Lazy Days in Paradise

Thanksgiving was OK this year, much improved from last year. Went to the RV park for dinner, where they made 3 turkeys, mashed potatoes, gravy, and stuffing. We brought side dishes and desserts. (Ours was Freeda's Cranberry Salad, much requested and a favorite.) It wouldn't unmold, though, ? Mexican Jello? No matter, scooped out fine.Not many RVers here yet, I think we were only 25 or so. Then Sunday we went down again for lunch: turkey soup and sandwiches. REALLY good!

Have been extra lazy, lots of internet-browsing, movie-watching, and reading. The weather turned a bit cooler, only upper 70s in the sun, but feels much cooler in the shade and inside. Gets into the 50s overnight and I've used the furnace in the RV several nights.

Had fun watching the mourning doves mob my birdbath. There were so many!

Look in the tree on the left, plus the group on the ground! They emptied the birdbath in 20 minutes.



I put up and decorated our little Christmas tree, and added a star(fish) as a topper.

And just a couple more random shots: our old guy Rocky (nicknamed Fat Bastard), and the sign I painted on an old board for the front door.

I have a project now that will put paid to my lazy spell. I was volunteered to make quilts for Christmas to give to the villagers. The quilt tops were made by an elderly woman in the states who is blind in one eye and can't see well out of the other one. The quilt tops are all different sizes and not quite square. My job is to cut out backs from fleece fabric, sew them together, topstitch the edges, and delegate the tying to the non-sewing-machine-owners out here. Turns out there are only 3 other women here that sew and have machines with them. And 30 quilts to do, and all before Christmas. And the fleece fabric for the backs won't be here til this weekend. Oy.

My other current project is re-doing my coyote skull/bones/shells wreath. It wouldn't hang right, too heavy for the wire I used as a base, so I found a Hula Hoop in a Segunda and am in the process of re-doing it. You would have laughed at me trying to pantomime Hula Hoop to them. Apparently that wiggle-movement is universal, they knew immediately what I meant and produced 3 hoops for my selection. 

Today I'm cooking roast chicken/stuffing/potatoes/gravy for our friends Delfie and Jose, who were down with a bug for Thanksgiving. I couldn't find turkey for sale anywhere in the 2 villages, (yes, I had to pantomime TURKEY because I forgot the word. It cracked them up, all my gobbling...) but the chicken is almost good enough. That's when we get back from the village today: Ron has to go to the pharmacy to pick up his blood test results.

Tweaking!

No, not that kind of tweaking! I'm nuts enough, don't require any drugs except gin...

We've been working toward making the casita self-contained. The old plan involved building a bedroom/bathroom addition, but that's been scrapped for now. We're too old, feeble, and lazy for a huge project like that, not to mention poor.

In order to be self-contained, we need:
1. Hot water to kitchen sink.
2. A bed
and it would be REALLY nice to have
3. A bathroom sink, and an electrical outlet in the bathroom so we don't have to perform our morning ablutions in the kitchen sink. That just feels wrong somehow. (I actually HAVE a sink, a gorgeous Mexican one, ready to install, but no real room for it in the existing bathroom unless we cede some of our beloved big shower space.) The large basket in the window well contains toothpaste/toiletries etc.

Now instead of an addition, all we need to build is a very small shed outside the bathroom to house the hot water heater. Then run the hot water around the casita to the kitchen. (Currently we take the spaghetti pot TO the hot water heater to fill for dishwashing. Not ideal, but it works. But I do NOT want to run outside to the hot water heater every time I need hot water.)

Once the hot water heater gets moved outside (in photo below, it's behind that screen), we'll stick a full-size bed in that corner. There are these cool hinged wood screens to section off that corner. The bed should JUST fit there, maybe even room to walk heel-toe on the side! Then those stacking baskets (there are 8 of them) will become our clothes storage bins, AKA DRESSER.

THEN, that large armoire thing will become the new entertainment center, but will back up to the baskets. This will allow the TV to swivel for bed-viewing as well. The futon can then be facing the entertainment center, with coffee table between, RV recliner against back wall, and kitchen table butted up to the back of the futon. I don't know what to do with that low chest thing the TV's on now. It only has the 2 narrow drawers, doesn't hold shit for as huge as it is.

