gorgeous pottery, (the blue and white) called Talavera, in the window. Had to have it. All of the dishes in the photos are made entirely by hand, in a town about 3 1/2 hours Southeast of here, called Puebla.

Then we walked into the store and saw these, (photo below) and had to have them as well. So, and hour later, they wheeled the box of dishes, on a dolly, and put it in the car for us. I can only say, for the two of us, they were absolutely meant for us.

The little things in the photo above, that look like egg cups, are actually the stems for drinking glasses. You buy the glass portion separately, and glue them on somehow. Not sure when, or how, we will do this, if we do it.

I hope you are able to see the detail in the photos. Each piece is almost perfect. We cannot wait to start using them.

The colors here are, for the most part, not nearly as dramatic as those, in this season, up North.

The leaves are falling, the days are a bit more overcast, and the temperature is dropping, however briefly, during the morning, and, again, in late afternoon.

The marigolds remind me so much of the fall season, and the holidays fast approaching. But as we have had so much on our minds lately, (Ivan’s surgery, the remodeling, etc.,) we have not focused very much on the season.