My neighbour’s %!#$@%! rooster has been quiet the last couple of mornings so I’ve had several nights of uninterrupted blissful sleep where I wake up smiling and cosy and content and rested after a solid seven to eight hours of sleep. Lovely. And, yes, I’m still sleeping in my hammock!

Work has been steady and not too onerous. Yesterday, I took a break mid-afternoon and walked to a garage sale in my neighbourhood as the lady had some lamps for sale. Lamps here are super expensive and I’ve been procrastinating on buying more, moving the one that came with the house from room to room as needed. So I was super happy to come home with these beauties! They were $350 each, but I got the pair for $600!

The one in good shape will be a task lamp in my office. The one with rust and spots will go up to my craft area. The finish on them is actually pretty cheap, not stainless steel, and they come completely apart, so I may experiment with spray painting them as there continues to not be enough colour in this house! 🙂

Today, a really important purchase arrived, the next big step to getting back to a truly functional workstation, something I haven’t had since I left for Europe in 2016. I’ve been making do with cobbled together workstations and barely adequate tools while really missing my nearly perfect office in Miranda.

Well, I’m settled for a bit, have space, and business is booming. A 13″ MacBook Air just isn’t cutting it anymore. I’m tired of the tiny display and the processor is too slow to run the Office for Mac suite. So I’m getting a new computer and since the new Mac Mini is better than the current iMac on the market and about 1,500USD (half the price!) cheaper, it’s a no-brainer to go that route even though I’d never considered a Mini before. Since a Mini is a “headless” computer, it needs a monitor. So why not start with that and use it with my laptop until I can afford the Mini?

After some shopping (options are limited here in Mexico), I found for half my budget (!) a monitor by a reputable manufacturer (Samsung) in the size (24″) and finish (matte) I wanted, plus with an HDMI port as I have the adapter to make the monitor work with my MacBook Air. The monitor arrived today and what a difference!

I can’t get over how light monitors are today compared to the ones of old. I actually wondered if the box was empty when it arrived! I have some work to do to get the monitor work as I expected it to (I think I have to play with the resolution), but I can already tell I’m not going to regret this purchase. 24″ is a great size. My last desktop Mac had a 24″ display and I remembered it as being more than enough, hence why I didn’t go for a 27″. I’m certain I made the right choice.

It’ll be really tight, but I’m fairly certain I’ll be able to buy my Mini before the year-end for tax advantage purposes, which is awesome. I otherwise didn’t see myself getting a new computer until the spring!

I enjoyed my new monitor for a few hours and then headed out to pick up yet another garage sale site item. I was going to drive over with Bonita, but my truck battery was dead! I don’t know if I have a drain somewhere or if the battery just simply needs to be replaced. Considering my battery is more than six years old, I’m going with the latter! Unfortunately, I’m parked on the street, so using my new trickle charger is out of the question. I’ll probably skip getting a boost and just have someone deliver and install me a new battery.

So poor Bonita didn’t get her truck ride and I had to hurry to order an Uber as I had an appointment to pick up the item and I knew the lady had to leave shortly thereafter. Traffic was heavy, but we arrived just a couple of minutes late. The item in question was a Corning Visions-brand pot, another of the items on my “when I get a bigger kitchen” wishlist!

This cookware is awesome as it does stovetop (gas and electric), oven and broiler, microwave, and can even go in the freezer! It was hard to gauge the size of the pot from the picture and I was delighted as it was a medium-sized one. The price was a bargain!

I was only 3.6KM from home, the pot was quite light (and I had a bag for it), and the rain had let up, so walking home was very appealing, especially since it was a very walkable route. I’d be in by about 6PM in time to give B her supper. So off I went, enjoying the cool air. Well, I was 1KM from home when the sky decided to open up again! I got in very soaked (thankfully, my purse is water resistant!). I dried off, changed, gave B her supper, and then made myself a curry with one of my last packets I brought back from Canada, a really lovely treat.

So that’s all the domestic excitement over here. Life in Mexico continues to be wonderfully mundane. 🙂