Nobody is here

If your still receiving blog updates here please update me in your reader. Please please come visit my new blog. Living in Mexico has moved HERE to Ericas Living in Mexico.
http://www.ericaslivinginmexico.com/

Doors are open, stop on by

www.thelifeoftheblacks.blogspot.com has moved to www.ericaslivinginmexico.com

All of the content, post and comments have been packed up and can now be found over at the new blog site. 

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I'm moving.....

As in my blog! I am packin it all up and will be calling Wordpress my new blogging home. Tomorrow is the big day so make sure and stop in for a blog-warming party and get my directions to the new *address

An Unusual Visitor

Last night around 8pm we had a knock at the door. It was way to late for the fruit vendor, pan man or any other  street vendor. Guess it was for JJ is what I thought, until I heard JJ calling me to come to the door because the "bank" was here.  What the....

The bank representative from Banamex who helped us open our bank account needed me to re-sign some documents. Tip* when signing your passport make sure you sign it the way you always do your signature. Duh, right! I signed it with my full complete name and I usually always sign official docs with my first and last only. So of course my firma did not match my passport. This is actually the 2nd time I have had to resign the Banamex documents, and the rep has had to come to my  house both times now. I find that a bit bazaar, don't you? A bank  employee just showing up at your home to sign some documents. Talk about being thorough and great customer service.

Turning 2!

2 years ago today I was born into the blogging world! I had only been in Mexico just under a year and I felt like it was time to start documenting, so here was my very first blog post ever.

Feb 7th 2009
I have so much I want to say about living in Mexico. But I suddenly have writers block. I can be a bore and talk about the weather, but who really cares about that. I live next door to the equator, its hot. My kids play in the background. Leah, my 10 year old daughter, is having her first sleep over since we moved down here a year ago. She is playing in her " club house" made of sheets that her Dad helped her with earlier.
We have so much more time to do things like that now. Building club houses, having sleep overs or whatever. Jeff and I talked about going to one of the many beaches here in Puerto Vallarta today. Nothing set in stone. But the fact that we can just go if we feel the urge. I love it! The girls are having a concert on the Terrace. I think I'm going to join them ...... because I can.

I'm still really good frineds with the little girls mother and family who is mentioned above.  They can be found over atThe Vaca Family blog! I went back into my photo archives and found these photos from that night I wrote about...look at these adorable girls in their pretty awesome fort!

New Peeps for Momma Pretty Please

My week has been full of introductions and hand-shakings. I think I have probably explained why I am in Mexcio and what I do here over a half dozen times. I know I have been in Merida for 6 months now, but it really feels like its only been a few months. I have been telling people all week "we just arrived a few months ago", and then later realizing we arrived on August 6th 2010, exactly 6 months ago today.

I'v have gotten into a routine, that involves nothing new. I know Merida is all new but I have neglected to take time for me, which is really important if you dont want to turn into super bitch! I think I have been displaying a bit of that to my dear family and they may be starting to plot an escape from me soon if I don't shape'n up. In other words I've been on the hunt for some outer estrogen influence!

So thank the heavens for bloggers and facebook, I got out and met up with some really wonderful people here in Merida. I've been a busy little bee and met a wonderful girl for coffee one afternoon and I think I may have met the entire expat community one night when I was invited to meet up with some other gals at a monthly comedy show and yes, it was in English, hosted by Mel with talentedbitches.com 

Oh and the introductions didnt stop there. Friday night our daughter Leah was spending the night at her bff's and her parents asked if we would like to come over Saturday night for dinner party. We were on that like flies on poop! We had a great time, plus we got to practice our Spanish.

The Finger

Not the middle finger, the bird or flipping someone off. No, none of those you potty mouths!  I'm talking about the Mexican chica finger. That's what I call it anyway. You know when your talking to your gal pal and she agrees with you about something and that pointer finger shoots up then begins the up and down motion as if saying yes with that finger. And then there's the side to side motion with that same finger which indicates "no, I don't think so". 

I love this, and have only seen it used since living here in Mexico. Or maybe I just never noticed it before. My daughter and I do it all the time now. My son tells me that men in Mexico think it's rude for a girl to do that to them and it should stay among the girls...???? Whatever the case, its cute. Do you do this? 

Date Night = Irish Pub, Beer and Pool

After a night of pre-teen girls in the house my love'a and I were able to take some time away for us. Theres a new Hennessys Irish Pub that opened up recently and so we were off to check it out. Of course I tried to order the darkest beer on the menu , because to me dark beer is like dark chocolate, but they were out of Guinness. WTF is all I thought for a second. Thats almost like going to McDonalds and being told "Sorry, we are all out of hamburgers today".  Growing up in the Northwest, was like growing up in the beer capital of the world.  Im reminded of one of my favorite places for a good fix of pub food and unique beers was McMenamins They have beers with names like Sleepy Hallow and Hammerhead and the best pub food ever!

