Smart Dogs and Absent Minded People

We were busy packing yesterday, we were sorting through our books and packing the ones we want to keep.  Stacks of books were all over, boxes strewn up and down the stairway too.  As we are busy with this the workers are working upstairs on the sealed off portion of the house.  All of a sudden Frodo comes halfway down the stairs and looks at us, with his head down and his eyes all sad like “hey I didn’t do it.”  Linda asks me, “what’s wrong with him?” and we continue with the job.  Two minutes later Frodo reappears, this time we can see something is wrong.  He looks the way he looks when he had an infection a few years ago and needed to see the vet.  “What’s wrong Frodo?” Linda said, then we look up and see pretty little waterfalls coming down the stairs.  Yikes!  I run around and climb up the ladder to the construction side of the house to see what’s up.  Someone had opened a valve on a hose and since nothing came out to fill the bucket when the water pressure was down, they just left the valve open and walked away (DUH!).  Well, the water pressure came back on again and it was squirting water all over the place!  Glad we were home!  So thankful we avoided any damage!

A day in winter -Feb 9 2017

Woke up and came down for a cup of coffee.  I started the pellet stove and glanced at the thermometer, 59 deg. F inside.  That's the warmest morning we have had in this house this winter!  The humidity is still pretty high, almost 68% so I will have to run the dehumidifiers some more.  We have had to throw away clothing due to the dampness, it's hard on electronics and anything made of metal too.  The combination of damp air, and cold house means that condensation forms easily on anything made of metal.  We are both completely over the colds we had in January, but Linda is still having some ear problems from the long term congestion and coughing.  This house does not have a single window facing the South, so it does not warm up even with a few warmer days in the winter.  We are planning build our new house so that it takes full advantage of the sun in the winter, and good lighting all year round.  Definitely something to look forward to!

I believe that we have come to a critical point with our health & age, we can no longer tolerate the cold, damp indoors at night from Nov-Feb in these cinder block, un-insulated homes.  To be able to continue to live here and stay healthy we need to build a home that is well insulated and arrange things so that it takes advantage of the sun for heating in the winter.

The sun is out and very bright!  Looking forward to taking a walk and soaking up it's warmth!  Today we will be doing a lot of sorting & packing.  We need to separate stuff we will need to arrange the stuff we pack away in boxes as short term, and long term items.  Our moving date is approaching very quickly, maybe as soon as 10 days.

Last night I gave the study/devotional at prayer meeting on Stewardship, Spiritual gifts.  It went very well.  We had pretty good attendance for a chilly damp evening in Baja.  One of the greatest blessings of our prayer meeting is I always urge the small prayer groups to, "talk to the person on your right in the group, pray for them, we want everyone to leave prayer meeting blessed and encouraged." This one thing has really enriched our prayer time!

9:45AM  The truck just arrived to unload cinder block, the new owner of our current house is beginning the remodeling process.  We are thankful that we are working with believers and together coordinating our move to temporary housing.

Stuff I've Learned

"It is IMPOSSIBLE to make educational advances against the raging currents of willfully ignorant people apart from Gods intervention."

Noise #@!@?!

I am waiting to get my hair cut.  In addition to my nonstop tinnitus, I am submerged in a painful racket of continual noise.  Linda and the stylist are talking, that is not bothersome to me, but outside the open door there is the crackle of a gasoline engine powering a pressure washer, passing traffic of which about half do not have mufflers.   There is an annoyingly loud talk program tuned in on the salons TV set, some bodies nearby  car alarm has been going off at exact 7 minute intervals and does its infernal whooping for about 5 minutes before it resets itself.  Hair clippers and hair dryers make their whirring contribution as well to the total decibel tally.  Quite often, here in Mexico, with its abundant and UNNOTICED BY MOST, noise pollution crisis, I have caught myself wondering what it would be like to own one of those sets of Bose noise canceling headsets.  The reprieve from chronic, obsessive, debilitating, LOUD, nonstop, senseless, inexcusable, noise would probably bring tears to my eyes.

The cockerel cacophony of endless crowing was silenced by the blessed flash of the butchers knife; there was a brief flapping of wings and followed by still, quiet, peace!  Ironically, it was death that had restored 'happily ever after' to our daily exsistence.  Dauntless in her mission, my wife dispatched a few of the noisier protagonists as effortlessly as I step on spiders.

The 2012 Move

The third week of May, 2012...
The last time we moved, it turned into a one day BLAST. The amount of damage and destruction was lamentable. This time we have taken all this week to pack up the delicate stuff and we have moved it ourselves a little at a time. Today, the truck and our help should (may?) arrive. A last minute mens meeting date change diverted most of the hopeful recruits we had lined up for getting help with the big furniture, a truck and a trailer.

Yesterday was a very interesting moving day:
*A person we are counseling called with a big crisis, he HAD to talk to me NOW. So I loaded the van and told him that I could talk with him while we took and unloaded stuff. I don't think that those boxes were put where we wanted to put them, when I am distracted the wierdest things happen.

