Tag: Mexico

Happy Thanksgiving

As usual, my family and I celebrated Thanksgiving today, the Friday that follows the official holiday. And, as usual, we had a lovely time together – I very much enjoyed being with those who attended and am very grateful for the time we all spent together.

However, I am absolutely exhausted, and so must sleep. My man is driving to Mexico tonight and then tomorrow for the long haul actually into and through Mexico. As usual, I am scared.

Dear God, thank you for this lovely day and family. Thank you for my man. Please, help him to be safe on his trip. Keep him always safe, happy, healthy, and holy. Help him, please, to follow and pursue your will. Bring him back home to me safely, happy, healthy, holy. Watch over him and guide him, please. And help me to trust in You and Your protection, and to release this fear I am presently carrying. Help me to find comfort and ease in Your promise and love. Keep him and the dog and the car and all the stuff safe, please. Bless his driving. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Talavera

We have some awesome Talavera from Mexico, the majority of which arrived this past weekend with my man, from his most recent visit to Mexico. We have loads of pots and some plaques and a lot of one tile and some dishes and lots of animals etc. now, and it is very exciting. I already started setting the new planter pots around this morning for visual testing, and we laid out the animals and such in a rough formation for putting them up on the fence. I have little attachment to the formation. They just needed to be set outside in a rough shape for my man to start hanging them up. He had put up the two pieces before that we already had, but he wanted me to have say for this lot. It’s likely because he doesn’t want me to get annoyed with how he does it. However, if he had just done it with his own tastes and opinions, I likely would have loved it. But, now that he’s asked me, he runs the risk of my being incredibly meticulous about it all, as I tend to get when something is up to me… thus my intentionally loose attachment to the current formation.

Said formation can be seen here:

Oh, JK. I didn’t take a photo of the formation that I actually put together on purpose. Instead, you may enjoy a photo of most of the stuff just sitting in the grass when we first brought it all outside, but I hadn’t organized it for display yet.

Also, yes, there is a chicken in the photo, too. I will see if I can get a photo of the display in the morning, so we can compare later how it all turns out on the fence. 😛

Thank you, God, for such blessings as today has held. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

A big day

Firstly, I just will say that I had an almost-normal BM this morning, and that was awesome. Woohoo!

Now, the bigger news in my head: My man went to Mexico today. And he came back today, too. All by car.

He had to extend or complete his vehicle registration for use in Mexico, which he had set up when he drove down there for the New Year’s vacation time. He just hadn’t closed it, as he’d expected to go back at least once more before late June. However, having seen this past week that he won’t be making it back down way south in the next three weeks, we found it best for him to go to the border today and handle the necessary paperwork. So, he left around 10:30 this morning, and got back just after midnight tonight. And, I kid you not, his car looks like he destroyed school upon school of bugs… it is coated… like 3-D paint, actually. Haha Apparently, there are even feathers in the mix, which is kind of sad, really. But that’s how it goes sometimes. I’m glad he was kept safe through it all.

Thank you, God, for the safe travels and successful trip of my man today. Grant him and me both the rest we need tonight to give us the ability and energy to do great things tomorrow, always pursuing and fulfilling your will, hopefully with increased clarity all the while. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2023

Stateside!

Y’all, he is officially in Texas. He has stopped twice already to nap at rest stops, and I don’t know how many times he has had to stop to release bodily stuff from one end or the other (or both!). He somehow ended up vomiting and with diarrhea last night, and so got a start hours later than intended this morning. My guess is that he ended up drinking some bad water… I hope it clears through him quickly, and he can heal by tomorrow.

Nonetheless, he is almost home.

Dear God, thank you for his safe travels so far. Please, continue to bless his travel with safety, and help heal his body, that he return home to Houston healthy and safe. Then, please, grant us both blissful sleep tonight, that we awaken refreshed and ready to enjoy the holiday together tomorrow, pursuing and fulfilling your will by being our best selves together. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Stuffed

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.

