Year's End

As we approach the year's end, perhaps we can look forward to the next year instead of reflecting on the past.

2014 highlights did include a Panama Canal cruise followed by some time at Disneyland in May,  An Eastern Caribbean cruise followed by a week at Walt Disney World in August,  A quick Western Caribbean cruise in November and then a trip to Anaheim for friends' Disney Wedding later in November.

Our Eastern Caribbean cruise also included a trek to the Mexican Consulate in Orlando to apply for our Residente Permanente visa as we were out of Mexico on the magic date for the changeover here in San Miguel.  (A past blog entry dealt with that in detail.)  We now will not need to visit the INM offices on a yearly basis (until the government discovers that they don't have the same revenue flow and does something about it).

2014 was also the year that we said goodbye (temporarily, we hope) to our good friend Victor as he moved to Puerto Vallarta.  He had proved so helpful in dealing with landlords, the Mexican DMV, and on many other occasions besides being great fun!  Michael helped Victor move house, transform a former private hospital into a B and B, and Victor graciously house sat and looked after our Wheatens while we gallivanted off on our travels.  Now the poor dogs are thrust back at our earlier solution: Wendy's Pet B'n'B out in the campo.  Not quite the same as staying 'at home' for them, but they like it there, too!  Lots of room to run and a comfy house in which to spend the nights.  We'll have to renegotiate our lease this coming Spring at our current house with our landlords (who speak only Spanish) without his good services.  Wish us luck!

And without Victor and his visiting family to amuse, we had to branch out for the recent Christmas holidays and found that we could manage a new group of acquaintances.  That's a good thing, too!

Looking forward to 2015, as promised, we have three weeks in Cabo this year.  We'd decided to make it two weeks until the family asked us to extend an additional week.  Happy to oblige.  We now need to whittle down the forty-two dinner recipes to a more manageable list.

And instead of flying home from Cabo for a week before heading out to New Orleans, we'll be flying direct!  Time to seriously work on the packing list (already done!).  We've never been to New Orleans, but a great friend - who goes yearly - asked that we put it on our schedule this next year to celebrate her fifth year of cancer remission.  Everyone to whom we speak tells us how much we'll like it - so I guess we've just been missing out on a good thing!  I understand that there are a group of neon colored wigs for us all to wear while viewing the parades....

Then it's home for a bit before we head out to another bucket list contender - a set of three Baltic cruises that begin in Orlando (after a week at Walt Disney World again; we've always managed to combine cruising with the Parks) for a 15-day transAtlantic, followed by a week of cruising to the northern European capitals along the Baltic Sea, and then a week doing the Norwegian fjords.  We'd been thinking of trying an eastbound transatlantic (we'd flown to Spain the last time and cruised westbound) and a 15-day cruise with only three port stops (New York City, Newfoundland, and Iceland) tempted us with all those sea days.  Then there was the week doing the fjords and we just filled in the week between those two cruises with the northern capitals cruise.  That's going to do us for cruising in 2015! 

Our TA (travel agent) managed to find a cabin for us that was available for all three cruises so there won't be any packing/unpacking until we finish the cruises at the end of the month.  Then we have the excitement of flying home from Copenhagen with a very brief stopover in Chicago.  Hope O'Hare is in better shape than the last time I had to sleep on the floor of the terminal when our flight was delayed....


Then no more travel until 2016.  It may get a little boring, but we'll need to save up our pennies for further adventures!

...Or Not!

Between the last post and this one the weather did improve a bit - and we've been in Southern California for a wedding at Disneyland (do I hear an echo of a horse-drawn Cinderella-style carriage?). 

However, it's been grim since we returned a couple of days ago. (More on that trip later.)  The nature of our homes here (concrete and brick with no central heat) depends largely upon sunlight to warm them.  If the sun is out (i.e., it's warm-to-hot), the exterior of the house heats up and radiates warmth into the house through the night.

When the sun doesn't shine (cloudy skies, rain, et cetera) there's nothing to warm the walls and there is no heat to radiate inside the house during the evening/night hours.  A few days of this and our houses are cold through and through.

Don't suggest adding central heat.  We rent - and even if we didn't - few houses are configured to add heat.  There's no room for duct work, for one thing.  Nor room for furnaces unless you've a newer house that was designed for a heat plant.

Our home has a small balcony on the second floor where the water heater is housed and I suppose it could suffice (the water heater requires gas), but the heated air would have to be fed into the sala on the second floor and you could hope that it would make it's way down to the ground floor.  Adding duct work  to the ground floor would make the house look like something out of a sci-fi picture!

So we make do with free-standing LP heaters.  Venting?  I think not!  We just have to be careful and turn them off before retiring for the night so we'll wake up in the morning.  Or else leave a window open, but that sort of eliminates the use of a heater, eh?

But we're home from Disneyland (where the wedding took place), the dogs are healthy and happy to see us (and we're cooking a special stew of barley, carrots, sweet potatoes, and chicken in broth to augment their kibble), and we don't leave town until mid-January!  So what if it's a bit chilly?  That's why we have a growing closet of warmer clothes!  Wish I could type while wearing gloves....