Our garage was full...
Honestly - we have gotten rid of a lot of stuff!
it may not look like it, but we actually are getting some packing done! Les is a genius, as I’ve told you. Instead of packing in cardboard boxes, which crush and mildew, she packs everything in these 56gallon clear tubs from Target!! What a great idea! they stack well, you can see what is in them, and things in them don’t mildew. At $4-5 apiece, they’re the only way to go.
i called down to strom movers in mexico to help with the move. we need someone in Dallas to come out to the house and give us estimates on different scenario. if we take this, it will cost so much, if we take that, so much. we havent heard from any movers yet tho’, and we need to get this set up
It’s coming down to the wire now. Les and I have settled on the 3rd week of October as our move date. I haven’t been getting SS long enough to qualify for an FM-3, so I’ll be going down on a tourista. Les has gotten all her paperwork together to take to the consulate here in Dallas to get an FM-3, so we can move our furniture down south. We’ve held off until now because there’s a 30day limit between the time she gets the FM-3 in Dallas, and when she has to register it in Mexico. Getting it at the 1st of October means it will be good all through the month.
We thought at first that getting an FM-3 required jumping through all sorts of hoops (and we heard lots of complaints about how mexicans get to come here without any paperwork. the truth is, the ones who want to come here freely do have a lot of paperwork.) but it turned out getting the paperwork together wasn’t that hard after all. A trip to the police station to get a paper saying she wasn’t a felon (i was relived to know i hadn’t just married a serial killer), a trip to the doctor to have him run some blood work and say she was healthy, a trip to the bank to get a letter certifying she had regular SS income. It really didn’t add up to that much time.
Many of you have read our posts about Gilbert, our fabulous Cockatiel. We’re going to be really sad leaving him behind, he’s such a funny and fascinating little bird. Read Les’ post ‘You cannot fly like an Eagle with the wings of a Wren.’
Gilbert entrances the local kittens
But we’re not the only ones who are attracted, fascinated, and ultimately entranced by him.
Hi folks! I’m part way through setting up a mailing list that will let you know when new posts and comments appear here on Boomers to Mexico. I don’t have the subsribe, opt-n/opt-out box up yet, but if you write me with your email, I’ll be glad to put you on the list!
Exciting, huh?
This is a direct quote from www.solutionsabroad.com :
“Regarding the Mexican Postal Service (Servicio Postal Mexicano), there is an open debate about its effectiveness. No self-respecting business that places much importance on the timely distribution of its correspondence would rely on it for anything other than mass-mailings.”
Which seems to prove out what my husband assumed to be the case when he was in Ajijic several weeks ago, though he did see mailboxes – he didn’t see many of them being used. Sort of smacks of the decorative phase that seemed to travel through the North Woods areas of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan when people started using toilets to plant flowers in and placed them on their front lawns. And interesting solute to lawn art.
Toilet Planters
My question to all of you ex-pat’s in Mexico – is Fed-Ex and UPS the only alternative to the Pony Express in getting your mail out to friends in the States, Canada and abroad? Traveling hours upon hours to the border to post a letter? Are there Mailbox & Beyond stores in the area? Would taking up the lost art of homing pigeons work – shades of New York City in the 30’s? Post offices boxes – real or imagined?
Why do I suddenly feel I’m moving to another planet instead of merely moving across our shared borders?
I was returning from the lake when i stumbled unto the Garden Cafe by accident.
The entry to The Garden Cafe
It had colorful, welcoming sign out front, but I had to peer through the door to get a glimpse of what might be behind it. (Typical Ajijic.)
The Bar
Passing through the entry brought me to the rustic bar, ornamented with an old fountain and a new horse.
Peackocks roam the garden
There were peacocks roaming the garden.
A welcome gift came with the meal
The meal even came with a bottle of insect repellent. (There weren’t all that many, but I thought it was an interesting touch).
The Garden
But the garden itself—ahhh. So romantic!
I thought I’d send up some new pictures.
One Saturday morning, I awoke to the sound of gunfire!!!! Well, Ok, it wasn’t gunfire. There was a 10k mountain marathon going on, and someone was setting off firecrackers in the square. They were a lot louder than the ones we have in the States. But back to the marathon – after a few hours, some of the the spectators lost a bit of their interest.This runner was one of my favorites!
Fresh from the Run and Ready-to-Go!
Slightly tired waiting for Papi
We’re beginning to get ready to move to Ajijic. One of the hardest things to do is to decide what to take, and what to leave behind. We’ve got attachments to much of our ’stuff’. But a reader and friend, Ruth, who moved back to her home in Maine after a number of years in Mexico, said if she had it to do all over again, she wouldn’t bring any furniture at all. Moving it just ain’t cheap!
We’re going to use Strom-White to do the Laredo-to-Ajijic moving. They affiliate with US Movers here in Dallas to take the goods from our house to Laredo. We’ve read lots of blogs, and Strom-White comes highly recommended. I visited their warehouse in Ajijic, and it looked like they had a clean operation. I was impressed. Several blogs said they thought S-W might be a little more expensive than other movers, but that they were worth it.
On another note, our big Living Room TV was dying, so we bought a new HD to take down there with us. We’re using it now, the box it came in was obviously opened. So it looks good to go in the household imports. The may not have HD on Ajijic cable, but pictures on it look great anyway.