*People kept calling to tell us why they could not help, Im not sure how many times I had to pull off the road to answer the cell phone. After telling us this most of them wanted to continue with LONG casual conversation. Im sure that I made the "bad missionary" cultural taboo gringo mistake when I said "hey, um... Im idling on the side of the road with stuff in the van and my wife waiting at the house to help me unload it, maybe, could we please chit chat at a less pressing time?"

*I went to buy gas for a van, as I left the street was unusually heavy with traffic so I just left the gates open. When I got back 4 big dogs were clawing and biting at the chicken wire trying to get into our chicken coop. Sahara (our Belgain Shepherd who was chained up- Yes, someone in Ensenada keeps their dog restrained) was going bananas, Linda was getting the garden hose to squirt them, the owner was in the park, sheepishly whistling for his 4 big unleashed killers to please come back. I felt that the scene before me was somewhat symbolic of an invisible diabolical strategy to foil our attempts to transfer our belongings from one residence to another. Does the enemy of our souls have some special thing against moving?

*In the late afternoon someone called from San Diego all frantic because they were bringing a load of building material to Ens. and they did not make it to the border on time, Mexican customs for big items had closed till Monday. He had been told to get there early enough to avoid this dilema, but he said that a trailer broke down on the way. ANYWAY, they needed a place to dump the contents of a 20 foot trailer until they could come back and complete the run. The Mex. brother asked me about a friend of ours from Laurel Bible Chapel who... we impose upon way too much for this kind of favor. Big sigh! By this time I was almost crossed eyed with frustration.

Now, it is 7:05AM, moving day. We will see what joys await.

House Hunting and Other Joys

First things first, why disturb an insanely busy life with a big housing change?  1.We need to move closer to the church and where the bulk of the believers live.  Convenient for us, but most importantly, convenient for them to stop by when ever they wish.  2.Transportation costs continue to grow, living an extra 10 minutes away from your work zone does increase cost.  If we found something close enough for us to walk to meetings, the grocery store, and other offices that we frequent that would be a big boon to the pocket book and the exercise regimen.  3.At our current house the rent is pretty steep.  When we moved here, the market did not present any other alternatives.  The house is worth it, but it just draws too much from the economy right now.

Our hunting adventure has been interesting.  We have looked at some situations that would make living in a tree look more attractive.  Almost every house has what I call the "childrens toy box" architecture features.  Just look in any childs toybox and you will get the idea; disorder, things haphazardly thrown in without much thought, home features that appear upside down, doorways too small or crooked for an erect homo sapien to walk through, stairways that sneak up on you as you are watching the precarious steps below, suddenly you hit your head on the inadequately cut cement opening above.


Number 1: Four BR, 2 1/2 bath, lots of fenced parking, very secure, patio & yard space.
The first house we looked at had most of the features that we wanted, except that it had a bizarre ownership situation.  We would rent from the 'legal' owner, but the other owner (illegal?) may show up at any time and might not be too pleased with strangers occupying his hideout.  Um, cant really say more about that one, yeah.  The BAD, living with feelings of being a perpetual trespasser.

Number 2: Three BR, 3 bath, 2 kitchens (one burnt), very small secure patio, parking for 2 1/2 cars- if you can get them out or in!
The second house had a completely normal down stairs with 3 bedrooms, the owners attend the down town church and we are good friends so that made it more appealing.  The price was tremendous, but, the upstairs has a totally weird layout with an external stairway only, and it was partially repaired after a fire in it's second (?) kitchen.  It is located on a very busy 2 lane street that should have 4 lanes.  Every time that we have driven by in the past week, people were 'popping' into the stores on either side of the house, and parking their cars right in front blocking the gated drive way.  This is something that really burns my cookies.  These same people would kill us if we even dared to cover up 5 inches of their driveway making their exodus a little difficult, but they come, and block a driveway completely and smile and give the "don't worry, I'll be righty back" sheepish smile.  The traffic noise was intense, even as we were looking at the back bedrooms I wondered how we would survive so much noise.  The GOOD, price  The BAD, still far from the church, NOISE, vehicle access

Number 3: Four BR, 5 bathrooms, studio apt., very secure patio/parking for 3-4 cars, luxurious (not what were looking for), close to church.
Then there is the Hollywood Mansion.  Here is one of those houses that we would not even look at, except for the fact that one of the believers from our church has an arrangement with a friend and has obtained this place and wants to rent it to us, at an insane price.  The owner does not care to make money, he just wants to keep it occupied so that vagrants, squatters and other undesirables don't break in and dismantle the walls to get out copper wire and copper tubing.  Some vacant houses here have had illegal pharmaceutical manufacturing enterprises move in.  When the federal government raids one of these homes, whether it is rented legally or not, the government will take the property from the owner with out hesitation or recourse; often the government will bring co-conspirator charges against the owner of a property used for these purposes.

The GOOD, confidence with owner, good price, quiet neighborhood, very adequate for our massive entertaining activities, walking distance from church, grocery store, mail service, live in same neighborhood of about 1/2 of the believers from the church.

We advised the office that handles the rental of our current house that we will be leaving in the next couple of months.  We are praying that the disengagement from them will be favorable and without problems.

This is an ongoing story, will add as things progress.