“A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.”  Dutch Proverb

Since I’ve never been burdened with a bushel (or any other measurement) of brains, I use my patience often.

As you’ve heard me lament many times already, our furniture and belongings have not yet arrived.  However, our patience has supposedly paid off.

They tell us our furniture has made it to Ajijic.  They tell us this, though I have no proof except for two phone calls David has had with our movers over the course of the last few hours.

We received a message, after an email inquiry I made yesterday, that our belongings had arrived and we needed to contact the movers for delivery.  David called immediately and was asked, when would he like to take delivery?  His response, how about now was greeted with, how about Monday.

Okay, we can make it through one more weekend.  I’m wondering if it would be possible to go and visit our stuff?  You know maybe pull out a few hundred things we are dying to get our hands on?  Perhaps, gaze upon a few items that hold special meaning – like, maybe, our toaster.   I guess that isn’t going to happen as they are still in their crates.

Life is full of ups and downs, a few steps forward and ten steps back.  For now, we march as one into the weekend knowing – though we have sustained yet another slow leak in our air mattress, our time is near its end and we will simply bound joyously into four more days of adventures in sleeping.

Pass the bottle of sleeping pills; I think I’m ready for a quick nap before the bed hits the floor!

(The pictures accompanying this post are a view of our blow up mattress and of Lumpel-Still-Skin – our cat – sequestered within said blow up mattress.)

The Blow UP

Lumpel Still Skin

We were out looking for furniture yesterday. Everyone was right, the stores near Ajijic are way too expensive. We went into one store that had an ordinary, indistinct, american-looking couch-loveseat combo for $1000. Hardly worth the money.

So we went into Chapala looking for a furniture store. We found one with a beautiful 3 piece sofa, love seat, and chair combo in startingly beautiful dark wood and fabric. Something utterly distinctive and Spanish/Mexican! We both fell instantly in love with it. It was less than $600!!! San Francisco Muebles, at Moreles #198, at the corner of Madero is the place to go. Coming in from Ajijic, make a right at the light onto Madero, find a place to park (it’s easy to just drive to the end of Madero, make a turn to the left, then go into the large public parking) and walk back up Madero to San Francisco. It’s on the east (away from Ajijic) side of the street. Check it out, you’ll be glad you did.

The movers came and loaded the truck today. it took 5 lift vans, not the 4 we had been hoping for, but with luck, our furniture will be in Ajijic in only 10 days!!!  Hurray!!  we’re exhausted!

You know, I could swear that when i asked our movers in Ajijic how long it would take to get the furniture to Ajijic, she said that her boys could do it in 2-3 days. i guess i should have pushed a little further to find out exactly who she meant by ‘our boys’.  Now i’m thinking that she meant 2-3 days from Laredo, not from Dallas. I asked yesterday when she thought the furniture would get there, and she said she usually told clients no more than 30 days, usually less. it all depended on the US shipper, and she’d have to get in touch with him to get a firmer number.  30DAYS??!!! that took les and i by a big surprise! we’re sure hoping it would be alot sooner than that. Like maybe 2-3 days! 30 days is too long to be paying for a room in a B&B, so we’ll probably just sleep on an inflatable bed until the real bed arrives.

The dallas movers did tell us it would ship pretty quickly since it was all in lift-vans. that it would take a lot longer if it was just indidual items and they had to find different trucks heading south. i’ll talk with him later today and see what he says.

Come on, i guess we should have realized how silly we were thinking our stuff would be in Ajijic in just a few days. we must have been thinking about what happens when you hire a moving company to move you across country in the US.

Les and I had read over and over that there were import duties on new electronics taken in to Mexico.  But we’d never bothered to ask anyone how much.

A few months ago, we got rid of our 12-15 year old rear-projection tv. we just didnt think it would make the trip down there. Best Buy had a great offer on a new plasma set, so we bought it, and a speaker system, and a blue ray player. I’d seen prices for tv’s in mexico, and they were higher than those in the states. so i thought the import duty would be something like the difference or a little more.

NOW I’M TOLD IT’S NOT!! our broker told us to expect 50% duties bringing the tv system across the boarder! That’s a lot of tacos! If we’d made the decision to buy the tv just 3 or 4 months earlier – there wouldnt have been any import duties. And if we’d asked what the duties were just 2 weeks earlier, we would have been able to return it to the store!

So the sad story – if you are going to buy anything – buy it long in advance. if you think you might need to return it, do so before the store’s return limit runs out. We’d only had the tv for 36 days, but Best Buy’s return policy was 30 days from the date on the reciept.  We’re just hoping that maybe, for some strange reason and act of God, the import duty won’t be so much.

“Sitting in your home is a feat to be worked at with unflagging determination and single-mindedness – for what person worth his or her salt does not sit down?  I am deeply committed to sitting comfortably in my home.”  Mirabel Osler

Of course, this is a quote (I love quotes).  However, I’ve taken some liberties with the wording (since Ms. Osler is referring to sitting in the garden).

I have what I consider a wonderful living room set – sofa and chair, which I have decided…I think…would be too costly to move to our new home in Ajijic.

Sofa

Chair

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

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.

We need to get rid of a lot of our ’stuff’ before we move. We could use the money – but mostly we can’t afford to take it all with us. Heck – we don’t even know if the place we rent will be able to hold it all. So out it has to go. We sold one nice piece of antique furniture, a leather-covered French writing desk, on Craig’s list, and two more antique pieces on E-bay – but neither for much money. An antique French marble top chest, with simply gorgeous inlay work, went for only $75. Both had been in my family at least since I was a child, 60 years ago. But all in all, selling the furniture isn’t going very well. We may just have to give up on the idea of making any money selling things. Seems like most of our “stuff” isn’t as valuable to other people as it seems to be to us I see a big garage sale, and donations to charity in the future.

Some of our 'Stuff'

Judy made a recent post about getting rid of all our ‘stuff’. Here’s a picture of our garage. We have to get rid of all this.  I’ve been trying to sell it on Craigslist, but even at rock bottom prices, have only gotten one sale. I’m beginning to wonder if Craig is the way to go. Maybe we can get better shoppers on Ebay or something.