…thank you Mother Nature. I was sitting here working on my next post when Colin went out to view the sunset….thank you mi amore, great photos! Enjoy 🙂
…our twins were born, right about this time – midday.
Carlie ( 90 minutes older ) and Ciela have become the highlight of our lives. They enjoy traveling in the RV and certainly love Mexico. Enjoy your day girls, many treats and cuddles coming your way today – well actually forever 😎
The video was taken just after dawn a few weeks before Christmas. The music was live, from an all night quinceanera!
Colin had left about 5PM with Genie to attend the first of two New Years Eve performances at Waters Edge featuring Eugene Hideaway Bridges. I simply was not up to an evening out but I will see Eugene play over the next few weeks here and there. Colin said that Joe was really rocking it 😎
May 2025 bring you all new adventures and special moments and most important of all good health.
***I am certain that many of you recall that back in the day we had access to the use of Coles Notes. Per Dr. Google: What are Coles Notes? They are little books students use to help them with a variety of subjects. Coles Notes are written to help students and others to gather information quickly without having to read a whole book. Coles Notes have been written on a number of different topics. Coles Notes are student guides to literature, published in Canada. The Coles bookstore first published Coles Notes in 1948. So I have decided to publish my own version of Coles Notes as I have the energy. Bits of this and that as they come to mind.
Friday, December 27th
Poor Colin, he has had no phone since Monday as I neglected to remind him it was running out of data! Thing is he uses it so seldom that he had no idea it wasn’t working. I had 3 to 4 good normal hours today. We mostly sat outside and talked about our future a bit. We love it here and at this point plan to stay till the end of June. Had a few cat sightings resulting in barking. All good and normal. Later saw that that B&W cat had 3 kittens, not so good 😮 Have not watched TV since the 21st, will try to see if I can tonight. Still working on where the TV will be.
Lots of RV repairs/upgrades happening. Good to find out that the smoke alarms were archaic. Many thanks for the various suggestions re my fatigue, for certain carbon monoxide is not one of them, great thinking though.
Unique privately owned cruise ship called ” The World ” has been in port for 3 days. Yes it looks fabulous, costs more than any of us will ever have but would I really want to limit myself to being at sea? Not at all. But do Goggle the ship, interesting reading and glimpses of some wowser private on board homes.
Saturday, December 28th
One phone call and the plans for the day change. Had trouble sleeping last night, perhaps I am getting better.
…….forgot to finish this post……right now it is December 30th….yesterday was a good day and a good night.
First off I just wanted to mention that the photo of Colin and I dancing on our Christmas card, was taken on December 15th by Fred Wicks. Los Cpys ( my very favorite band here in Mazataln ) was playing at El Velero and are scheduled to play every Sunday afternoon. I think we danced only 2 short dances. I am still working on getting my energy up. Despite the lack of vitality I found myself lining up a few social events.
Sunday, December 22nd Colin and I once again went to listen to Los Cryps at El Velero. It was wonderful to see a variety of friends but most especially Darwin and Audrey. We had no idea that they were here for the winter this season. Looking forward to future visits and checking out their new posh digs.
Monday was a very full day of cooking and preparing for a later afternoon visit with year another special friend. She had asked if she could bring a visitor from the US to meet Colin and to play music with him. Fortunately we found out late afternoon Sunday that instead of 6 or 7 we were going to be a group of 12. So we cleaned, cooked and prepared most of Monday. We were looking forward to a very fun time together. Needless to say they were close to 90 minutes late but we were not upset. That is part of the Mexican culture, time and things just happen when they happen 😎 We are used to it and just sat and waited. Heck I even had arranged for a cruise ship to depart at dark, fortunately they were there to see that. Somehow the evening just did not quite work out and things ended unexpectedly early and somewhat awkwardly. I was just serving some sweets to everyone 🙁 Sadly everyone left. We truly did enjoy their company and the music was just getting going. I cleaned up inside while Colin put the yard together. As the day progressed I was getting more and more tired. This last amount of stress pushed me over the edge.
