A GRINGO: TRYING TO HAVE THANKSGIVING IN MEXICO!

Our Humble Home

Hi! and Welcome back to the Global Community Park!

I've recently decided to spend Thanksgiving in Mexico. I enjoyed it down here so much and I thought it wouldn't be hard to do. I've found almost everything I've needed so far but, Thanksgiving is another story. I can't find a descent turkey, or yams for a sweet potato pie and a few other things like jellied cranberry sauce and other things we usually have at our Thanksgiving table. There are no Thanksgiving decorations to buy here.  

I never appreciated how easily accessible those items are in the states. I've taken to making my own for my house. 

More Americans are Moving to Mexico and other
Hispanic countries. Celebrating Thanksgiving
in those countries isn't easy for them?

When I tried to buy some things uniquely American, they're expensive. So, what I've decided to do is to see Thanksgiving in a new way. The important thing is being with friends and family you love and enjoying a hearty meal. I did my shopping for decorations (some I've already shared with you) and started crafting some designs. 

Making my decorations with what I can find. Here this table top
Christmas Tree is made with construction paper, coffee filters, and
store bought glitter decorations (6/.81 cents)

I've looked on youtube and found more ideas for designing decorations for the Thanksgiving holiday.  I bought some of the mainstays like coffee filters, and gathered some leftover coffee jars to make my Thanksgiving/Christmas decor.  

I plan to return to the states in December for a short time and I'll make sure to buy more things that I want to use to make my holidays feel more familiar.  

I want to travel throughout Mexico while I'm still here, and learn about their holiday celebrations.  Meanwhile, I'm trying to do Thanksgiving here with what I have available and when I go to the states in 2 weeks, I'll come back with my holiday food a la USA. I'll let you know how it turns out.

As for my minimizing and downsizing, I've been thinking, "What can you buy a minimalist for Christmas?" Let me know what you think and I'll follow up on the next blog post.

Til Then, ADIOS! TIL MY NEXT POST!

Working on My Holiday Decorations!

Read on a see how to make these crafty candy/cookie jars!

Hi again and Welcome to The Global Community Park!

MY PRAYERS ARE GOING OUT TO THE PEOPLE AFFECTED BY THE PARIS ATTACKS.  HOW HORRIFIC THE EVENT IS AND I'M SO SORRY FOR ALL INVOLVED AND THEIR FAMILIES. MAY GOD WATCH OVER US ALL.


This week I've been working on holiday decorations and I wanted to share them here with you. I have a goal to spend $50 on decorations this year. That means I'll have to spend a lot more time crafting decorations.  I'll be sharing some craft items that I bought in Mexico and in the United States.  

Today, I'm sharing an idea for reusing something I bought in a Mexican Walmart.  It is a jar of coffee and when it was empty, I cleaned it up and reused it, making it into a candy or cookie jar. It can also be used to put gifts inside. I wish I had a fancier way to explain it but I don't so, here it is:

Here is the jar as bought from the store

After it's empty,I clean it up, dry it off, then wrap it with a cord.
Once wrapped, take off the lid and spray the clean jar with gold
spray paint.  Let it dry. Once dried, replace the lid. Then decorate!

Add the decorations and VIOLA! You have a wonderful
Holiday decoration!  Here it is at the top of this page
 on the fireplace mantel with
some other of my holiday decorations.

On My next post I'll share some more decorations with you.

SPECIAL NOTATIONS:
For me, part of traveling global is minimizing.  I'm finding out that the less I have, the easier it is to travel. On my last trip I traveled by plane in the United States.  I was charged for my carry on a fee of $55 USD.  Before I caught my next plane, I ditched my suitcase ( I carried my smallest bag and was charged for a carry on, surprising!), and bought a backpack, emptied the suitcase and put the contents into my new backpack, which I was allowed to bring on the plane for free as a personal item. I'm finding out that, the less I own, the happier I am.

Looking forward to sharing some other new discoveries with you and also sharing the holidays with you, my readers. May God Bless you all!!

NOMADIC XSCAPEES

Hi! Welcome to the Global Community Park! 

Ominous and Windy seems more like Halloween!

The skies are ominous here in paradise today.  Still a beautiful as ever.  I'm a weather-nerd and proud of it. I check my weather channel app and watch the videos on the app constantly. As I typed the last sentence, a flock of pelicans flew by my patio. The sun is showing itself again and tucking in for the night, shining a beautiful crimson haze on those ominous clouds right now.  These two pictures were taken only minutes apart. That's why I love living at the beach.

 Being this close to a weather system is wonderful but, can also be not so much. Living on the beach, we are vulnerable to the weather and it's changes, which sometimes lends itself to power blackouts and cold, wet surprises. But I use these times to prepare my house for emergencies and also prepare myself for being on the road with my van conversion or my RV, oh, did I tell you that? I plan within 2 years to buy a van conversion (with the goal of upgrading to a small RV) and travel (having also been bitten by the travel bug) throughout the United States and Canada? 