The Santa chair is going. Way too big for the available space. Maybe back to Eddie, but Ron wants it for the garage. His Man-Cave. I'm looking hard in the segundas for a rolling office chair for that corner desk, but haven't found one with arms.

Puzzles remaining to be solved include:
1. Bathroom storage. Ron's meds alone fill our fifth wheel's medicine cabinet.
2. My shoes. Oy! It's pared way down from my pre-RV life, but there's still way too many for this space.  Probably storage bins out in the garage...
3. Hanging clothes. Absolutely no room for those anywhere. Probably a garment rack out in the garage...
4. My craft storage. Again, will definitely require bins in the garage...

Good thing we bought that garage...

Odds and Ends

CLICK ON PHOTOS TO ENLARGE!

Have settled into our lazy lives here sans problemas. Every day is a miracle: that we get to wake up here. This is a picture of the entrance road to Dos Palmas, our neighborhood "On The Hill", with the turquoise Sea of Cortez at the bottom. First picture is The Arch, with it's two palms:

Our gated community. Turned out that gate/arch was too small for the RV's that go there. They had to make another entrance next to it. Kinda funny.

Our too-hot weather is over. It's absolutely perfect now: 80 max at 4 PM, and a good breeze. Those horrid  Jejenes (gnats, NoSeeUms) are gone. The bees are back, though, but so are the finches. They mob the birdbath every morning after I fill it, and within 1/2 hour, I have to refill it. Poor things, the only fresh water anywhere is when people water plants. Nobody has birdbaths.

Wednesday we spent a few hours on the beach doing my favorite thing: I walk along and pick through the trash washed up after the hurricanes, looking for treasure, while Ron follows me in the truck. He stops periodically to load firewood, and then catches up to me. I found another coyote skull, lots of cool shells (for wind chimes) and a tattered turquoise gill net. Don't know the final dispensation for that yet: maybe decor on the wall of the garage?

The pelicans were out in force, an apparent feeding frenzy of baitfish.

Yesterday I unpacked my year-old-but-brand-new sewing machine. I found a length of batiked fabric in a Segunda (thrift shop) that has coyotes, cacti, cowboy boots etc. all in my casita colors. I needed a moveable curtain: for the east window mornings and the west window evenings. It turned out great. It's on a tension rod for easy transfer. The views are too amazing to have curtains, but the sun through the windows makes computer/TV glares a pain. I'll bet that fabric was originally $50/yard. I paid about 40 cents. I just LOVE when that happens! Also found a Dunlop sheepskin golf club head cover that I used to make new insoles for my sheepskin slippers. Perfect!

 Glare

 No glare!

Also could not pass up the humongous DELICIOUS cantaloupe. Guy in a battered pickup at the gas station sold me this PLUS a medium watermelon for $2.

Had lunch at my favorite place: San Isidro's, great homemade (of course) food and clean bathrooms with TP and soap, a rarity. Wednesdays they make Albondigas soup (meatball). Sorry, left the camera in the truck.

And I already posted this on Facebook: Ron's rattler. He was walking over to the RV in the dark to come to bed, with the cat on his leash. Rocky suddenly balked, refused to continue. Then Ron heard the rattle. There was a coiled rattler on the RV pad, right in the pathway to the door. He might have walked right into it if not for Rocky. Ron dispatched it with his new Hula Hoe.

Today we had lunch in the village with Jose and Delfie, and Ron's playing poker here at 6 PM with the other 4 men that are in the park. I don't play because I'm too good. Not fair to them. I might work on my tan instead. Wild life we lead, yes, but we knew that going in. This is Jose and Delfie, the early years, followed by Delfie and I a few years ago, and Jose today at the restaurant. Check out that Fro, man! And the miniskirt and THE CAR!!!

I love the little birds at the restaurant today that clean up what we drop. These preferred our rice, but tortilla chips were OK, too. Here's Ron trying to get one to take a rice-topped tortilla chip from his fingers. The bird wasn't having it. But check out this incredible view! I had bacon wrapped shrimp stuffed with cream cheese. OMG! And 3, count'em, THREE gin and tonics.

Another perfect day in Paradise.