Other then that little detour the rest of the place was great! The decor, staff and the POOL TABLE was free! After sharing a plate of awesome fish-n-chips we headed to the Billiard Room and wrapped up our night with a couple games...Jeff 2 wins y Yo solo uno! And I only won because he accidentally sunk the 8 ball. I never win against Jeff because hes a monster when it comes to playing pool, I mean geez he did practically grow up on one, it is sort of our lifes blood.

Honey and Plastic

Our little Leah hosted a birthday party sleep over last night. The house filled with girl laughter, scent of nail polish and then nail polish remover, scary music and the Wii. We made a trip to Costco to stock up on some necessitous for the sleep over, you know... like soda, chips, red vines, cinnamon rolls and so on  well let me just say, dont waste your time with red vines as a treat! I found them in the trash and about 10 pieces were consumed because apparently most nationals think it taste like plastic,

So this morning I planned for waffles, mandarin oranges and orange juice for breakfast, along with cinnamon rolls too. The poor girls looked at the maple syrup and simply said "no gracias" hopefully they were still satisfied from all of the soda, chips, pizza and nachos from the night before!

In under 29 days

I always feel like I climbed some GINORMOUS mountain at this time of year. In a 29 day time period we celebrate Christmas and 3 birthdays, each occasion happening about a week apart and we always feel a little strained in the wallet and a little caked out. I swear, I should take up Methamphetamines to get me through!

Happy Birthday Leah Badeah**

Monday we celebrated our daughters 12th year. Happy Birthday Leah! .

 We brought her class some cupcakes, pizza and drinks. Her class sang her both versions of the birthday song, Spanish and English and I thought that was very special. Everyone was also using the English they knew with Jeff and I, too cute and I appreciated that.  

And for dinner she selected the Sirloin Stockade near Liverpool for her birthday dinner.

*I hope it was an off night for the restaurant. If you live here or plan to visit and think you might be in the mood for a buffet, just take caution, in other words...the food was cold and tasted like shit!

For her"at home party" we are planing a sleepover with a couple friends this Friday for Leah. Pretty excited about getting the house decked out and having a few of her friends over. Should be fun! Simple age birthday themed. I made these cute purple  stamped #12 invites and had her hand write info on the inside.

Who needs one anyway

Hes faithfully taking care of my "honey do" list items. I thought.... how creative, we dont have a latter, dont plan on buying one but he did buy a bunch of buckets for 5 pesos each, he stacked them and  wa-la...my lightbulbs where changed today. This is so not safe, and I was only away from him long enough to find my camera and take this picture. Oh and take caution when changing bulbs here in Mexico, wires just magically appear out of fixtures, exposed of course. If you look really close you can see Jeff has a rubber glove in his hand that he was using. This photo is totally posed! I thought of a blog post in the middle of all this and made him wait onto of half a dozen buckets for you!

We have been walking around in the dark for weeks.

A Little Vintage Rose

I just pulled out some scraps of fabric I had laying around and whipped this sucker together the afternoon. Cute, fresh and has that vintage appeal I just love these days! It has 8 individual pennants and measures about 6ft in length. It’s going up on my Etsy shop today, any takers!

Wondering what to use this for? Well mine is going up in the entryway, but would great for parties and backyard BBQ’s this summer!

Fedex Surprise

We finally got our debit cards today from our dear mom who had to fedex them down for the bargin price of 68.00 dollars....You can learn all about our humourous encounter with the eating ATM machine monster HERE  But the best part was that she included some wonderful surprises to feed my scrap-booking addiction.

look at those Martha Stewart bicycles! OMG and how 'bout those American Girl sayings and quotes!

Thanks momma DINA!!! 

Beautiful Rubbish

Want a good blog to read? Have you herd of ...Beautiful Rubbish ? Amber is an amazing woman and writer. Grab a cup of coffee and spend some time with he as she writes about her Pacific Northwest life experiences, her thoughts and beliefs as a Starbucks barista by day and writter by night...so to speak.

Oh and BTW shes also my cousin from my husbands side and was in my wedding! Gotta give a shout out to family when i can!

Derrier Dilemma

Our daughter attends a public school here in Merida, she is in a class of 23 students, she is in school from 7am-noon Monday thru Friday. She is offered a computer class, where she tells me they pretty much just play games, a Mayan language class that is too cool and a gym class. Lets focus on gym in-particular.

