IN WITH THE NEW

The New Year has started off nice and quiet for us. We decided after the huge rain storm that day, to stay in and just enjoy what fireworks we could see from our home. We found out that we were not the only ones who voted to stay home and enjoy from afar, so I do not have any photos, mine or others so share.

I have been lazy and have been posting some interesting photos on Facebook, instead of doing a full blown blog. So I will just pop in a few photos here that I thought were fun.

Pretty rainbow over Cuenca

Argentina is producing 6 packs of Malbec/Cab wine..not too bad..

A tiny parade that went by the Kookaburras's on Friday morning

 
One of the things I love about Cuenca, is their determination to try to keep the city pretty and clean. There is a wonderful green park area that runs along all of the rivers (3) in town. Occasionally you will see farmers staking out their cows or goats to munch on the grass. But the city has a crew of industrious workers who come out and cut and rake up the grass. You would think with all these miles and miles of grass that there would be huge lawn mowers. Not so. The labor here is very inexpensive, so they are sent out to cut the grass with weed eaters.. yes, all across town you will see on certain days of the month workers out in force weed eating every bit of green found in a public area of town. Then they hand rake it into a huge tarp and carry it off. I have a wonderful upper room with a view so I got these photos the other day.

Speaking of cutting. I decided that I too needed a bit of freshening up, and took advantage of my friend's "bilingual-ness" to adventure into a salon. Rebecca Garate, is a very helpful friend, and she and her mother-in law; Chella, were going to go get the "mani-pedi" special, so they invited me along so I could get a hair cut.

Even in the states when you speak the same language the interpretation of what you want is sometimes "lost in translation". Well considering we were working through three folks I came out with a pretty nice haircut. It's a bit shorter than I had expected, but you know, hair grows..and I have learned not to be defined by what my hair looks like.. haha, now that only took 20 yrs!

Randy has been busy keeping the yard in shape. He bought a huge machete and started hacking at the grass, and created a nice wide trimmed area for roses. This country exports roses by the millions, but finding a plant seems difficult. We did find some nice small ones at a flower market in El Centro. $2 a pc. so we hurried home and planted them then sat back and admired our handiwork.

I know, before planting..

We also bought some ferns to put in this shady area. We are excited to see how fast they grown in this nice climate.

We went with Clarke and Breenie to the Artesa warehouse where some fabulous pottery is made. We were off to hit the seconds room, as we are not budgeted for the showroom pieces. Here are some of the beauties in the showroom.

Luckily for Brennie and I Clarke hates to shop so he opted to hang outside, Randy had no one to torment while picking out the pottery that we needed. Not so just a few minutes later. Randy and Clarke were tormenting the poor lady who was trying to tally our purchases. Brennie had bailed and I had run to the other side of the room... where I took this picture..

The poor lady has her head down trying to ignore their banter..

We have been enjoying our continuing friendship with Clarke and Brennie; but Brennie and I have determined that our husbands only act insane when they are around each other. We are continually amazed at how suddenly they both revert back to high school "high-jinks" and unfortunately we, as their long suffering wives, bear the brunt of the odd looks and pity we receive from other wives who see out dilemma. Because of this, Brennie and I have opted to only get together in our own homes instead of in public. Brennie has told me there is a meeting of wives that is gathering to talk about how to deal with our newly retired husbands and dealing with their "retirement issues"... not really but it sounded good... well the meeting I mean. All the rest is true, Clarke and Randy are nutso when they are together. It is rather fun though, because you don't usually see men joke and play together like that unless they have been buds for dozens of years.. these two have been friends for 6 months.. God help us in the years to come!