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| Donna sizing up the Massive earth-movers. Four of them push and pull thousands of Tons of earth each hour. The City Ordnance requires they remove earth 8ft down to ensure no clay then to replace it all. |
It was ten days or so after our last post that the silence we had enjoyed at the rear of our Mesquite home for the past five years was suddenly broken when massive earth movers turned up and began levelling the ground behind us in order to begin work on the services, sewers, roads and sidewalks for the next village in Sun City Anthem.
These incredible machines wasted no time in moving tens of thousands of tons of sand (the composition of the land here in the Mohave Desert) each day.
We knew this was inevitable when we built our home on this land. We also realized that further construction behind us would in all likelihood take place when we were gone which is probably still the case.
Birthday Time
It was also Donna's birthday during that same week. She asked to celebrate it in Las Vegas so without further ado, off we went. It was much like any Vegas trip. We both enjoyed ourselves and made the most of the visit.
On the morning of the third day, we checked out of the hotel/casino and headed to an East Indian grocery store as we required some spices we could not find at any of the conventional grocery stores in Mesquite or Las Vegas. A quick Google search brought forth an address so we jumped into the truck and five minutes later we arrived at this well equipped East Indian grocery store just of Tropicana Blvd.
As we entered, the various aromas emanating from the many fresh spices the owners had in stock had my imagination racing as I conjured up fresh ideas for future meals.
Prior to leaving Mesquite, we had organised a cooking course on Indian food which would take place at our home a week from today.
Between us, we had planned out some recipes and food we believed our guests would find interesting and tasty. We quickly grabbed what we needed and headed out for the 1 ¼ hour drive back to Mesquite.
The day of the cooking class arrived and a Co-ed group of 20 of our neighbours turned out. This all began when one of our neighbours….no names (Liane) made an innocent remark mentioning how much she enjoyed curry.
There aren't that many restaurants in Nevada that serve Indian food, and very few Americans have tried it, so it would be a balancing act as to what to cook. In any case, It was decided to tone down the heat and go for more fragrant dishes as a good curry dish, does not have to be hot to be tasty.
There are lots of clubs at our Sun City location - even a Gourmet Cooking Club but we believed that it was probably out of most of the club members comfort zone to cook such food which is very specialized and labour intensive. As it was, two members of the club would be in our midst today.
The list included Besan or Gram flour, Saffron, Cumin, Ajwain, Garam Masala, Cloves, Dhania Jeera, Red Chili Powder, Fresh Curry leaves, Fresh Coriander, Green Cardamon Pods, Cinnamon, Aesafetida or Hing and a litany of other spices we would use to create what hopefully would be some tasty dishes that day.
The menu was relatively simple for beginners: We decided not to do all the work, but rather have the attendees participate by preparing and cooking the items under our supervision. We had completed the donkey work before everyone arrived i.e. slicing onions, peeling potatoes etc.
On the Menu were: Pappadams that had to be fried, Vegetable Pakoras sometimes referred to as Bhajias (we made them from scratch), Beef Curry, Butter Chicken, Tandoori Chicken plus a highly flavourful Saffron Rice dish prepared with aromatic Basmati Rice, cinnamon, cloves and other condiments.
If any of our followers want to try these recipes themselves, simply click on the links above for each dish. Hopefully the sites we obtained the information from have not changed but if you have the name of the item, a Google search will bring forth recipes and YouTube Videos too.
Also note; some of these dishes vary slightly from the dishes I cooked because as you get used to cooking them, you experiment by adding different spices, but they are all basically the same.
In real life in India, the taste of a certain dish will vary from village to village due to the availability of particular spices at that time, so you can find many variations on the same dish even on the Internet or for that matter in India itself Garam Masala (a mixture of many spices) as an example, is not made the same way in every place.
The one day introductory cooking course was a great success and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously. Literally everyone sampled all the dishes and there was lots left over. Some even took away the left-overs they liked the food that much.
