California on my mind

If you’ve been following along (there will be a test at the end of this post, so Pay Attention!) we’re planning a trip back to the US.  We have actually been planning a trip back to the US all summer.  We were first going to meet up with our folks in August, somewhere in Texas, but when we found out we’d only have 2 days together we nixed that plan.  Ever since we left our stick house for a life on the road (though, at the time, no-one knew it was going to be a life on the road) we have managed to summer in the US.  Last year we were working on construction of the palapa so we stayed here.  This year the diesel prices were insane in the US (or was that just propaganda?) and we thought it would be best to conserve resources and stay here.  But we really wanted to visit with Jody again and see our family again and, well, put the rubber side down and roam.

So, we thought we’d head out in September when our neighbors got back from Canada.  And then the kids wanted to celebrate their birthdays here so we thought OCTOBER.  We’ll DEFINITELY leave in October!  And here it is November and we’re still here.  And then we started the process of buying a house in Merida.  We have had an itch to buy in Merida since before we bought here in PaaMul.  We LOVE the architecture and history and cultural offerings the city provides, but never really made time to get there.  When medical reasons forced our hand we decided to stay a couple days longer and ended up purchasing.  It sounds like we did it spontaneously and without thought, but we had been researching the market and neighborhoods and prices for over a year and when we saw what we wanted in a price we could afford we decided to go for it.  It probably isn’t financially prudent – we should probably sit here in PaaMul and continue to save all our resources, but we’ve never been the conservative types.  Well, Jamie was but something happened to him.  Don’t look at ME!

So the house in Merida goes through governmental processes (fideicomiso) and we still haven’t made it back to the US this (past) summer.  So we jumped on a decent airfare and decided to spend Turkey Day with family in California.  We’ll visit with friends and try to empty out our storage unit.  It kills me, each and every month, to pay that $194.00 to store our stuff we haven’t used in over 4 years.  Clothes that are 4 years old and way too small for the kids.  Hell, Jesse grew out of a pair of pants I bought him here (for $54 at Mega, thank you very much!) in 2 WEEKS!  I would really like to completely empty the place but we do have matttresses we may use in the Merida house and lots of Talavera that we’ll use somewhere.  So I guess we’ll have a trip next summer to bring all our crap from the US to Mexico.  But hopefully not ALL our crap.  Just an itsy bitsy amount.  And get rid of the rest.

Course, one reason we got back to the US is to get STUFF.  Jamie and I buy clothes.  We get clothes for the kids.  I’ve not yet seen a thriftstore down here and we luckily live in two climates; hot and not-so-hot (though when the nortes come through it gets downright COLD).  The day before yesterday Jamie asked me if I wanted to take an exercise walk and my mind recoiled at the thought.  It was SO COLD.  But he bullied me into it (called me a pussy – Dan, do NOT read that to Maca! ) and we headed out.  I layered 3 layers on the top but only had shorts for the bottom.  Half way through I STILL wanted gloves.  I was SURE it was somewhere in the low 60’s (F) but Jamie said it was 75F.  Yikes.  We’re going to shrivel and die in when we go back.  So…when we go back we stock up on warm clothes for the kids (and hope they don’t grow out of them too fast) and summer clothes and stuff for Jamie and me – all at various thriftstores.  I made the mistake of buying shoes last year – they never got used.  The kids run around barefoot or in sandals all year. I need to remember to get them socks for the return to the US and make sure they have warm clothes to wear as we won’t be able to buy them anything until the day after Turkey Day.  I hope the thriftstores are open that day.  What do you guys call it?  Boxing Day? Guy Faulkes Day?  Something with Black in it?

I thought you might get a kick out of our stock-up list – stuff we either can’t get here or it is just too costly.  Some of this stuff is left over from last year – I just keep a running list – and some stuff is duplicated from the book/homeschool list.  I guess I need to make a separate book list and stock-up list.  I’ll get right on that.    Well, I do have an Amazon list, but I don’t always take books off it after I purchase them.  I need to get on that.

Geez, I started writing this post under protest, thinking I had nothing to say but feeling I’d better post again before I get spanked for not posting, and geez.  What a brain dump.  Now I need to respond to comments from the last post.  I’ll get right on that too.  Oh and I have a tonne of photos I need to put up at Flickr.  I’ll get right on that too.  Oh look!  Something shiny!