Mom and Alison visit Mexico

Yeah! Tomorrow is May 1st, a holiday here in Mexico, and I am so ready for a long weekend. 1. it's been a long week here and 2. I have visitors coming!

I will be hosting mi madre y mi hermana this weekend here and we have fun, activity filled weekend planned. I am only hoping that the weather is nice for their visit here...

Happy Cinco de Mayo to everyone if I don't talk to you before then!

Apartment saga continues

Well.... the apartment saga continues.... I was away for the weekend and expected to come home to a clean apartment with the things finished that I had asked to be finished. oh no. that would be too easy....

apartment is still dirty - I will have to take the cleaning lady by the hand I guess and show her step by step what I think needs to be cleaned. also now the wood floor in the apartment is starting to come up.

the towels were washed like I had asked for however the dryer is not working so I came home to a load of wet towels.... (dried off with damp towels this morning). The sheets were not washed like I had asked, but in light of the dryer not working I guess I am glad?

I have been sick for a week with a chest cold and it is making me very irritable. I just want things to be "done right" without me having to hound people to get things done, and that is just not the way it works here in Mexico. The end result of all this is that I am finding it very hard to hang onto my sense of flexibility and sense of humor about all this....

Valle de Bravo

I had one of my favorite weekends in Mexico this weekend. I was invited to Valle de Bravo with a friend from work and his family. It was a beautiful weekend and great company, so all in all a fabulous time.... the pictures that follow are from the group of us sitting in front of the lake at a little outdoor cafe. We were waiting on our assigned time for our boat ride around the lake.

Mi primero temblor (my first earthquake)

I experienced my first earthquake yesterday in Mexico! I was in Valle de Bravo over the weekend and the earthquake came while we were at dinner last night. It lasted about half a minute and was pretty significant. I saw the lights swaying, the trees moving, felt the ground moving even though I was sitting down... I felt like it lasted a long time but later read on the internet that the duration was only 25 seconds. The epicenter was near the west coast and it measured about a 6 on the Richter scale... pretty crazy stuff. It made me have weird dreams last night

further thoughts on karma

Been thinking today about karma and why I posted that posting on karma last week.... Found an interesting quote on the internet today that relates to karma

How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours. Wayne Dyer

I agree with this comment. Which is why I don't wish ill on anyone who has done me wrong... I don't need to expend any additional time or energy on that. I really want to rise above it and move forward, and spend my time and energy looking forward and not back...

44 hours in Cancun

I took a quick flight over to Cancun this weekend with Yvonne and another lady she works with. We had a great time - nice weather, free drinks, a beautiful hotel, etc... Only spent 44 hours in Cancun but we packed a lot of fun into those 44 hours...

Pic of us on the balcony - look at that incredible view!

let there be light

I had electricity when I got to my apartment last night! Yeah! And there was great rejoicing!

I am SO GLAD it's Friday, it has been a really long stressful week. I am thinking about taking a short flight to the beach and just chilling out this weekend.... I don't care where I go, as long as it's sunny, warm and there are drinks available!

The saga continues....

Well.... my Mexico saga continues. I had a long day and got home around 9pm, just in time for my massage. After my massage I was feeling better and more relaxed of course but just not ready for bed so I decided to try out my washing machine with a load of towels. (interesting machine, it is a super efficient state of the art combo washer/dryer. lots of buttons/options, of course all settings are in Spanish so that took me a few minutes to fgure out).

anyway - my load of towels finished around 11pm, no problem. All was well up until that point - I was feeling very productive and homey - sitting in bed reading a book, drinking a glass of wine, and just chilling out for the first time this entire week. Enjoying that post massage feeling of relaxation. I should have known it wouldn't last!

I went to start the dryer portion and immediately my lights went out. Evidently the dryer starting blew out my breakers... so I go downstairs to the parking garage and wake up the onsite guy who lives down there. He comes up to my apt and tries to reset breakers, no luck. Goes outside to the main box and tries the same thing, no luck... by this time it is after midnight and it is obvious that it is not getting handled tonight. He goes back downstairs and brings me up a tiny little flashlight and promises that the electricity would be handled tomorrow...

so this morning I took a shower in the dark by the light of the flashlight, drove to work with wet hair, and said adios to all the groceries in my fridge that I had just bought Tuesday night....

we'll see if I am hanging out in the dark tonight or not.... I am not optomistic about things getting fixed today.

Long week here

Hello all
Having a long week here already - lots of stress with work stuff and out of work stuff both....

so - here are some helpful phrases in Spanish that folks here have told me. They basically mean the same thing - suck it up, keep going, and keep your chin up!

1. Asi trueno or relampango, seguiremos adelante. (in English - whether thunder or lightning, we go forward). basically means that even when things are tough, we keep moving forward

2. Al mal tiempo, buena cara. Literal translation is "at bad time, good face"

Hope you are all having a good week and got your taxes in on time yesterday....

I survived....

So far so good.... I had my first night of driving home from work last night. Of course it was in the dark and raining and mucho trafico.... I volunteered to drop someone from work off at the hotel (otherwise known as my home for the past 3 months) and that was a BIG MISTAKE. The road was under construction and it took me 1 hour to get to the hotel (normally at 20 minute drive). Major traffic, rain, road construction, nighttime - all in all, I think I had a good initiation into driving here!!!

This morning was my first drive into work from my apartment (which is still not clean/complete yet but that is another story). It was an okay drive, I made sure to leave early enough to avoid the major traffic times... but it will be a 40 minute drive in the mornings for sure.

So - thanks to all for the prayers - keep em coming b/c I will need them - it is CRAZY driving here...

My Mexico Adventure continues

I returned to Mexico on Sunday for the 2nd half of my tour of duty here. My flight arrived at Mexico City aiport at 8:30 pm (early!). However I arrived last night to my apt late - it was 11pm before I got there. The driver was late picking me up at airport and in fact did not ever show up. I ended up taking a taxi from the airport.

This was my first night in the apt - I showed up and found there was no toilet paper, paper towels, soap, etc... GREAT.... Also they provided dishes for the apt but they were not washed so I coudn't even drink anything from the tap water. I realized that I needed to load up on bottled water since this tap water is probably not as good as the water at the hotel tap...

I will need to go tonight and load up on food, supplies, etc for the apt. I start to drive today too so this is a big week for me.... cross your fingers for me this week!!!

My Mexico adventure continues.... Keep watching this site for updates!

Karma is a Bitch

You know, this weekend I heard some news that made me totally change my view of someone... very disappointing to be let down and to realize that they were not the person I thought they were...

All I have to say (well all I am going to say on this blog about this situation) about that is:
Heads up you POS - because karma is a bitch.... meaning what goes around, comes around....