Friday, November 26, 2010

Packing to Visit the kids...Packing to move...


Life has been a bit crazy for the last couple of weeks as we try to pack up the non-furniture contents of our home, preparing to vacate the property should the sale go through as planned on December 14.  Of course, we don’t know for sure that the sale will occur because, as I explained in the last post, the buyer is released from the contract should the peso weaken to above 12.5 pesos to the dollar by the closing date.  It seems to fluctuating between 12.3 and 12.49 at the moment, so anything could happen.  

In the meantime, we are boxing up our lives, and sorting our lives into two categories: items which we plan to store in the casita of our temporary rental and those items which we will need to use in our rental until we can move into a ‘permanent’ rental.  It’s not always easy to decide into which category a particular box should be placed.  The good news is that we’re making good progress.  Most of the ‘casita’ boxes are packed and in the bodega (like an outdoor shed) here.  Our house is looking more empty, although we are continuing to show the house and entertain ‘back up’ offers.

In addition to this uncertain business about packing and moving, we are also planning to leave for our pre-Christmas trip to Indiana and Maine next week to visit our children, their partners, and our granddaughter, Isabelle.   I am looking forward to this.  It will be great to see everyone and spend some special time before Christmas.  We are scheduled to arrive back in Guadalajara on the 13th of December, just hours before the closing.  Being a good Boy Scout, I am always prepared, and asked our friend Ron, from Kennebunk but here for the winter, to act as our power of attorney and be there at the closing in case winter weather keeps us from returning on time.  Just the bureaucracy of getting that power of attorney took us several hours in the real estate and attorney offices.  Thanks Ron!

In addition to all this, we are preparing to celebrate my 60th birthday in style Monday evening with a birthday party at a local Mexican Restaurant.  We had to limit the guest list to 50 for economic reasons, and there were some I wished to invite but could not.  We will have the party on Monday evening with a Mexican buffet (including four vegetarian dishes) and a Mexican harpist.  I will, of course, post some photos. 

We celebrated Thanksgiving in our usual way, with members of our Unitarian Universalist fellowship at the lovely home of Lew and Trudy Crippen.  We prepared a sweet-potato and fruit casserole that I found in the New York Times in a section devoted to vegetarian Thanksgiving recipes.  It didn’t thicken as it was supposed to, but Pixie added some corn starch to help it along.   It was good, and we enjoyed many non-turkey dishes!

We have had an extra dog around for the last couple of weeks.  Curly, Jeanne and Paul's dog, has been staying with us while they went to Virginia to visit Jeanne's daughter and her family.   Chuy has been enjoying having a canine friend around, and it give us an opportunity to teach him some dog manners as well.  Chuy will be staying with Jeanne and Paul when we go north next week. 









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