Holidays

One of the strange things about living outside our home country is that the holidays are different.  We struggle to realize that everything will be shut down for Garifuna Day, St. Georges Caye Day, Pan American Day & National Heroes and Benefactors Day (what an unfortunate name) to mention a few and have no one mention the 4th of July or Thanksgiving.  I'm sure it's the same for expats from every country.  I think it's getting much easier each year tho' as we can get turkeys and some of the traditional foods, even in the Chinese stores.  My favorite Taiwanese store, Huang's, will try to get specialty items we request.  This Thanksgiving, we were invited to share the day with several friends at Betty & Robin James's home.  Great food and wonderful conversations.  Heard lots about  Ecuador from friends who are visiting here for a bit.  There are so many beautiful and interesting places all over the world. 

Belizeans do very little that's visible to prepare for Christmas.  It's probably just not as commercial, but I have to admit that I miss the music and all the lights.  We left most of our Christmas decorations in the States and don't put up lights because of the solar system.  I always went overboard to decorate, but now just bring out a couple of small treasures and that's it.  Our weather here has been unbeatable lately, but I guess I'm a little crazy, as I miss the snow and the craziness and warmth of Christmas in Oregon. 

Wherever you might be, dear friends, I hope your holidays are special and safe.  Blessings,  Gale

Paintings

I've never been good at sharing my artwork.  I'm definitely not a salesperson (note the politically correct term!).  My Dad could sell anything to anyone, but I tend to babble and end up giving things away.  My artwork makes me even worse.  If I've created it, I apologize for everything and want to go hide.  My friends here are so good for me.  They push and push and don't let me get away with anything.  They helped me get enough nerve up to approach a gallery in San Pedro, on Ambergris Caye, and they now have several of my watercolors.  Now that I've made the plunge I hope a couple sell.  See how quickly I turn?  It's ok as long as I'm not the salesperson. 

Belize isn't a very artistic country and no one else is doing watercolors.  I'm enjoying them a lot, but see why they're not popular.  The humidity is a real problem.  In order to get a painting dry to keep colors from bleeding together, my hair dryer has become one of my favorite tools.  It works, but coming from a dry climate, I've had to change the way I work.  I also have to fight mildew.  The paint will mold and I've had paper mildew.  I work really hard covering my materials and when I complete a painting I dry it well with the hair dryer, mat it and immediately get it into a plastic envelope to hopefully keep out the humidity.  At least for now, it's working.  There's no where in the country, that I can find. that sells good painting supplies.  I order everything from the States.  This works great, but sometimes it's hard to wait for an order to go to Houston and then slowly travel to Belize.  Patience, patience, patience.

Anyway, if anyone is interested, I'm going to post some of my recent work. Some are in the Belizean Arts Gallery in San Pedro and some are here at home.  I love the faces of Belize, as you can tell, especially the children..

Blessings,   Gale

Catching up

It's hard to believe it's been over a month since I update the blog.  Things have settled down for us since we completed the projects we could handle, here at Dreamer Farm.  Of course, there's lots more we could do, but budget constraints dictate that we enjoy what we have.

Art's doing much better.  He rides his stationary bike every day.  He's much more disciplined than I'll ever be.  I've really enjoyed painting, but have trouble managing to find the time.  We did make a short trip to Springfield, which is a little Mennonite village down the Hummingbird Highway past Belmopan.  There's a wonderful fruit tree nursery there where we discovered raspberries, strawberries and mulberries.  How fun!  I have to buy bags of river soil to build a bed for the strawberries, but since I only bo't 6 plants it doesn't have to be very big.

I've been really excited about my little hibiscus plants.  They're still very small, but valiantly blooming.   This bottom one is the Sunset.  The blooms are almost as big as a dinner plate.  All these blooms only last one day, but are spectacular while they last.  My tiny little plant produced 4 blooms in a row.

We're also starting to see some of the migrating winter birds show up from north of here.    We've missed them.   I must try to be more diligent so the few of you who read this know we're still here and hanging in there.    Blessings,    Gale