Billie's Shoes

I don't know about you guys but I love when I have a chance to create something for someone, that has no idea I am. Talk about a mess of grammatical errors in one sentence :c) Our expat friends Billie and Lenny decided they were now finally old enough to get married ;c) Lenny is not quite ready to retire, but Billie is. So she spends 6 months here and Lenny comes for visits. Then she spends 6 months at their home in Florida with Lenny. So any way They decided to get married last June here before Billie closed up the house for the summer to live in Florida. The shoes she had for her dress were absolutely Cinderella beautiful!! Lace and satin,pearl beading all the things that make a fairy princess shoes. There was just a slight problem they didn't have her size BUT they did have a half size smaller. So she did what any girl face with this tiny inconvenience does she buys the perfect shoe and grins and bares it for the perfect outfit :c). Besides no matter how beautiful the shoes were they sure weren't going back on Billie's feet after the wedding.

Billie volunteers at the animal shelter and I volunteer for the wildlife rescue. Both organizations share a thrift store. So in walks Billie one day with her shoes to donate. For a number of months I'd see the shoes every time I was at the store. Each time I'd think surely there is something I can do with those. Finally a couple of months ago I came up with the thought of making a pincushion with one. Like many of us I have made pin cushions for friends out of their baby's shoes or a special basket, dish or other container. But I never made a pin cushion out of an adult size shoe. I went to the thrift store and bought the pair. Figuring I always had one to experiment with and one for a gift. Played around with it for a few days trying to get the "cushion" to fit the shoe and look decent. Not so easy cuz the shoes were T straps with only the toes and heels. When I was finished with all the fluffing and fru fruing (a word?) (Miss Billie is a real southern lady so can there ever be too much fru fruing?)I think it turned out to be very cute. :c)

Now all I had to do was wait and wait and wait for Billie to return for the season. Ha finally she got here the other day. I sent her a note today asking if they would be home cuz I needed to run something by. So this evening after we fed all the critters LW and I went over. I was so tickled when she was so surprised and thrilled with her "pin cushion" :c) I have to tell you there really is nothing like the feeling you get in your heart when a gift you create for someone brings them so much pleasure and happiness. Makes all those hours of redos, glue stuck in your hair, paper cuts, burnt fingers, more then worth it :c)

Here are a couple of pictures of Billies Pin cushion.

Without any comments on the weather here I'll bid you goodnight. So my Bloglandian friends have a wonderful day or evening (despite the winter weather) depending on what part of the world you are in :c)

Alert Alert!!! Santa Was On Our Block Last Night ;c)

Yes he was !!! Last night was our neighborhood Christmas party for the kids. Now we really don't have all that many kids living on our block. What we do have is a lot of Grandmas and Grandpas on our block. And you know where ever there are grandparents there are grand kids :c) LW was such a trooper and took pictures so I could share them here. Tomorrow night is the family block party. We all set up tables out in the street Oh that would be after we close off the block. You don't have to have the city's permission to close off your block to have any kind of get together cool huh?? We'll get the tables set up and then each family cooks their own dinner to eat.Although sharing happens all the time. We all sit together while we eat. No it's not pot luck that is a concept that hasn't come south of the boarder yet. There will be a live band set up and there will be dancing in the street until 1-2ish in the morning!!. I'll report all the details on Sunday just not to early :c)

This is the little program the kids put together for their family. There is a traditional party at Christmas that is called a Posada. This is when Mary and Joseph go looking for an inn to stay at. Traditionally the couple goes to three houses the first two refuse to give them room. The third one will let them stay in their stable. So it is at the third house that host the party, the posada. Because Mazatlan is so secular many of the old country traditions have been modified. In our block that is the case. There isn't the procession instead the kids do a small play on the stage, much like the kids program done in churches North of the Border.

LW wants me to apologize for the lighting. We don't have street lights so the pictures are a bit on the murky side. If you look hard in the middle of the tent on the last picture you can catch a glimpse of Santa Claus. He like Christmas trees, lights and many of the secular Christmas traditions that we grew up with are not traditions here.

This little cutie patootie is little Olivia she is Nari and Hernando's grand daughter. Nari looks after Olivia and her cousin Max while their parents work. Nari and Hernando live right next door.

This is Anna she also stays are her grandma's after school so her mom can work.