Later this year, I will complete all the LED lighting to the front and sides of our home. In December, we will take out the two tier Granite counters and breakfast bar in the kitchen and have the whole work surface redone with one large slab of Granite or Quartz, all on one level. It will look fabulous once it is all completed and will triple our work surfaces for parties and catering.
Do we miss the business? I believe we are both of the opinion that you cannot drop something you have been doing for over 25 years and put it behind you. So the honest answer to that question is yes! We do miss it…….a little.
What we definitely do not miss, is the need to have to be here there and everywhere at a given time every day or have to be sitting open houses every weekend when others are out enjoying time-off.
I don't think either of us are ready yet to finally give up our Broker's Licenses as the qualifying exams to obtain the license were both costly and challenging, so we will have to re-new our licences next year or lose them as quite rightly, there is a time limit or statute of limitations as to how long a Realtor® or a Broker can leave the business without having to re-qualify or update their Real Estate Skills. When you think about it, Real Estate Laws change on a frequent basis and it would not be in the public interest to have outdated Real Estate Brokers or Associates for that matter.
We have had a lot of fun over the past six months. We have had a month long trip to our Mesquite home, a trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios in California with stop-overs in Pasadena, Hollywood and San Diego (where we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary).
We had the three week trip to Ecuador, South America another month back in the US followed by a month back up in Canada - some of it spent on Vancouver Island with a cousin of Donna's. The rest back in Calgary followed by three more months in the US. Yes, we have been busy and travelled lots and we hope this will continue to be the case into the future.
December arrived quickly as did the change in temperature when it went from the balmy mid 70's to 16 F. The cooler climate only lasted for a week then the temperature ever-so-slowly edged its way back to the mid 60's where it stayed for the remainder of the time we have been in the US.
We looked at the weather in Calgary on a daily basis and tuned in to QR77 on our IPADs to get the news and weather reports. The forecast day-after-day seemed to be snow, snow and more snow and very cold. We were glad to be here in Heaven on Earth.
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On the morning of the third day, we checked out of the hotel/casino and headed to an East Indian grocery store as we required some spices we could not find at any of the conventional grocery stores in Mesquite or Las Vegas. A quick Google search brought forth an address so we jumped into the truck and five minutes later we arrived at this well equipped East Indian grocery store just of Tropicana Blvd.
As we entered, the various aromas emanating from the many fresh spices the owners had in stock had my imagination racing as I conjured up fresh ideas for future meals.
Prior to leaving Mesquite, we had organised a cooking course on Indian food which would take place at our home a week from today.
Between us, we had planned out some recipes and food we believed our guests would find interesting and tasty. We quickly grabbed what we needed and headed out for the 1 ¼ hour drive back to Mesquite.
The Indian Cooking Class.
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| Vegetable Pakoras |
The day of the cooking class arrived and a Co-ed group of 20 of our neighbours turned out. This all began when one of our neighbours….no names (Liane) made an innocent remark mentioning how much she enjoyed curry.
There aren't that many restaurants in Nevada that serve Indian food, and very few Americans have tried it, so it would be a balancing act as to what to cook. In any case, It was decided to tone down the heat and go for more fragrant dishes as a good curry dish, does not have to be hot to be tasty.
There are lots of clubs at our Sun City location - even a Gourmet Cooking Club but we believed that it was probably out of most of the club members comfort zone to cook such food which is very specialized and labour intensive. As it was, two members of the club would be in our midst today.
In order to introduce everyone to the type of food we were about to prepare, we had set out on our kitchen table many of the spices used in Indian cooking. Passing them around so the participants could smell the various spices which resulted in lots of ooohs and ahhhs. The participants were unfamiliar with many of the spices but they liked the different aromas and could not wait to get going.
Once everyone was present and they had poured themselves that customary drink, we began by explaining what the spices were and how they should be used.
Once everyone was present and they had poured themselves that customary drink, we began by explaining what the spices were and how they should be used.
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The menu was relatively simple for beginners: We decided not to do all the work, but rather have the attendees participate by preparing and cooking the items under our supervision. We had completed the donkey work before everyone arrived i.e. slicing onions, peeling potatoes etc.
