Almost Monday

Well this is Sunday- a beautiful sunny, warm day with light cooling breezes and blue skies. Enough gloating- on to the details.

Denise's back steps are all but finished (a few grout joints and we are ready to move on). She has found some lavender plants and if she can find mint- will plant those terra cotta pots with that. Mint and lavender tend to ward off flies and ants.

      We are on our 4th concrete mixer. The first three (actually one mixer and three new motors) never did last for more than a day. China is a wonderful country, but they make lousy tools. Finally the owner of the ferreteria (hardware) gave us another model and that has been working great. Still Chinese-made, but a little better quality.

We lay out on lounges today, working on a tan. I have never had the inclination, time or patience to "work on a tan", but I do now. And far fewer flies and mosquitoes than I had expected; in fact almost none. It may be the hot weather, nearness to the salt water or just the general lay of the land- but I am not complaining. I remember in Seattle- you couldn't sit out for more than a few minutes without wasps or flies attacking the food, and in the evening the mosquitoes would kill you. I had expected worse here, but not so. Of course, this is just a month or so into the season when the outdoors is becoming attractive, so it may get worse later on- but for now we are enjoying it.

We have ordered a sliding metal gate to close off the back yard. Denise came up the the design and if it looks anything like we want- it will be spectacular. Then a new replacement door off of the patio by the parrilla (BBQ area) because the old one had rusted, we needed to replace it. Soon we will be completely secure and private in our back yard. Then I won't have to worry about tan lines (if you get my drift). So we are looking forward to this next week, hoping to see footers and block started.