This very handsome young Caballero is Miguel he is Anna's cousin. He also stays at their grandmas while his mom works. One day we'll have to have a visit about the reason why day cares, hospice, and a number of other community services from up north aren't here.

This is Nari's youngest son. Manuel is a very special child !! He always brings me his art work so I can put it on our

Must run now we are having about 8-9 friends coming to eat with us. LW and I are fixing Paella YUUUUUM So my bloglandian friends have a wonderful day or evening depending on where you are in the world :c)

Quiet Day

There hasn't been to much going on today. We have had very very nice warm weather with the humidity way down. :c) Yep I know ours is way on the opposite of most of the rest of the US and Canada. And to be honest the warm "seasonless" weather is one of the things LW and I enjoy. First off it's not like the seasons or the weather never changes. Heck the raining season from July through Oct can really be mean. Hot in the high 90s (F) and humidity in the high 80 %. Dry season the temps are in the low 80s to high 70s (F) and the nights cool down into the low 60s-high 50s. And that is plenty cold thank you very much!! :c) The winter the southern states are having this winter sounds like the horrendous one all of Mexico had last winter. Like north this year there was snow in parts of Mexico that has never (can't remember at least) had snow :c( It was truly terrible for the very poor because things like Missions, soup kitchens, and homeless shelters are very rare here. In fact coats were collected a number of times last year to send to the needy in the central and coastal mountains. I hope that this year stays warmer for everyone here. Last year stayed so cold for so long it had a great effect on the local businesses that survive on the seasonal trade, there are many here that can't withstand another bad tourist year. :c(

If you are anything like I am, you are always on the lookout for cool clip art and you are all over it especially when it's free!! Yes?? Well Lisa Vollrath of Go Make Something fame is doing a wonderful 25 days of clip art gifts as a thank you. If you'd like to go check it out just head over here Have fun she has some really adorable tags to download too. Please remember to follow her instructions to linking back to her. Seems the least you could do as a thank you for all the goodies. :c)

How are the preparations coming at your Digs?? I'm finally getting where I can see daylight at the end of the tunnel!!! WOOO HOOO :c)

Have a great and wonderful day or evening depending on where in Bloglandia you are :c)

Pledge What Pledge ??

Remember way back in those Innocent days of summer when we all pledged to give only hand made gifts this year?? Oh Yeah you remember. Heck that won't be hard at all. If I get a couple of gifts made a month I'll be set and there will be none of that panic the last 11days!! :c) Well I don't know about you guys but I'm getting a bit concerned that there is only 11 days left!! :c( I haven't started the jeez if I was smarter I would be panicking but..... I can't even begin to imagine life in my Bloglandian Sisters' studios where they are trying to keep merchandise in their stores!! I do know they are far better women then I am!! :c)

Got to run hopefully I can get a bit of the glitter, glue, paper and paints cleaned up before LW wakes from his little nap. :c) Have a wonderful day or evening in Bloglandia depending on what part of the world you are in :c)

Tis The Season of Aguinaldo

Mexico for a good portion of her history has been an occupied country. Because of these different occupations her laws tend to protect the worker the "everyman" One such law is the requirement of employers to give their employees the gift of Aguinaldo at Christmas time. It is a certain amount of bonus calculated by the amount of time you work, the length of employment and the amount of your wage. Now believe me the formula for calculating a full time employee's aguinaldo is more complicated then the mathematical equations Doc Brown used to figure out the "time-space continuum" necessary to fling the Delorian back to the future :c).

Just to figure Little Dulce's part time bonus will make your eyes cross. Something on the order of the amount of days she works for how much divided by the cycles of the moon in a year, multiplied by squared to the power of 10 minus the days ending in the letter Z plus all Mondays that fall on Friday the 13Th. Oh wait maybe that's not quite it. Anyway the short version is basically 2 weeks of wages. AH but then you also have vacation you have to pay which is also basically 2 weeks of work. There is also a law that says the aguinaldo must be payed no later then Dec. 20th, must be in the form of money.

We only have Dulce that we employ thank goodness. We gifted her last Tuesday with her aguinaldo. Since her birthday was the next day (Weds) we gave her both gifts at the same time.

