backgammon

Backgammon is a game I played as a kid and then didn't play for many many moons until this year. My mom gave me an adorable travel set earlier this year that she totally scored on at her local Flea Market, Howard's* for 2 bucks! I can't even begin to say how far that $2 has gone and is going. We play almost everyday and it's so much fun! We one day aspire to figure out and use the doubling cube. Haha!

This game lives on our kitchen table. We play almost everyday. It's so much fun because we are even-steven on skill level and that makes it all a matter of 'luck of the dice'!!

*Howard's Flea Market in Homosassa, Florida is where Mike is from. He was all by himself and that is one of the most precious days of my lives; finding that little guy. What a firey little blessing he is. Talk about a flea market find!

flowers all the time.

I've finally gotten into the habit of always having fresh flowers in the house. And I've gotten so good with it, I usually have them in more than one room. My favourite places are in the kitchen/eating area and in our main hang-out room that just happens to have a really nice skylight.

Besides it's a blast looking at all the random flowers for sale in the markets. I've gotten such a range so far and there's always a bunch of flowers that I haven't seen before. I love having so much new information in the way of plants, flowers, trees, fruits and vegetables here.

It helps that my darling boyfriend brings home flowers from the market ever-so-often. And lately I've been snipping wild poppies on our walks which has been so nice! I'll def be doing that regularly.

What I am trying to say is that regularly having fresh flowers around the home makes a world of difference!!

i love my jack russell. duh.

My little guy, Mike, is all dog-all day!! He's ready to go, you just say the word (and there are so so many in his vocabulary..it's kind of crazy). No matter what where or when he's balls to the wall!! I wouldn't trade him for anything in the whole wide world. He's my protector, best friend-buddy; my rock.

This is a random afternoon we were taking basket pictures for tipico and for the fun of it as we often do..we put Mike in a basket and there he is barking at some birds flying over! All dog, all day.

fresh herbs....nothing like em.

There are so very many things that are fresh and amazing about Guatemala; fresh herbs being one of them!

Mind you it's really hard to find fresh Basil and that's a bummer but, this bunch of fresh Cilantro is what you get for Q1 (which is about 1/7 of a dollar). ...you can not beat that!

Fresh herbs are so healthful to eat and now I can easily eat them up with every meal! It's a good thing as you know who would say. Oh! And they are grown organically......sweet!

pickling peppers

One of the things I miss the absolute most of my home country is simple pepper sauces and Louisiana style hot sauces. I have, after a year, decided to try my hand at making my own. I started with the simple one first. After buying 3 types of varying heated peppers at the market, I consulted my Southern Momma and she gave me the simplest of instructions:
wash peppers
put in jar
boil vinegar
add a little sugar
pour over peppers & cover in jar
put on lid
let sit for 2 weeks & enjoy!!

I can't wait two weeks!!! Wahhhh! They look delicious!

**UPDATE**

The pepper sauce tastes good at 1 week, tastes a million times better after 2 weeks and tastes freaking glorious after 3+ weeks! Tastes exactly like my grandmothers! Woohoo!

pink, wonderful.

While cooking dinner the kitchen window (our one street window, high up on the inside of our wall but, on the level with traffic outside) lit up intense purple-pink...I couldn't imagine what car was causing that so, I took a peek outside. By the time I grabbed my camera and made it out to the courtyard it was fading fast but, the whole sky was lit up bright rich intense purple and pink...here's the shot I got of the tail end of it. You can even faintly see the moon. It was breath-takingly gorgeous; so happy I saw what I did of it!!!

i love my dog skull!

Bird's eye view of Xela; the line is the road between Llanos del Pinal & Xela.

Two of my homies/lovies on top of Santa Maria!

Zach & Marcel

Santiaguito...erupts about every 20 minutes!

Zach and Marcel went on a dude hike up Volcan Santa Maria and they brought me a really super cool present. They found an old dog skull up on the side of the Volcan and carefully brought it to me!! It's a favourite prized possesion!!!

Resurfacing in a whole new place.

A lot has changed since my last post except, funny enough, I am still ovenless and happy!(Sounds like a future post to me.) The biggest change is my recent move to Guatemala. I have always wanted to live in another culture. I have been thinking one of the best things about getting older is actually having my dreams come to fruition.

we live in the white house.
after walking the streets of xela for a week looking for a place to live, we moved into another hostel in a different part of town. as we were on the roof of the hostel checking out the view and most certainly spying for a house to rent we set our sights on the white house, after finding it (everything here is behind walls, it's a land of walls and big strong doors-again, a future post) from the street, we found out it was empty, for rent and in our budget. it's home for now.

*another change worth noting is the name of this blog. 'happy in the humidity' was left behind in florida, i was very tempted to go wtih 'happy in the highlands' but, instead decided to stick with a very favourite theme sentence of mine. time is for the birds

a great summer snack!

Pineapples are so affordable right now! And they are so refreshing on these super hot Florida days!! We've been buying them whole, last time we were at the bodega they were 2 for $3!! Zach cut them up for us today. We squeezed fresh lime and liberally sprinkled hot red pepper flakes all over the chunks! So sweet and delicious!! Yum!

We took it in the car today for a snack on the way to the thrift store.

Hay Bale Garden WE HAVE SPROUTS Part 3

I was greeted with sprouts yesterday morning!!

Everything but, the Chinese Celery has sprouted.

The California Spicy Lettuces are in the lead!

Look!!

Terrell, A Happy Fish.

This is my Siamese Fighting Fish, Terrell. I bought him for my desk at work and never took him there. I fell in love with him and come Monday there was no way I was going to take my lovey Terrell to that lame arsed office!!!

I named him after my Great Grandfather. I know he's just a fish but, I had to use that name sometime, it's just too great of a name not to!

Terrell has become quiet the social little fish. He does mad jumping flips when I feed him. Overall, he's a total delight!