On the Menu were: Pappadams that had to be fried, Vegetable Pakoras sometimes referred to as Bhajias (we made them from scratch), Beef Curry, Butter Chicken, Tandoori Chicken plus a highly flavourful Saffron Rice dish prepared with aromatic Basmati Rice, cinnamon, cloves and other condiments.
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| The girls enjoying the fruits of their labour in our kitchen sampling the dishes after they were cooked. |
If any of our followers want to try these recipes themselves, simply click on the links above for each dish. Hopefully the sites we obtained the information from have not changed but if you have the name of the item, a Google search will bring forth recipes and YouTube Videos too.
Also note; some of these dishes vary slightly from the dishes I cooked because as you get used to cooking them, you experiment by adding different spices, but they are all basically the same.
In real life in India, the taste of a certain dish will vary from village to village due to the availability of particular spices at that time, so you can find many variations on the same dish even on the Internet or for that matter in India itself Garam Masala (a mixture of many spices) as an example, is not made the same way in every place.
The one day introductory cooking course was a great success and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves tremendously. Literally everyone sampled all the dishes and there was lots left over. Some even took away the left-overs they liked the food that much.
Occupying Our Time During The Early Months.
Since we have arrived, we have installed a water softener, added a great room fan/light combination, changed our dining room light fixture, installed an LED lighting system above our kitchen Cabinets to add an ambience to the kitchen, added shelving to the pantry and 12 Volt LED landscape lighting in the back yard to give an adobe look to walls we have at the rear of our home (see the pictures below).
The landscape lighting worked well. Now we can take full advantage of the back yard during the day and on the warmer evenings which occur 95% of the time in Mesquite, and if there is a chill in the air, we just crank up the patio heater when our friends are over. Our palm trees are now highlighted and look great. All this, has kept us both very busy.
Since we have arrived, we have installed a water softener, added a great room fan/light combination, changed our dining room light fixture, installed an LED lighting system above our kitchen Cabinets to add an ambience to the kitchen, added shelving to the pantry and 12 Volt LED landscape lighting in the back yard to give an adobe look to walls we have at the rear of our home (see the pictures below).
The landscape lighting worked well. Now we can take full advantage of the back yard during the day and on the warmer evenings which occur 95% of the time in Mesquite, and if there is a chill in the air, we just crank up the patio heater when our friends are over. Our palm trees are now highlighted and look great. All this, has kept us both very busy.
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| Adding 12 Volt LED landscape lighting really allows you to make use of the yard at night as well as during the daytime. |
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| Now, we can sit out in the warmer evenings and enjoy our yard day or night. |
Christmas Open House
Our next venture was in concert with our next door neighbours Dave and Barbara. One day, while having our customary "it's 4 O Clock somewhere in the world" cocktails, between us, we all decided to entertain our friends and neighbours by having a Christmas Open House. About 30 people attended the party Dec 11. Dave and Barbara (our next door neighbours from Utah) suggested we host the Open House at their home which we did. |
| Two of the four hosts Dave and Barbara - our next door neighbours - Super people, you could not ask for better more friendly neighbours. |
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| The two of us enjoying the party at the Open House. |
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| What a bunch of wonderful "guys & gals" The food was delicious and we all had lots of fun. You could not wish for a finer crowd |
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| Brad (left) and Brenda (2nd from the right) - fellow Calgarians from Lake McKenzie who also have a home only five doors away from us in Mesquite, made it down for the Party. They are seen here talking to Jodie and Glen their next door neighbours |
A Brief Review About Retirement
At the time of writing this blog we have been fully retired for exactly six months. We are very happy doing what we are doing now, getting out and about and travelling to new places has been lot of fun so far.Do we miss the business? I believe we are both of the opinion that you cannot drop something you have been doing for over 25 years and put it behind you. So the honest answer to that question is yes! We do miss it…….a little.
What we definitely do not miss, is the need to have to be here there and everywhere at a given time every day or have to be sitting open houses every weekend when others are out enjoying time-off.