A few minutes later than the previous photo

This brings me to the main topic of this post.  I have been meeting a group of young people (mostly in their 30s but some are in their 20s) who have decided to turn away from the cubicle crowd and define their own success and their work jobs for themselves. I hope that came out right. 

These people, unlike their counterparts of the 1960s who also rebelled against the "establishment" are college graduates, budget aware, and making lots of money by working while on the road and on the internet.  They are also very aware of not leaving messes behind them, recycling their bottles, plastics and cans, using solar energy and just, well showing courtesy to others wherever they go. In fact, most of them have A-1 credit scores and are financing $70 - $100 thousand dollar luxury RVs that they are choosing to live in full time. 

This pup won my Puppy Halloween Pic Contest!
I agree with the choice!

I was impressed to see that most of the XSCAPEES (escaping generation X -ers) have monthly budgets that include an RV payment, or a 5th wheel payment along with their towing truck payment.  The average Xscapee's monthly expenses are between $1,000 - $1,500 a month which includes a membership in Thousand Trails RV Resort or a KOA membership so they can enjoy the campsites while they travel. 

I admire these young people. I wish I had taken a leap sooner and started traveling but, every time I planned to, some well meaning and caring friend would talk me out of it. Mostly siting the fear they had for my children living in a new country, new situation, etc. Understandable but, I wish I had followed my own instincts and done it anyway.

I plan to share more of my findings on these Xscapees on this blog. They are, after all, part of our new Global Community one we (society that is) didn't see coming and I love these guys. They've helped me see my life in an even newer way. The more I open my mind, the happier and freer I am! 

As for this post, we are at the end of it.  I shared some thoughts with you, now I hope you share yours with me. Leave a comment in the area for comments. I really would like to hear your opinions!

But for now, ADIOS 'TIL MY NEXT POST!

WOW THAT LAST POST WAS A DOWNER!

After reading through the last post, I realized that it was sad, sad, sad!! I decided to put some happy and hope filled thoughts for us in here

Here are some more pictures I took in Chicago!

I'm Totally High in this Picture!

This is in the meeting room of the Congress Plaza Hotel
in Downtown Chicago - South Loop! Ok so I'm a sucker
for great architecture!

This is the Very Talented Audio Engineer!  She was awesome!
Now it takes about 2 weeks for the final copies to come!


OK  This is a better way to end a blog!

ADIOS! TIL MY NEXT POST!

HAPPY HALLOWEEN AND IS THE FOCUS OF GCP CHANGING??

Hi! and welcome back to the Global Community Park! 

There are many changes happening in the world today. The world, as we know it, is changing rapidly. I noticed it more when I tried to raise money for my singer to go to Chicago. I understood that people just are not spending money and that many don't have it to spend! 

No matter what! There's always hope!

The world is changing and our society is changing with it. Just today, after over 30 years of ruling, China as repealed its rule that each family can only have one child (of course, the rule was extended if you didn't have a male child). But today, the rule was repealed. Are we preparing for the next war? Who knows? 

For this reason, I've bent the focus of the Global Community, because I think we need to understand about more than living in "paradise".  Right now we have a whole generation of kids who are disconnected from society as a whole and very comfortable with it.  We have a senior population who are fighting for their promised Social Security Retirement Benefits. 

ENJOY YOUR HALLOWEEN!

Two that I know of are sick and one who died before their S.S. Benefits check was received (three days before to be exact). The woman who died was an award winning author and was featured on CNN in Chicago. Her husband managed her writing career and when he died in March 2014, she didn't know how to handle her business.  She found her house was in foreclosure and she had around 200 books ready to be mailed out for P.R. Her husband was handling everything and his secrets, died with him.  She became depressed, living in her brand new SUV after losing her home, she began to drink heavily, she died from alcohol poisoning in September 2014.  

I was given her mail three days after her death and her Social Security acceptance letter had finally arrived, but she'll never know it.

Two other friends have been waiting for 3 years for their checks to begin. Mind you, this is not Welfare. These people worked and paid into the Social Security System with the understanding that they would be able to collect when they retired!  I know one of them worked for 30 years, then retired! The other, I'm not sure of.

It's for this reason, my heart is heavy knowing that people are hurting emotionally, financially, and are sickly-physically! It's for this reason I'll begin sharing the focus of this blog. 

Our Global Community means more that finding ways to enjoy our lives in "paradise", but, also to share our ideas. 

Find a way to get promises that we were told as children about how Social Security taken out of our paychecks will be a type of savings for our retirement (before it somehow changed into a supplement to the American Welfare System), and help those of us who need our retirement savings supplemented. It was NEVER meant to be Welfare. 

reminder: Better times will come!