Now along with the required bonuses Christmas is also the time you are expected to tip those workers that provide services for you. There are the garbage guys. Our garbage is picked up three times a week. These guys get payed next to nothing. Three guys work a truck together. Unlike most cities up north there is no real limits as to how much you put out or how you put it out, or how heavy it is. That is pretty much left up to the crews working the trucks. Of course like everywhere the guys tend to match their accommodating nature to your Christmas Thank you gift. Then there is the guys who deliver your gas (propane) There are two kinds of tanks here. The large stationary ones they fill from their truck tank and the tall, heavy portable ones. If your tank is portable these guys will sling a full tank over their shoulder and carry it in and change it for you. If you live on the 5 floor of a walk up they still haul those tanks up the stairs for you!! If like us you have a large tank on the roof these guys will climb up to the roof the guy on the ground throws the hose to his buddy on the roof and they fill the tank. They don't even have to come in the house to gain access if you don't want them to. Now in my mind they more then deserve a Christmas Thank you!! The mail carriers have their very own day in November but it's nice to put a little something in and envelope for them. There's the old guy that sells that comes by with the daily news paper. Well actually, it's pretty much anyone that provides a regular service through out the year for you.

Could get a bit expensive huh? Actually not really the only ones that are required or that have required amounts is your employees. The rest is what you feel like doing. To be honest with you I always look forward to these little gifts. The work here is very hard, and the pay doesn't reflect that. Remember for most of Mexico's workers the daily wage is about $5.00 US dollars!! :c( It's not much but it is a way of showing the people that provide services for LW and I that we respect what they do.

Cards tend to be a bit unruly to handle especially if you are the guys riding on the back of the trucks (garbage or gas) We pick up a box of the little gold envelopes with flaps just the right size to slip a couple of bills into and still fit into a pants pocket. I do a little festive fluffing and glitter (the easy part) LW on the other hand is the guy who gets up at the crack of O dark :30 to be sure he catches the garbage truck, the newspaper Papa and keeps on eye out for Omar and his sidekick (Gas jockeys) as they go tearing through the neighborhood. :c)

One more thing crossed of the list. I always feel like I'm really making good progress until I go to visit someones blog that has to remind me just how little time is really left!! Why tell me why??? Are they not familiar with a procrastinator's favorite quote?? You know the one I mean "Ignorance is bliss" :c)

Looks like the glue gun is ready to get some serious work done so I hope everyone in Bloglandia has a wonderful day or evening depending on where in the world you are :c)

Ham Yep Ham

Ham is one is one of those foods I think you either like or you don't. I happen to be one of those people that likes ham. I don't often say that or that I really have a soft spot for many cured pork (?dishes isn't the word) foods (?better). I mean I was raised by an Italian father. I'm sure somewhere in the family crest it must say cured pork Rules :c) But in this ever so health conscious world we have all, at least publicly pronounce cured pork as evil, vile, deliciou... ah despicable food to put in our bodies.

When we lived in the states that was one hard practice for me!! I like to have baked ham once in awhile and then a huge pot of beans and ham with left over numies on the bone :c) Heck I could completely identify with Jimmie Derante's habit of eating 5 pieces of bacon everyday for breakfast. When it came to really good prosciutto there was no holding back

As far as uncured pork I could live without that but cured now that is a horse of a different color.

One of the things we quickly learned when we moved to Mexico is "There ain't no cured meats" Yep cured meats are imported. No sausage, pepperoni, salami, ham, bacon, prosciutto, sarano and whatever else I have left out.

Now to me it seems like it would be a shoe in here. Pigs/Pork is raised everywhere. Every village has pigs running around they are everywhere you look. Heck there are dishes that use the whole head. :c( There are all kinds of pork dishes but alas no cured pork ones. It's such a mystery to me, one I'm sure if I wait long enough some grad student will do their thesis on :c)

Just for the foreign population here in Mazatlan SAM's will provide for sale a limited amount of spiral cut hams :c) at only this time of the year. No I don't know how many but I do know that if you see them you better be buying then cuz it's not going to be to long before the word gets around.

SO the other day we made the dreaded trip to SAM's for the gihugest bags of dog food and the millennium packs of paper towels and TP. I told LW I was just going to wander over to the cheese and meat section to see what they had for cheese. Oh man cheese don't get me going on that, it's another whole story!! No cheese worth sacrificing our first born for, BUT there in the cold case was the once a year, always at Christmas, small allotment of...yes be still my heat HAM !!! :c) I looked at the price coughed $270.99 (pesos) that's with the current exchange that's $24ish US for 8 lbs. Remember this is bone in shoulder cut not a whole lot of meat. But in a money is no issue manner I put one in the cart.

