Another day later, and I still have bug bites all over me. I really wonder what they all were. The bites are mostly different from one another, a strong recommendation for their having come from different bugs. But, boy!, so they itch whenever they get rubbed by anything, clothing especially.
Hiking is great, but I think I just need always to wear bug repellent when I hike. Goodness…
A few examples of these various bites:
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At last, I am heading home. My brain has been ready to go home for a bit already, and my body and time are now catching up to it. I still had a great time for the rest of my vacation. I am, however, fully ready to be home.
Thank you, God, for this vacation. Please, grant me safe passage home to Houston and our house tonight. Thank you for everything. Amen.
Post-a-day 2023
It has been a good trip. Nonetheless, I am ready to be home. I am grateful for all that has happened on this vacation. And I look forward to being home tomorrow night.
Thank you, God, for all these blessings. Please, give me safe travels and a lovely return home. In your name, I pray. Amen.
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This morning, as we went to a natural park for hiking, her mom’s car went nuts with notifications that the tires needed attention. These are brand new tires. We stop at a gas station. They don’t have Nitrogen (N2), which the tires have. The pressure is acceptable for the short distance we still have to go. So, we stop at a tire place after the hike, and they fill the tires the needed amounts with N2. Yay. Phew(!).
Tonight, we go in my step-sister’s car into the mountains, so I can see the mountains up close. It is great. We then go to a Tim Horton’s, because I’d never been to one, and it supposedly is amazing. No offense to anyone, as it was tasty, but I gladly will stick to Shipley Donuts for all my doughnut needs.
We head home… her boyfriend leans out the open window, as though he is tossing up his Tim Horton’s. “Que pasó, mi amor?!” Something is wrong with the tire. He jumps out at the red light. It’s almost flat, he says. We pull to the roadside once the light turns green (though not very far over! 😛 ).
The tire is truly almost at the end of flatness. Good thing we’d had the windows down to enjoy the great weather, or he wouldn’t have heard it.
He starts to change the tire. The key to unlock the special bolts is missing, though everything else is in its proper place. Perhaps, when someone broke into her car a while back, they also stole the key. Ugh! We can’t change the tire.
Her friends who live nearby show up. They have three spare sets of tools. One of them works as the key. Phew!
Her mom shows up. She’s come to pick me up, because we didn’t know how long it would take, and we had been on the way to drop me off back at the house before they went elsewhere.
There are now six of us – and three cars – standing on the side of the road in Mexico around nine PM on a Saturday. At least we’re likely to be safe with so many people and cars!
Everything gets changed okay, and I help out everything back together in the back, reflective triangles and tire and tools and all (minus the missing key, of course).
Her mom and I go home, as do her friends, and my step-sister and her boyfriend go somewhere to have the tire fixed.
A massive piece of metal is removed. Glad that got handled… goodness. Thanks for keeping us safe. What a tire-ing day today has been.
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Tonight, I saw this happening, asked about it, was told that she, the one I was asking, preferred Coca-Cola, clarified what I saw, laughed as everyone realized I wasn’t just talking nonsense, and then actually took a bite of the taco to discover whether it was any good.
And yes, it actually was good.
How bizarre, right?
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We met with my step-father’s sister and her husband the other morning for brunch, because my mom told me just the other day that they lived near where we would be staying in San Miguel. While at brunch, she mentioned that they lived very near the airport I’d be using for an early flight Friday morning, and invited us to go stay with them Thursday night, so my man didn’t have to make a two-hour drive to the airport before sunrise.
Thus we find ourselves here in the upstairs apartment that is connected to their cute house in their little suburb town. We had a wonderful time this evening and over dinner with them, staying up too late for all of us. After she went to bed and I went to get ready for bed, the boys stayed another hour, just chatting and having a grand old time. It was adorable.
Thank you, God, for this amazing day and evening. Please, grant us safe travels tomorrow, as well as great health for all of us. In your name, I pray. Amen.
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No joke: these serving sizes for food have been massive. The drinks are mostly somewhat small, when compared to the USA. But the food portions often feel even larger than their counterparts would be in the US.
Every meal, we order food and wonder if we might need to order more later, as we are so hungry and the description makes it seem to be only so much food. And yet, after we start eating, we find that there is almost no way we could eat all the food we’ve already ordered, even if we tried(!).
So, we keep aiming to manage our food better at every meal, and we keep getting surprised at every restaurant by how much food they keep giving to us. Sure, they aren’t the lowest meal prices. However, the dish always covers more than the cost for us, and by a lot.
Oddly, I can hardly wait to get back home and eat light foods and small amounts of them!
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What does one do when one loves another and wants the best for that other person, yet one disagrees with that person as to what is best for that person’s health and well-being?
Really, I’d like to know…
I suppose the only true answer here is to pray – let go, and let God.
Okay, God, I give it up to you. I am terrified, and I give it up to you, nonetheless and all the more. I trust in you. Please, help us to see clearly and to pursue your will and your love. Help me to speak the words that need to be spoken, to say what needs to be heard. And help us both to hear what needs to be heard on all sides. In your name, I pray. Amen.
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Today, we went shopping for talaveras in Dolores Hidalgo, a town near Sam Miguel. If you are ever nearby, I highly recommend it. We found especially amazing work at Artesanías del Angel. We genuinely wanted to take the majority of it home with us, us was so gorgeous. Sure, we found great pieces at other workshops. But something about these pieces just hit home in a wonderful way. The longer we spent there, the more we wanted to get. We ended up spending far less money than I at all realized we were spending, and we got the following items:
Custom house address sign
House numbers (for on the fence)
Three custom University signs, talavera styled
Sun
3 Medium planters + water plates
Frog
Large planter
Cooking utensil rest
Multi-colored cuernas (longhorn skull)
Large sink basin
Metal sink basin mount
And Angel gave us the actual sink basin for free, because the one we really liked that was the big size we’d wanted was cracked. He at first wouldn’t let us have it, even, since it was cracked. But, once he realized it wasn’t for a backyard kitchen, but for a backyard basin just for washing hands or tools or whatever, he said we could have the sink and the mount for just the price of the mount itself. We gratefully and promptly accepted.
[This is where I would put some amazing photos of some of the wonderful pieces in the shop, if I hadn’t been so engrossed in everything around me, such that I have no photos I took! That’s how great it was!]
All in all, we spent a shockingly low amount of money, and we got some absolutely amazing pieces for our home and backyard. I am beyond excited for all of these pieces to bless our home. ¡Muchas gracias, Angel y los otros allí!
If you can ever go, please do! They have no website themselves, but you can find info for them from the city’s page or from Google Maps (with photos!).
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It’s just nearly 9:30pm, and I am beyond wiped, wishing I could have been in bed already an hour ago. Today has been good overall, but I am exhausted. We started with watching the first sunrise of the year, as is custom in my family – because, you know, we’re part Japanese now. Then we drove to a nearby city to have brunch with my stepdad’s sister and her husband – wonderful time(!), but tiring drive. I’m so glad I have a man who can handle long, tiring drives and stay fully awake. I struggle to stay awake even as a driver on those, so I tend to stay away from them as a whole.
Anyway, we then meandered back to the city where we’re staying, took a way-too-long nap – well, he did, anyway, and I hung out next to him – and then finally went to dinner. I was super hungry and, so, ate too much. It was delicious food, but also food that doesn’t exactly leave me feeling very healthy or whole, thought definitely quite at home.
Hopefully, tomorrow starts getting some things checked off our list for the house. Fingers crossed that it goes well!
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(Huh… I guess it is 2023 now. 😛 )
hannah ananas 