This is just one of the topics I'll share in this blog. I hope my readers will stay with me through this change. I won't let you down and will still discuss living in paradise on a budget.  I also want to cover the new working generation who have rejected the dream of having a good job, a house, and 2.5 kids. They are the generation X that feel cheated and lied to. I listen to them saying that the "American Dream" was a lie all along. They instead are opting to find, define and pursue their own dreams and working online is allowing them the freedom to do just that.  

Anyway, I've rambled too long and I'm sorry for that. I'm working on changing that as well.

Once again, thank you for all your help and support. Those of you who have rewards coming will get them next week. I'll let you know when you can collect!

Here's the picture I promised yesterday of the raised ocean levels here in "paradise"

These waves are usually not visible unless I'm on my patio.

There is usually an island where the arrow is pointing. I can
usually see it, but not today!

These pics were this morning. Although it is eerie, it's awesome as well. Nature is BE U Ti Ful!

TAKE CARE AND ADIOS! TIL MY NEXT POST!

UPDATE AFTER THE CHICAGO TRIP

Hi and Welcome back to the Global Community Park! I'm back from Chicago and glad to be in "paradise"again.  I still don't have my passport,but plan to get one for the next time I travel. In case you didn't read it yet, the Mexican Border is giving visitors a hard time when coming down without a passport. I've been using US documents but now I must get a passport to enter MX.

Here at the beach we were not affected by Hurricane Patricia, however some of my neighbors went to Acapulco six days before the hurricane hit. They kept us informed via email of their well being. 

They had to be evacuated from their respective resorts, but they said the Mexican government was very organized with keeping people save and sound. I was glad to hear it.

As for our community, the ocean level and the waves are high and I'm sure it's due to the hurricane. Our house is situated on the top of a hill so we were not affect by the high levels of the ocean. It looks eerie though. Just in time for Halloween. It's night time now so I can't get pictures (sorry I didn't think of that sooner) but I'll see how it looks tomorrow and share some pictures of it with you.  

As you know, I've changed my life goals from having things to enjoying experiences. One of those was accompanying my singer to Chicago as her ADA assistant. I enjoyed it so much. I got to go into the sound engineering booth and watch how they make the music tracks. There is so much involved in putting out one song! I also caught some once in a lifetime photos like the one below:

I wanted to put some pictures from our Chicago trip here. 

I know this isn't a landmark, but I like this movie and I found
the GHOSTBUSTERS CAR! I think they're using it in a
Halloween event. How cool! The power packs are were in the
back of the car.

Here's the license plate!

Here is Crystal getting ready to go into the studio to record

We DID IT! My singer and I got to Chicago! Now onto the
Holidays! What a wonderful accomplishment! Thank you
to everyone who helped us either by donating or sharing
our Go FUnd Me Campaign! We'll keep the campaign
but for this opportunity, we are very grateful. Now I will
continue my Community Park Posts as usual.

Well that's my post for now. I'm sure I'll share more of my pictures with you. I'll leave you with a view from the plane. ADIOS! UNTIL THE NEXT POST!

GLOBAL COMMUNITY PARK SHORT POST

Hi and welcome to our Global Community Park! I just typed a post and lost it to a computer gliche. 

Basically, I was sending out prayers to people all over who are experiencing hard times right now. And special prayers to those in Asia who are experiencing hard financial times and countries at war and people who find themselves in the unfamiliar role of being a refugee trying to find a new home.

Along with my new Global Community status, I've also downsized to being a minimalist.  I'm using this time at the beach to outfit myself with "off grid" accessories and emergency items. Once I return from Chicago, I'll be in the market for an RV as well. 

I realized that, taking my singer to Chicago (which we leave on Wednesday! YAY!) would have been much easier if I had an RV.  I could have taken 3 weeks and road tripped across the country toward Chicago. However, after much fundraising and budget planning, we are set to go.

When I return, I start my next project, which is budgeting out cash for my off grid items and next year, my RV. I also want to help my singer get gigs, so she can save and hire a PR person. Something she's lacking that would help her career take off. 

Thanks for your help and support in
getting my singer to Chicago!

Well, I'm making this post short, keeping you in tuned with my progress. I'll be posting pics and videos from my Chicago trip. 

Once again, my prayers go out to those out there who are struggling. We are TSA'ed everytime we cross any border. There are armed guards at the border crossing and at each toll booth as we drive further south. It's scary because it's new for people in the Americas.

Here are some pictures to remind us that we're gonna get through these times! Adios! Til my next post!

CHICAGO HERE WE COME! (Grant Park Fountain)

Enjoying the awesomeness of a sunset!


ADIOS!