I was just stepping out of the shower, still dripping wet when I herd the front door open. It was early I wasnt expecting the kids home and Jeff left for an errand.  Shit! An intruder...then I heard my daughter faint voice call for "Dad, Mom?" Leah was being walked in by a frined and I noticed she was walking very very slowly. I got some clothes on then went to her only to find out she had a very bad accident at school. She was crying those big tears and could hardly get everything out. The gym teacher decided to lay out broom sticks across the solid concrete courtyard and have the students jump frontwards and backwards over the stick. Leah landed right ontop of that stupid stick her feet went out in front and she landed right on her tail-bone, she didnt catch herself with her hands but instead kissed that hard surface with her derrier , well the bone of it. She blacked out a bit and was in tremendous pain, just thinking about it gives me the weebee geebees. She says she herd cracking noices and her neck and entire back was hurting. The school was on the verge of calling an ambulance, but she told them to just bring her home. The school tried calling us but our cell was turned off. The gym teacher herself drove her home and then asked.."Why did you jump on the broom stick?" What an idiot!

Im worried that she fractured her tail bone and I know there isnt much that can be done but rest, eating lots of fiber food to help with the bathroom and just keeping her comfortable. We are making her a chiropractic appt just to make sure shes all alligned.

Im off to speak to the school tomorrow. I dont know what I think will happen. School systems in Mexico are...hhmmm I dont really know what they are. Public schools are ignored by the government, teachers come and go and a student attending class 2 times a week is common behavior. Most private schools are just glorified public schools. I feel like they are greedy business people using the guilt and pressures of being a parent to charge up the ass for tuitions.

So, I just finished making her a butt pad to bring to school so shes not in too much pain...no more gym for Leah for awhile.

JJ's Day!

14 years ago I became his momma and every year I sit and ponder where all the time went. I'm pretty positive I'll be doing that for the rest of his life... Just like all of his first, like his first step and his first word, he hit me with a big first again. JJ asked for no big party. My heart sunk. All he said was he wanted to celebrate with us. I didnt dare push it and we ended up having a really perfect.

I brought homemade cupcakes to school, I wonder if he is outgrowing this? Some may think so but I just may do this until he graduates from school! Who doesnt love a cute cupcake anyway?

We always go out for dinner on our birthdays so his choice was some good ol' American food. TGI Fridays near the Grand Plaza it was! He was pretty much in heaven when he saw that the fried shrimp was accompanied by tartar sauce his favorite!

We headed home for cake and gifts! Leah did all the decorating of JJs chocholate cake, her special gift to him she said.

Look what I got

I have to share my silly little purchase today, because after living here a while I tend to get super duper excited about things I often took for granted in my pre-Mexico life.....

My son turns 14 tomorrow and I'm planning on putting together some cupcakes for his class. Cupcake liners are not easy to come by here in Mexico, you have to usually go to a specialty baking store to find them. where as in the states  every grocery chain carries a nice wide variety for a consumers shopping pleasure. 

So, I've passed by one of these specialty shops on my to Costco via bus and have never stopped before so today I headed out to see what I could find there. The store is called Probapan  and It's actually 1 of 3 locations here in Merida.I was in baking heaven! Ive included  info below. 

I picked up some white liners in the smallest package they had which contained 500 liners. Wow!

For 37.50 pesos and....a new silicon frosting piping bag for 93 pesos, I've been using a freezer bag with a cut tip for 3 years, I totally freaked out when I saw it. I just had to have it.  and of course some birthday balls confetti sprinkles. I'm off to bake them up.

Probapan 
Matriz: Calle 69 No 590-A X 78 y 80
Calle 60 # 499 Local 2 and 3 x 13 fractions North Street. Merida, Yucatan Mexico
Phone: 52 (999) 9443672
Hours: 8am to 8pm
Webstie: www.probapan.com

At 32

Really? 32 years old. Why do I still feel like Im in my twenties? Jeff likes to tell me our bodies age but our minds remain young. I figure I have a good 30 years left and I wonder what else I will see and do. 

Well my twenty year only mind was full of thoughts of self improvements during the weeks leading to my 32nd year of life. Some of those thoughts were needing to quit smoking, which by the way I have been trying to do for the past 10 years, I can be good for months or even years and then something crazy and full of drama starts me back up again, geez I hate those cancer sticks! I wanted to get back to running and eating better. And I really really want to return to Puerto Vallarta! 

Well enough is enough! By the time my birthday arrived I have been smoke free for 18 days, Im back up to running 3.5 miles and we are planning our return to Bandaras Bay! The new year ahead of me is still unwritten but at least I know Im on my way to healthy changes and living! 

I invite you to spend some time with me on my birthday through some photos we snapped yesterday.