Seven Months in the Land of Enchantment

We’ve been living in New Mexico for seven months now…so what do I think so far? Well, for anyone with an interest in moving to New Mexico, I say go for it! I really do love it here with one, little, tiny thing that I absolutely HATE (Noah and Shoshie if you are reading this, close the freaking page)…SCORPIONS! What did I expect? Rainbows and butterflies? Holy shit! Guess what, we’re coming upon scorpion season and yesterday while Dom was in our bathroom, he looked on the WALL and there was a scorpion. He swiped it off the wall and killed it. What’s the name of this particular scorpion dwelling on my bathroom wall? The Bark Scorpion. The picture on the left is what they look like.

Here in New Mexico you can buy one of those handy little black light flash lights. It seems that when you put a black light on them in the dark, they glow. Cool right? Don’t get me wrong, I am very curious about scorpions and think they are really interesting creatures, BUT NOT IN MY HOUSE! I’m paranoid about what’s lurking under the bed now, and also worried about Simmi in her room. This weekend we have to do some major scorpion proofing of our house. I was looking around and realized that there are lots of areas they can come in from. In retrospect, now I’m wondering if Simmi actually may have gotten a scorpion bite. She has had a lot of trouble walking and in the last few weeks it has gotten worse. She does have a small round red mark on the sole of her right foot and lately she has been screaming every time we put her into the crib. When I say scream, I mean SCREAM! She screams like she is being murdered. That started on Monday. Because we have concrete floors that are nasty and unfinished, we always put shoes on her. There would be no way for her to get a puncture mark in the bottom of her foot. I just noticed the mark yesterday, but could it be likely that she got bit? She doesn’t seem to have any of the symptoms of a bite, like swelling, nausea (even though she really isn’t eating much) excess saliva or foaming at the mouth. If you’re interested in reading about what she is going through (it has totally drained me) you can read about it on LovingSimone.com. Anyway, I don’t *think* she got bit, but I do wonder now if it’s possible. They say it causes extreme pain and numbness, but in children it can be very serious. All last week she had a fever of 102.3 but no symptoms of a cold. When I took her to the doctor he said it was probably a virus. It could have been that, but with a viral or bacterial infection, other symptoms are bound to show up. She never developed any other symptoms.

It has been a very trying two-three weeks. My head is spinning and I barely have a few moments to myself. My computer time has been cut down to a few moments here and there and mostly at night, but by 8:30pm I am totally exhausted. My writing has suffered, and I feel so disconnected from my online world. The simple pleasures that seem to help me through the day is the weather here. Every morning when I wake up, I hear the sound of hundreds of birds singing. The air is cool and pleasant and there is usually a beautiful breeze that blows through the house. The light here is amazing. We are entering monsoon season due to hurricane season in Mexico. Lately it is either raining every day or every other day. The humidity is also increased during this time of year. It stays relatively cool during the morning to mid afternoon and then it gets very hot until about 7:00pm. After that, it cools back down and we have very pleasant cool evenings. Being outside in the evening is a joy. Seeing the gorgeous colors painted across the sky in hues of purple and pink just make me take a deep breath, clear my head and enjoy the moment. One thing that is a nuisance (beyond scorpions) is the amount of dirt that blows in the windows. Where we live, there always seems to be two times a day when the wind picks up and gusts and sometimes I forget to close all the windows during those times. Oh-My-God, this one time we left the windows open and every room had light covering of dirt on it. Everything was covered with gritty sand; the table, chairs, floor, cabinets, clothing, beds…everything. The dirt is very light also, and when sweeping it up, most of it kicks up into the air only to settle once again on the floor or other house hold object. We have to not just sweep, but we have to use a shop vac depending on the amount of dirt blown in. It really is that bad! It’s the price we pay for living in the desert and NOT having rocks, wood chips or even grass covering the front and back yard. Most of the dirt that comes in is directly from our own yard, so we just deal with needing to clean up all the dirt. Landscaping is a very low priority on our list right now because there are so many needs on the interior.

I am officially a raw foodist again. I went back to eating raw foods on June 17th and it has been wonderful. We are almost done with my raw kitchen and just need a few more items to make it complete. Here is a few pictures of what it looked like before and after:

I also just created a raw website if anyone would like to take a look. I had some time on Sunday to create it, while Dom watched Simmi all day. That was a nice break! Anyway, here’s the site:

www.RavishinglyRaw.com

Bald Beauty of the Day

Forgive My Absence

Please forgive such a long absence from my blog. Much has been going on in our lives and unfortunately my blog has had to take a backseat for a while. A few weeks ago my husband safely arrived here in New Mexico for good and I have been taking it all in! Its been great having him home. The past two weeks have been filled with much insecurity for Simmi and she is finally calming down. Anytime Dom would get up to do something she would freak out and start crying, thinking he was going to leave again. Its been a little nuts here. Of course he is loving every second of it. He’s plunged himself in to the Green Scene here, making connections and looking for work. Yes, he’s unemployed. It was a very difficult decision to have him move out here without a job. We’re keeping our fingers crossed for a few jobs that look very promising. We’ve had issues with Simmi’s health, issues with my health and now, in just a few days Noah and Shoshie will be leaving for the summer to be with their dad.

My hair continues to grow in and its starting to look pretty good. The photo is very deceiving though. Before I took that picture (and others) I applied a cosmetic concealer called DermMatch to my head. I have a good amount of hair that is permanently gone, but this concealer works like a charm making it look like I have a bountiful, full head of hair. I’m still learning how to use it properly, and as my hair continues to grow (and hopefully doesn’t fall out again) I’ll do an even better job at applying it. I highly recommend it for anyone that has thinning hair. I went a little crazy with the stuff though, and put so much on in certain areas that my head looked like I had just come out of coal mine. If I touched it, the dark pigment would rub off on my hands. Right now I need a lot of this stuff to make my hair look decent, and hopefully as it grows in, I’ll require less of it.

My transition back to raw foods will also be coming soon. We figured out a way for me to have tree nuts in the house. In another blog entry, I mentioned that it would be difficult for me to go back to raw foods because of Simmi’s food allergies, but we have found a way around that. On the side of my house, we have a sun room which we will be converting into a raw kitchen. I will be able to prepare raw meals without the possibility of cross contamination or potentially exposing her to tree nuts or seeds she may be allergic to. We don’t bring any type of nut product into the house, so a separate raw kitchen becomes the best way to ensure that we don’t have any problems.

I’m hoping to be back on track and NOT neglecting my blog very soon. I have a lot of catching up to do and so much to say that sometimes my mind just goes blank.

Bald Beauty of the Day