I don't think either of us are ready yet to finally give up our Broker's Licenses as the qualifying exams to obtain the license were both costly and challenging, so we will have to re-new our licences next year or lose them as quite rightly, there is a time limit or statute of limitations as to how long a Realtor® or a Broker can leave the business without having to re-qualify or update their Real Estate Skills. When you think about it, Real Estate Laws change on a frequent basis and it would not be in the public interest to have outdated Real Estate Brokers or Associates for that matter.
We have had a lot of fun over the past six months. We have had a month long trip to our Mesquite home, a trip to Disneyland and Universal Studios in California with stop-overs in Pasadena, Hollywood and San Diego (where we celebrated our 20th wedding anniversary).
We had the three week trip to Ecuador, South America another month back in the US followed by a month back up in Canada - some of it spent on Vancouver Island with a cousin of Donna's. The rest back in Calgary followed by three more months in the US. Yes, we have been busy and travelled lots and we hope this will continue to be the case into the future.
December arrived quickly as did the change in temperature when it went from the balmy mid 70's to 16 F. The cooler climate only lasted for a week then the temperature ever-so-slowly edged its way back to the mid 60's where it stayed for the remainder of the time we have been in the US.
We looked at the weather in Calgary on a daily basis and tuned in to QR77 on our IPADs to get the news and weather reports. The forecast day-after-day seemed to be snow, snow and more snow and very cold. We were glad to be here in Heaven on Earth.
Christmas in Mesquite
Christmas was upon in a flash. We seated 12 for Christmas dinner on Christmas Day. Everyone helped out by preparing something for the feast, so we only had to worry about the turkey and a few other bits.
While in one of the two grocery stores we have in Mesquite, we saw a heck of a deal in a 23lb Butterball Turkey for $21. We both agreed that a large turkey of this weight in Canada would probably cost about $60 - $70, so we snapped it up right away and it cooked up beautifully with lots left over.
Long periods down in the US underline the fact that living here over the winter as a snowbird is so very much cheaper than it is in Canada. Everything is far less expensive. This applies across the board to food, clothing, gas and utilities etc. We shake our heads and wonder how two countries so similar can have such vast differences in the price of the same commodities.
So What's Next?
We have a few things planned for 2014, but the most pressing item on the agenda right now as they say is to "get out of Dodge". With the limit on how long a Canadian can stay in the US, we have just about reached that allowance, so to stay on the right side of the law, we head for the border in 5 days time to face the cold and the snow…….for a while.A "Heads Up" here. Aimed at all you prospective or upcoming snowbirds. There is a bill going through Congress at the moment that is proposing to allow Canadian Snowbirds age 55 or older, to be able to reside in the US for eight months of the year. The Senate and the House have both OK'd it and the President has indicated he will sign off on it but it is taking it's time going through the legal process. We are hopeful that maybe within the year this will be signed into law.
Jan 4, 2014. Here we were in T shirt and shorts shopping at the newer and more upscale Town Square Mall at Sunset and Las Vegas Blvd just south of the Mandalay Bay. We were basking in the sun and warm weather but facing the fact that in one week we would be heading back to Canada where there is currently an Arctic Clipper developed over the Calgary area and way down into the States.
Some places have had -30 C temperatures and some even -42 F (-40C & -40F is where both Fahrenheit and Celsius meet) with deep snow to contend with. Our niece from Saskatchewan reported on Facebook today a temperature of -50C somewhere up there……Pretty cool.
Well, you can't have it all ways, so it's time to suck it up and make the drive back to Calgary. On a positive note, it will be good to see all the family and the grandchildren again. Time to share some stories and find out what they have been doing with their lives while we have been sorting ourselves out.
For the next four months, we will be in Calgary, house-sitting for Donna's Sister and Brother-in-Law in Parkland while they enjoy time at their home in Mesquite.
Hopefully in mid April, we will depart Calgary. Time permitting, we may take a trip to Saskatchewan then drive across Manitoba and into Ontario to visit with friends. I have never driven across the prairies, so it is another adventure and more places to see. I understand it is a somewhat flat landscape to take in by all accounts but nevertheless, it is something new.
