The Rosas-Standring Family

Well, I have been writing from home for a while now and I really like it.. but we are broke - so when a job literally came knocking on my door- what else could I do but consider it.

Now I have worked 1 of the past 6 years for companies that I did not own and it has been almost 2 years since I worked on anything but freelance writing and my Tulum Living website- which at the moment makes no money at all - but there is always the goal. Anyway.

I was invited on a tour recently that my friend is the tour guide for. It is a really fun tour that takes you on a serious 4X4 trip through the jungle. And I mean a serious 4X4ing trip. I have been 4x4ing before tons of times but in mud, snow and sand dunes but this... this is totally different. In the jungle we visit a tall tower that over looks the jungle, some dry caves, small cenotes.

After the 4X4 ride we take them on a zip line and then into a cenote where we will look at a ton of stalagmites and stalactites. After the cenote we are off to a wonderful Mexican bbq! Yummy! I am really excited to start.

I am really excited to possibly be making some payments towards something that we want to get done but I do not want to be away from my family much. But I could use a little break. It is sort of my turn.


Here is a post from when I went of the tour before. It is really cool

I do not know what it was about the yesterday and the day before but all of a sudden- everyone in my neighborhood starting putting out their Christmas decorations. Last year I did not see many houses with lights- maybe 3 at most. But this year there seem to be many more people getting in the Christmas spirit. Uh Oh- It i raining in my new outdoor office... I better go inside.


Okay. now that is better. There have been some really strong rain storms coming in. Yesterday my little house just could not keep the power on. It was a very quiet morning.

Anyway... My whole little neighborhood has gotten really lit up lately and i love it. There are not the extravagant light displays like up in the states but that is not that surprising because electricity here is unbelievably crazy expensive. SOLAR AND WIND POWER!!!!! Lots of houses have a lit up tree or some along their house. It is really nice.

In our house it does not look like it used to in the states. Man I cannot wait to get my Christmas stuff down here. But the whole house does look very cute. The purple walls help a lot. But our tree is what really does it. We do not have many ornaments that made it from last years "shatterproof" purchase so we made a bunch.

I asked the kids to each pick out 1 color paper to make the ring chains- they - as expected picked pink and blue- so a pink and blue chain is what we have. I also grabbed some red and green and walla....


A homemade tree- complete with blue and gold glitter and green sequins. It actually turned out much better then I thought it would. It looks really cute. Some of Lena's older friends were over and they were writing our names and Santa and stuff- it was really cute.

So here we are with our cute little homemade Christmas tree.


Then we decided to make Christmas cookies. I found a great recipie and remembered my mistakes from last time - they were WAY too thin last time and got burnt.

The lesson I learned from last time is also that if you make the cookies from scratch- you want nothing

Okay- that is better. I guess this is a good time to mention my new purple office. Working from home has been a real challange for me and so I have beet trying to set up my own spaces where I can go and work. And there are so many times it is cooler outside in the shade then inside so... I wanted an outdoor "office." I had a friend that gave me some purple paint and it is perfect. Here is a picture before and picture after the paint fest...

It is a really great little spot to work. My basil sits on the side and when the wall is warm it heats the basil and it smells so good. I am working on getting the area even more set up. I am going to put a sheet uptop to block the sun a bit more. Anyone who lives here knows that you only have a certain amount of time before the sun eats away the elastic on your sheets and I am constatly coming up with new ways to use them.

I also painted one wall behind my kitchen table. It looks really good. I will admit- nothing is safe. Now I want to piant the front of the house. It needs to be done and my landlord said that she would do it. I am just going to see if she will pay for the paint and we can do it and if she does not like it -we can paint it when we leave?!?! I think she will be cool with that. There are a few houses around here that are vibrantly painted and they stand out beautifully against the other drab white houses that are dirty from the rain storms.



I am going to go get a the same vibrant purple color. You may think I am crazy but this is one of the best parts of living in Mexico. The color and vibrance here is amazing. I am off- i cannot wait anymore. I will post pictures.