I went to bed as soon as I could but did not sleep well. I was in great pain, my muscles were aching and I felt like my nerves were literately trying to jump out of my skin. A difficult feeling to describe. I slept the entire day of the 24th. Colin had to cancel our Christmas Eve dinner. I said to someone that had it been my wedding day that there was no way I could have gone. It was as if my brain had shut down and my body was mush. All I could do was sleep and have sips of water. I had a few spoons of canned mushroom soup but nothing more. I woke up Christmas morning about 10AM and felt a wee bit stronger. I stumbled to the bathroom and then found Colin napping in the living room.
He had a great sleep but woke up extremely tired. I went back to bed. What a pair we were. The girls seemed to sense that something was off and stayed quiet on their own. The thing was I had no physical symptoms at all. Well other than exhaustion. We dosed most of the day. We made the decision to permanently cancel our own personal Christmas meal which we had moved to the 26th but well Christmas is now over.
For the first time ever we had been invited to celebrate Christmas dinner with Fred & Kelly but I truly had no idea if we could make it or not. I was feeling a bit stronger but Colin remained sleeping. Finally about 3:30PM on Christmas Day Colin said we would go. I checked with our hosts as to the actual meal time and we went for that. Meanwhile we both napped again. It was a lovely meal and it was nice to meet some new people. But it wasn’t long before we both begin to fade. Colin was dizzy and I am not driving because of my eyes. So we left just a few hours after arriving. Thank you my friends for being such wonderful hosts and for putting up with us.
We were both in bed by 8:30PM ( a first for us ). I slept until 10AM this morning – a full 13.5 hours of deep deep sleep and woke up tired! I sat around and glanced around the computer for a bit, had a much needed shower and went outside to water my flowers. We had already agreed that today was going to be a quiet day, just the two of us so we could regain our strength.
I still had to go out to the street side to water my flowers there. Colin helped me set up and went back to doing things in the yard and feeding the girls, so it must have been about 2:15 or so. New to us neighbours/friends stopped to chat, then a new couple from Christmas Dinner stopped while biking past and then another couple walked past. No watering had been done yet but I was feeling detached from everyone around me and my mind was not taking anything in. Then I felt dizzy. I dropped the hose, grabbed onto a bike to stop from falling and somehow got moved two feet to lean on the fence. Someone went and found Colin and I got escorted to a chair under the palapa. I was trying to stop hyperventilating and work on deep breathing. Everyone left, I laid back and the girls came and sat on me.
Colin made me something to eat and then I went inside to nap. Heading off to bed any moment now. I have decided to stay confined to home until the New Year. Then I will see how I am. Am I just really that worn out or is something wrong? No matter, my plan is to rest as long as I need to and then come 2025, we will see how I am.
Perhaps I will do a short post or two. I have no idea. Right now I need to sleep. Don’t worry about me, Colin will let you know if there is a problem.
….I pretty much planned to do a new post most days – but I guess I really am living life to the fullest each day. And often at the end of the day I little energy left. I have no energy left to sit at the computer for a few hours. However I have written untold posts in my mind. Happy to say that I am mostly content and all is well in my life. And if it is not – I simply sleep till 10AM.
The photos with comments below are from here and there with no particular dates.
We have had so much happening. Unlike past years I have no inclination to capture every moment which I know that I will soon regret. Almost daily I go back into my blog to capture what we were doing on such and such a day in the past. I am hoping to change all that so I can stay current with my “diary”.
Only 2 weeks left in this year…..I definitely need a fresh start in 2025. Over all we are doing well. Ciela has developed an ear infection. Colin took her to the vet a few days ago and she was treated. However none of us including Ciela are happy with the treatment. Currently looking for a new vet much closer to us. Colin spent 300 MXN on Didi and the vet was an extraordinary 500 MXN for a 10 minute appointment. The ear liquid treatment was beyond stinky and did not help. I am on it…..