In late April, we will head south again, but this time, to add to our experiences, and just for the fun of it, we may drive back to Nevada from Ontario, via Hamilton, London, Sarnia, then southwest through Lansing and Kalamazoo MI, just north of Detroit MI. Then onto Chicago IL, Des Moines IA, Lincoln NE, and on to Mile High City Denver, CO. Denver for the benefit of those who have never been, is almost the same as Calgary with the Rockies in the background but although Pike's Peak is higher than our Rockies, the mountains there are not as rugged. Then we will enter Utah from Grand Junction CO then turn south onto Mequite NV.
The drive will be 3,492 Kilometres which will take us around five of six days to complete but it will allow us to see a lot of the country we normally don't get to see.
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We plan to be in Costa Rica for May and June of this year and will move around to find out the facts about the country and to familiarise ourselves with the various parts of the country which I am told has 27 different climate zones, ranging from desert, semi-arid areas, rain forest and tropical zones too.
Throw in the odd Volcano or two and the diverse flora and fauna, and you have an interesting country to see. While we are there, we will also meet with other Ex-Pats who have taken up residence there to ask their opinions on the pros and cons about Costa Rica.
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Then, It's Off To Panama
The country of Panama is bordered by Costa Rica to the North and Columbia to the south. We plan to be in Panama for July and August of this year. Inevitably, we will go through the same exercise there as we will in Costa Rica. We have already made contact with people in both countries (Costa Rica and Panama) - many of them through dedicated groups on Facebook or chat rooms. Some are Canadians, others are from the US and Europe all trying to chase the same dream as us. By the end of the trip, we should be able to make a well thought out decision as to whether one of these two countries in Central America will suit our needs in terms of a retirement destination and if that is the case, we will in all likelihood apply for permanent residency. It goes without saying that both countries are vastly less expensive to live in than Canada and in particular Calgary which will allow us to save more and to travel in the future.
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And After That
Well, that's a difficult question to answer at the moment….We aren't sure yet. Maybe Europe or Australia and Asia should be on our bucket list.
In closing it would be fair to say we have had the very best visit to our Nevada home we could have hoped for. We have wonderful neighbours and great friends down here. We also believe we have achieved a nice balance and in an Idilic setting whilst getting used to the pace of retirement. No regrets…….Not one so far. I don't even regret the fact that my cell phone has not rang for weeks.
When we return to Calgary next week, we will re-new old acquaintances and meet up with a whole bunch of people because now we have the time on our hands to do so.
Now that the winter solstice has been and gone, we can feel the days getting longer. Inevitably the snow will give way to green grass and the snowblowers will be replaced by lawnmowers and life will be back to normal, especially for those of you locked up in the terrible cold right now.
As we bid you all goodbye in this blog and prepare for the trip back north, we will in the next month or two, begin honing the details and planning our next adventure.
Keep safe, smile and do a good turn for someone this week and most of all, stay optimistic about the coming year. We both wish you good health and happiness…
………....and the adventure continues.
Ken and Donna.
In closing it would be fair to say we have had the very best visit to our Nevada home we could have hoped for. We have wonderful neighbours and great friends down here. We also believe we have achieved a nice balance and in an Idilic setting whilst getting used to the pace of retirement. No regrets…….Not one so far. I don't even regret the fact that my cell phone has not rang for weeks.
When we return to Calgary next week, we will re-new old acquaintances and meet up with a whole bunch of people because now we have the time on our hands to do so.
Now that the winter solstice has been and gone, we can feel the days getting longer. Inevitably the snow will give way to green grass and the snowblowers will be replaced by lawnmowers and life will be back to normal, especially for those of you locked up in the terrible cold right now.
As we bid you all goodbye in this blog and prepare for the trip back north, we will in the next month or two, begin honing the details and planning our next adventure.
Keep safe, smile and do a good turn for someone this week and most of all, stay optimistic about the coming year. We both wish you good health and happiness…
………....and the adventure continues.
Ken and Donna.
