Yes, it looks (and feels) like winter may be here!
We had a dry week with warm-to-hot sunshine, but it was followed by overcast skies and one heck of a storm that rained overnight and continued as drizzle the following day. Once our homes cool down, they stay that way unless it's sunny for several days running. Yesterday was warm, again, but today is cool and overcast - at least to begin.
So we decided to zip off to Don Pedro (a local chain of hardware stores in town) to see what they had in heaters. Two years ago we were in a different house that had a fireplace downstairs in which we placed a set of gas logs. No fireplace in the current house (at least yet!), so last year we got a propane freestanding heater that required an electrical connection (read extension cord) to ignite the burners and run the fan.
This year we picked up a slim heater that has the option of electrical heat with fan, but otherwise doesn't require any electrical connection. Michael just drove off to Don Pedro's again to get a second one for upstairs. At last we'll be warm again. We do have a heated mattress pad (which I seldom turn to more than LO, but one's shoulders get cold. The space heater will fix that! Bring on the weather, we dare you! [It's spitting a bit, even now. And it's spitting again this evening. The weather keeps us guessing....]
Michael just set up the second heater on the second floor. Can't tell you how spiffy it looks, just sitting there -- no electrical cords, no propane tank sitting alongside (they are inside the cabinet on these heaters). It's the little things that mean so much!
Guess we'll be selling the original heater since we don't need three. If we used the maid's room for its intended purpose instead of as a bodega, perhaps we'd keep it, but we don't! These new ones are just too cool!
The non-use of electricity is a good thing. Utilities here in Mexico are quite reasonable, but one gets used to that and large bills - even if smaller than those back NOB - can still cause you to catch your breath. Water and propane are okay; it's the CFE bill (electricity) that can be a bit daunting.
Water is billed monthly and a dry month runs between $140 - $200 pesos (@ $12.50mp/dollar). We refill our propane tank whenever it's empty - about $500 pesos per month. But the electricity is billed semi-monthly and has been running about $2000 pesos/bill. Electricity is subsidized here, but as your usage goes up, the subsidy falls. At this level, we're paying the full rate. And the latest billed month included a week when we were in Puerto Vallarta and we turned everything off while we were gone! We even sent the dogs out to the Daisy Hill Puppy Farm, so no one was here during that week to run up the electricity and/or water. Still didn't get the billing below $2000! Now, $2000 pesos = about $160 US, or $80 per month, so I suppose one shouldn't complain, but seeing four digits on the bill tucked beneath our door can be a shock.
This weekend is also Mexico's version of Black Friday. Since the country doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving (duh!), it's just the third weekend in November. We did go shopping the sale at our local Office Depot and picked up a larger TV for the bedroom and a 'wireless' Blu-Ray player. 'Wireless' is in quotes, because it requires a dongle - which no one has! Even the maker of the player (Philips) is back-ordered. Grrrr. Guess we'll have to wait to watch our Netflix and Vudu films in the living room until we can find one!
We were also looking at a two-drawer lateral file for the office so we could dispose of some file boxes of 'stuff' but the only one they had in stock had a few dings. Why pay full price for damaged goods? Perhaps the Celaya store has one in a box... It's only a half-an-hour away; nothing we'd think about if we were still in L.A. It's only here where we must drive through the countryside to reach Celaya where we think it's so far away! Spoiled!
And we decided not to drive to Celaya, but went back to our own Office Depot today and picked up a slightly different model. A major job putting it together (all that practice with IKEA paid off), but it looks quite nice, nearly matches the finish on our book cases, and should hold a whole bunch of 'stuff.' Tomorrow's task will be sorting out the 'stuff' and moving it into the new lateral filing system in some organized way.
Let's see -- what else? Oh, yes - remember when we went to Nuevo Laredo in October to have our van nationalized? Well, we're still working on it. It was nationalized while we were there, but the local registration process is taking a lot longer. They changed the process after we'd filed our paperwork, so it's really a bit complicated. It would go faster if our facilitator had waited a bit longer and simply filed online - but who knew until the new process was in place!
Thought we would pick up the plates last Wednesday when we took the van in to be inspected (mostly checking the VIN number), but we'll be going back next Wednesday morning - hopefully for the plates this time....
Then we'll immediately need to get an emission check - as well as the every-six-months check based on the plate number. There is a testing place very near the registration office that we've used before. We can stop on our way home! [Hmm - isn't there a McDonald's in the mall across the road from the inspection station ....?]
We're really hoping that we do get the plates this time because Michael is driving to Guadalajara that weekend for our friend Victor's family 'do' and we'll need to get a permit to take the van outside our state if the plates are not here (at $21 mp/day). That should be it, I think, until we figure out the renewal process. Maybe that will be done on line by the time we need to do it?