We are pretty much settled in. Today Colin took in 11 totes to be stored and 5 empty ones. The bodega was closed. We later discovered that the owner was ill. We will rehire a truck another day to bring the bins in. Most of them contain books and photos albums that go back 50 -70 years to current time. We are working cleaning up our site today so hope to get these containers in storage soon. 2025 will give us lots of time to go thru the contents. I spent several hours today once again discarding recipe after recipe. Some went back to 2002.They were all great recipes but for the rest of our lives we can only add so many new ones. We are more inclined to live in the moment day by day for now. We have months/years ahead of us to sort through these items. There is no way that I will likely cook what I have already saved but there just might be an extra special recipe lurking in my piles of paper. I found a few yesterday. Will get to them when I get to them.
I have not been reading books for several weeks but happy to say that Colin has been back to his guitar, 1 -2 hours per day. I am still getting massages every two weeks which have helped with my mobility. When I am outside I usually just sit and enjoy our unique vista, which also helps my eyes – which remain problematic but I am trying to be hopeful. I did fairly get a good pair of regular sunglasses which have helped. I will check with an eye specialist here in Mazatlan in the New Year. Recommendations welcomed.
Totally enjoying our onboard washing machine. Except last week when we discovered late in the day that the water pipes from Mazatlan required repair and that we had had no water input for many days. Our tinaco as well as the RV tank were either on low or empty 😳 We did mange to get thru those few waterless days. Our plants were ever so happy to get full water once again. Not sure if I shared earlier but we now have our full complement of potted plants ( 34 ) and our garden is looking happier.
We are set up for Christmas outside as usual but the inside is laid back which works for us this year. This is our first Christmas in this home and we are creating some new traditions. We both are preferring to be rather quiet and to not have many folks over.
Sadly I have had to spend numerous hours online with both Telus and Shaw since we cancelled our accounts October 3rd. Just yesterday I got yet another charge for $66.64CAD. The account has been closed since October 3rd. So much wasted time online. An average of 3 hours per day. At least I am mostly winning the war of the not valid charges but oh such a waste of my life.
Overall we love being here and can’t think of anywhere else we would like to be. We have only been in the RV for about ten weeks and still can’t believe that this is our home. We were so fortunate picking this one especially as we needed to purchase it before seeing in person. Huge decision based on a one time FaceTime Video Tour. We have made a few changes and have plans for more, probably next summer after we sell our home. I miss having a recliner.
I am simply enjoying the beauty of where we are, watching the dolphins, the jumping fish and the hundreds of pelicans and the birds. Then there are the sail boats, catamarans and a rather large cabin cruiser that hang around our bay of late. The other morning we had ten vessels all lined up facing us. The weather is perfect. We had a few foggy days which simply added to the ambience of this area.
We suddenly realized that it is Christmas week already. I don’t plan to entertain too much due to lack of stamina but we certainly will be enjoying a few social activities. More on that later.
………..no-one knows how long we are here for. It is up to each of us to enjoy every single day to the fullest. Colin and I are fully aware of that and have always strived to live each day as jammed packed as we can.
Those thoughts came back to us this past week…..
My mother’s brother passed just three days ago, Sunday the 8th! Just yesterday the 10th, a most extraordinary friend, Kelly passed. She was a warrior fighting her liver disease to the end. So very happy she passed pain free with her loved ones at her side. We were surprised today, the 11th, to hear that Colin’s older brother had passed today.
Three deaths in four days.
Be sure to tell those around you that you love them. Tomorrow may never come, live and love today!
…… this is the time of year to donate to helping the less fortunate here on Isla de la Piedra so that they may have a Christmas / Christmas Eve dinner. I have collected for this group for many many years since 2010 and over Covid helped keep the community fed.
The following is from Rocio and Dallas……
Every year becomes more and more difficult for each of us. Any amount that you can spare will bring joy to those who often live in cardboard homes. Anything you can donate is appreciated more than you will ever know.