Bombardment of the Senses

Lots going on around here. My senses are on overload right now. It amazes me how living in an opened up house awakens your senses. I smell more. I can smell food cooking, fires burning, and the smell of Mas clothes detergent when somebody stops at our door. I hear more. I hear footsteps of passersby, traffic and horns honking, the young boys skateboarding, buses moving around, and at the moment an ambulance along with the deafening sound of the empleadas de parque grinding up tree limbs they cut in the gardens across the street. (not making this up) Yesterday I heard a vendor walking by the house. I heard his wind chimes.  He had a long string of tinkling wind chimes hanging from a post slung over his shoulder. And the tastes, well, that's a whole blog in of itself.

And Yes, we bought some wind chimes

I see more. The curiosity of what goes on around me keeps me going to the front of the house and peering through the grates of the front patio. I'm amused easily. I watch the ladies come out of church and chat/gossip on their walks home. I surreptitiously watched a young mother get on her bicycle then lean the bicycle over so her daughter of about age 3 could swing her leg over and hop on the back. They pedaled off.

Right now Esad is in the kitchen banging away on the counter tops as he lays tile. It has been slow going since he showed up yesterday to start the project. The counter tops are not square. Nothing in Mexico is ever a perfect right angle. The Talavera tiles are not all the same size. It poses some challenges when tiling. But, he is a true artist and we have given him free reign to lay the tile as he wishes. When I said we wanted an arch above the stove top, he hand drew a perfect arch to indicate where the tile will go. He is taking his time and I know we will be satisfied when he leaves. It will more than likely take at least another 2 days. It's all good but I must say we miss not having use of the sink in the kitchen. Washing dishes in the bathroom sink is for the birds!

Terry left out yesterday to take a walk and came back in the house shortly with a couple of workers following him. They are doing some work in the house next door. This is the same house that they have been periodically working on since before we bought our casa. It is an eternal project evidently. We had gone inside the house one day last week when they invited us to see their work. They had built stairs inside the house that goes up the wall and to a door that leads outside to an upper level patio. Since we need some stairs in our patio going up to the rooftop patio, Terry asked them to come over and take a look. Of course they immediately said they can do it. It's one thing I love about Mexico - the answer is always "Si!". They are supposed to come back today. We aren't sure if they are showing up to start building or what, but we are pretty sure the end result will be stairs. In fact, they just showed up in a truck with sand in the back of it. Is it for our stairs? We'll know shortly whether it is for their job next door or for our stairs! I know all this because I can hear them and see them outside. Lots of work going on, lots of relaxing going on, and lots of senses being bombarded.

Sunday morning we walked the distance of the Sunday bici-ruta then walked over to Santiago and on to the grocery store. Later in the day, Terry mapped out our path to determine how far we walked. It was over 7 miles! We celebrated with cocktails on the patio!

Here are some Sunday walk pictures -