A simple breakfast plate… simple my a, right?!

Oddly, I can hardly wait to get back home and eat light foods and small amounts of them!

Post-a-day 2023

Talaveras

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!).

Post-a-day 2023

Travel

We are going to Mexico to visit his family. He is going for three weeks, and I am going for a week and a half. However, both our packing ended up looking like we’re moving there for a month (or two). Oh, the comedy in packing when driving somewhere versus flying… he leaves by 2:30am at the latest (within the next hour). I fly down on Friday. My carry-on had better be just a few little things, because my clothes, excepting the outfit for the plane, are all packed and in the car already. Lord, guide me, please.

Dear God, please, keep him safe in his travels today especially. Keep us both safe throughout all of our travels. Thank you for this life. Help us to bless the world through the gifts that you have given to us. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Happy Christmas

I had my man open tonight all his presents that I’d put under the tree. I don’t give Christmas presents, but I determined to have some fun for him this year, to let him be like a little kid and to shower him with gifts. Almost everything was either gained second-hand or from free gift cards, so the total cost was around $50, yet there were loads of presents for him to unwrap. He had said he liked opening packages, so I made sure he got to do just that tonight.

I also surprised him with my ticket to come visit with him in Mexico. (Granted, that one was several hundred dollars, but I’m also visiting my step-sister in Monterrey with the tickets, so it will be two trips for the usual price of the one, plus $40… not at all a bad deal, especially since I get to spend New Year’s with him, visit the town he loves, and see my step-sister and her family.)

He got me nervous by asking if I’d ‘approved this with anybody’. But, afterward, he said it was totally fine. His mom would be surprised, as he’d just told her two days ago that I wasn’t coming. But that everything would be okay. I’m still in a little bit of that space of unease, probably because it gave me the feeling of being in trouble, but I’m just going to let it be and see what happens. Hopefully, the concern will clear up on its own just by my allowing it to express itself.

I really hope he enjoyed everything I did for him tonight. And I’m really excited to set up the Play Station 3 that my mom gave us from her house (used to be my brother’s, but he didn’t need or really want it). We likely won’t get to play together until mid-January, after he’s back, but that’s okay. I’m excited about it, nonetheless.

Dear God, please, help us to rest well tonight. Keep us both safe in our travels. Help us to pursue and to fulfill your will by being our best selves. Thank you for everything. And please, heal my uncle – help him to join you fully. In your name, I pray. Amen.

Post-a-day 2022

Blood money

Started menstruating early while on a middle-of-semi-nowhere resort. Didn’t have quite enough tampons to make it through the rest of the weekend. Must purchase from the store on property, because we’re in the middle of a nature preserve and can’t get to anywhere reliable easily or cheaply. Glance at magnets, because he likes to collect magnets from his travels, but determine that none were interesting in the first place and he didn’t much care to have one for this particular trip, anyway. Buy two eight-pack boxes of regular Tampax Pearl and a box of ten Mexican brand supers. Cost is $25. $25 for 26 tampons. He asks, “Is that typical?” ‘Five or so dollars would be,’ I tell him. He comments that well, everything is expensive just because of where we are, and we have to get these, so, oh, well. He doesn’t say it meanly or annoyedly, but simply acknowledging what’s so.

We finish paying, I grab my boxes, and we begin to walk away. The worker/cashier calls out to us. He turns away to grab something, says, “Here,” and hands us two shot glasses that are actually kind of cool looking. We chuckle and thank him, and everyone is smiling genuinely, and the two of us feel so delighted at how just being ourselves while buying tampons turned out to be so fun. We don’t even have shots, but we certainly will find some small serving of some beverage or beverages to enjoy with these little glasses.

And then my mom asked, of course, upon hearing the bulk of the story and seeing the photo, if they were tampon holders. (For those who don’t know my mom, it was a definite joke on her part, and we all laughed really well at it.) It was great.

Post-a-day 2022