Getting Settled With All Our Stuff..

My small desk

It's been a week now since our container arrived and was unloaded into our front room. Carlos and I have been working like dogs to find places for all our things and place furniture where it should be. So far I have only found four things broken, a large depression glass vase, two pieces of pottery by a favorite potter and a large Spanish Pottery Caldero I hand carried back from Spain more than 20 years ago.

A favored piece of pottery didn't make it!

Our small breakfast table

While I worked on placing furniture through out the house and putting furniture together, Carlos worked on getting all his boxes of books up to his library. I unpacked kitchen ware and found places for it. As it was at least 100 degrees F all week, we sweated buckets as we worked.
I did run into a problem with one of our patio sets. It was new last year and we never put it together, so when I worked on it here I found that I am missing most of the hardware. Called home depot and they are sending it to our US address and I will get it mailed to me here. They were great to work with!

Need hardware to put two more chairs together and the arms on these!

The rest of the terraces and courtyard look so much more inviting with some tables, chairs, umbrellas and other furniture placed on them. Just the right places to sit with a cold drink!

The two guest rooms are more than ready for guests!

Finally both Carlos and I are working hard on getting his library set up and comfortable. All the books are waiting to be shelved. His guitars are there as well as his sheet music. His new couch arrived and the chairs and ottomans, tables, bar and lamp are in there and ready for his escape!

Books to shelve!

So that what we've been doing all week, working pretty hard. Tomorrow we go to the port of Progreso and have a leisurely lunch with some friends and take a long walk on the beach. Than on Monday, back to work.

Container is Here!

So finally our container of goods passed customs, with just a few rejects. Our car seats from the car we drove down, and of all things an old canoe and paddles. We made a quick decision and abandoned them as the duty was well over thousand dollars US and it would have added several days onto the wait, at one hundred dollars a day. Our customs broker was right on it and kept us up to date on all that was going on.
I prepared the first room to receive all the boxes and other stuff from a 40 foot shipping container by moving the only furniture to the far end of the room.

The truck with the container on the bed arrives at midnight. Because we live in the centro part of Merida truck traffic of this size is by permit only and we have 3 hours from midnight to unload. I'm sure my neighbors are not happy. But wait, we have a problem. Customs put a seal lock on the container that we must remove to open. No one told us this. The driver has no tools. We have no tools because they are packed IN the container. Our workers for unloading arrive and with a little bit of that Mexican creativity, they manage to remove the locking device with the assistance of a tire rod. 

Finally at about 1 am we start the unloading. And the room quickly fills up. As does the terraces and the courtyard. OMG did I really bring all this STUFF?

By 2:30 am we have the container fully empty, the house packed to the rafters and we are alone with our things. Now the fun really begins, what do we keep? What do we dispose of? And the proverbial were does it all go?

Before, During and After...

This week the painters were here everyday from early morning to early evening and they even came on Saturday for a 2/3 rds day. They worked hard in the heat. I went through liters and liters of water and my freezer couldn't keep up with the demand for ice. I think it looks great...

Before...being prepped

Done with new color!

Casita with old color
.

During the transformation to Azul

I love the new look!

Bright and beautiful, cheerful and clean....yup..it makes my heart sing!

Edit: We added some white accents around the arches....

What's Going On!

Most everyone knows that it has been hot in the Yucatan. I mean really, really hot. One day is was 109F...needless to say, the cats and I did not move much those days. 

In the meantime, Carlos was back in St Louis where it was cold. I think he complained as much about the cold and damp as I did about the heat and humidity. But he had to be there to get our household goods approved by the Mexican Embassy in Kansas City as well as load the container and get the items shipped off. I was so jealous that he was able to spend hours and hours of time with our precious grand kids! He took them to the park, the zoo, played with them and had lots of fun! Carlos even took Maia to choose some new outfits at the mall. Meanwhile I did fine here by myself.

Now after 5 weeks he's back and we are continuing on our 'repair' mode on the house. The front door is back at the carpenters as the repairs unrepaired themselves and it cracked in other places! We are having the facade of the house repaired and repainted. There was some water damage that sloughed off some of the stucco in several spots and the color had faded in the 4 years since it was painted. 

Right in the middle of all of the repairs we had to make a trip to Chetumal on the Belize border to have my temporary import certificate on the car extended. We tried to have that done in Progreso but those folks there were really hard to work with. The people are Chetumal were great to work with! Interesting that there more than 50 Mennonites there also getting their visas extended. There are many farming communities of Mennonites and Amish both here in Mexico as well as in Belize. 

Now the car sticker is good until November, we had a good ride there and back and now we are home dealing with workers and waiting for all of our furniture to arrive in a week or so...today it left Panama City Florida on the container ship Compeche and hopefully all goes well in customs when it arrives and we receive it in a week or ten days!

And now the electricians are here...