Today LW and I decided is Ham dinner day. Now LW can really take or leave ham so the excitement is really for me. Ham goes in the cast iron dutch oven, light the oven, set temp, put ham in oven to cook at. Well the instructions say 275 degrees for 12 min. per lb or 2 hours. Cool huh but somewhere in the back of my memory there was something about the ham dinner last year I needed to remember but couldn't :c(

Okay so here's the thing ovens are not part of the traditional Mexican kitchen. Not to cook meats or foods in anyway. Modern stoves come with ovens cuz that's the way they make them. You know for those cold countries where cooking in ovens is done. :c) Here those ovens are used to store your large pots and pans in :c) SO because ovens aren't a necessity the Mexican brand stoves don't have temperature regulators. On the oven nob there are three numbers 1 2 3 you simply guess what the corresponding temp is to the number :c) No problem I'll just use an oven thermometer... nope they don't sell them here. I had my sister send me one for a Christmas present. Okay remember no regulators soooooooo how do you keep the temp at say 325 ( cuz it really doesn't matter what number you set the knob at the darn thing keeps on heating higher)!! For that you use the "wooden spoon" temp regulating method. Huh? Take your wooden spoon and prop the door open at the proper width to maintain the oven at 275 degrees. :c)

Okay back to the ham. One hour and 30 minutes later ham is cooked all the way to the bone. Good news too. Only the top 1/6th inch is jerky this year :c) HA NOW I REMEMBER WHAT IT WAS I was suppose to remember from last year shorten the cooking time!!! Hey LW can you please help me remember that next year????????

Small disclaimer this is not our ham. Our ham refused to pose for pictures after she got a look at herself in the oven window!! :c) And there is no way you could find fresh asparagus here :c(

I'm off to the refrigerator to have a little bit of our once a year evil, despicable but ever so delicious ham. :c) Have a wonderful day or evening in Bloglandia depending on where you are :c)

Problem Rationalized

I was talking to one of my "little sisters" Lulu of Coastal Sisters earlier today. Actually I was desperately trying to come up with a good excuse for not answering her email yesterday. When in doubt my motto is to rationalize :c) Okay so if you have read much of my blog (if you haven't do my fragile self esteem a favor and lie :c) well maybe just fib a bit) you know I have a teensy bit of a problem about procrastinating on starting/finishing a project ;c) I know this little character trait must drive LW crazy, but God love him, he never ever says a word!! So I was talking (typing) to lit'l sis Lulu when it hit me. The reason I do that is because I am sooooo bad about keeping a gift until the date the gift was created for. You see as soon as I get it done I just can't wait to give it to the giftee :c) For example:

I was making these really cool pillows for lit'l sis Jackie's Christmas present. She and Eliot after three years of packing and moving are finally one more trip away from permanent living here!!! :c) Where Jackie is the, I like my spaces to be very sleek, unfussy, and unchaotic, I love my spaces to lean more toward layered, fussy, and chaotic. I really need a lot of visual noise around me to be creative and comfortable. Ha there's that rationalization I'm so good at :c)

Back to the point, the cool pillows. After I saw how easy (thank you Dawn) it is to print on material, I had this idea to make Jackie 2 pillows. Pillows that were white with darker red trim and black/white prints. That's her colors in her condo.

Both pillows have a view of the Eiffel tower but different perspectives. Then I added envelopes as pockets.

In one envelope I placed a "letter"

In the other I put a little tag with a quote about friends and a maroonish red tassel with my signature heart and key. Does this only happen to me?? The camera battery dies before the last two pictures can be taken?? :c( Sooooo maybe Jackie will let me take a couple of pictures of the "other" pillow??

Today Jackie and I were going to go to lunch so a day or so ago I decided I was going to give Jackie her present then. Well you know... I had the pillows made, all I had to do was the "letter" and tag. I just can't wait all those days till Christmas before I know how she likes them. So here as usual the glue was still drying as I left the house to pick her up :c) RATIONALIZATION at it's finest :c)

SO my Bloglandian friends have a wonderful day or evening depending on what part of the world you are in :c)