Goals - A Recap

I'm surprised to see that Winter is here already, and think that it is close enough to the end of the year to revisit my goals for 2008 and see how we did.

2008 Goals

Career

* Support E in finding a job he loves where we can spend more time together during the week (he should be working at new job by December 31, 2008)
Well, Erik is now on job #3 for the year, and back where he was at at this time last year. We definitly spent a lot of week day time together, between 6 months of working at the same office and 3 months of unemployment!

* Reach or exceed all of my sales goals at FWI
I was on target to meet this goal when I quit FWI in August, so I'm going to say that I didn't fail OR succeed at this goal.

* Mentor a new salesperson who will love working at FWI and have that person be in outside sales by year end
DONE! Good job Leanna.

Finances


* Combined household income of $200K or more
No.

* Add at least $30K to Savings/Investments
Close, but then we went and took a bunch of money OUT of savings so this is also a no.

* Pay down student loans at a rate of $1000/month
No. Was doing good at this goal till the job changes.

* Pay additional $500/month toward mortgage
Yes! Despite 3 months of unemployment.

Household

* Spend at least 15 minutes 5 days per week on housework
Ha ha ha ha ha.... I guess if I count cleaning clutter off of the countertops, that I probably met this goal. But I don't think that is exactly what I had in mind...

* Paint all living areas of the house to fit my dream house
Not yet :(

* Complete phase 1 of landscaping for under $5,000 (lawn, patio, some trees & shrubs)
Done.


Social

* Host 3 parties at our house
(1) - Housewarming
(2) - Jami's bridal shower
(3) - My birthday
Done.

* Engage with at least 2 recreational activities where we can make new friends as a couple
(1) - Guadalajara
(2) - nope, there is no #2

* Add at least 3 new friends to my social network
(1) - Dana
(2) - David
(3) - Dan
(4) - Heather
Done!

Recreation & Travel

* Travel to see our families in California, Washington, and Maryland
California - yes, once in January on business and then again next week
Washington - yes, in July
Maryland - yes, but just Gwen on business

* 1 Vacation to someplace with a beach
Yes! Several days in Puerto Vallarta while in Mexico plus time spent at Ron & Michael's in July.

* Try at least 3 new activities
(1) - Speaking Spanish 24/7 for 4 weeks
(2) - Being pregnant
(3) - Job hunting! Ha ha ha.

* Go on at least 2 backpacking trips
No, but we did have one day in Guadalajara where we walked all the way home from el centro, which took about 6 hours, so I am going to count that as 1 urban backpacking trip.

Something Exciting Happened on The Bus Today

After almost a month of suffering on the bus for 90 minutes per day, something interesting finally happened on the bus today.

On Friday's long ride home, I happened to look into the window of the next bus over and noticed a guitar player "entertaining" the passengers. I was jealous. And impressed--it requires serious balance to stand on these buses even when holding on to the bar. To ride with no hands, standing, and playing a guitar must take a lot of practice.




For once, I was thankful for Erik's iPhone and all of it's stupid applications. Above is the (choppy) video Erik took. The other passengers don't seem to have enjoyed the entertainment as much as I did.

I was heartbroken when I realized the only money I had on me was $200 pesos (way too much to tip a random guitaristo)...and even more sad to see that nobody else tipped him either. It made my day!

20 Sights You See In Guadalajara

1. Shoe Stores. Lots of them. Today I counted 10 on one block.
   
2. Buses (Camiones). But don't expect to find a route map or a schedule anywhere. The locals seem to have the routes memorized.
3. Fruit Stands. These come in two forms -- larger tiendas (corner stores) that prop open their garage like doors every day and sell all the fruits and veggies you'd buy in the grocery store and then some, or small corner stands that slice up melons and sell them in a plastic cup.
4. Litter. Seems there has never been a "Keep Mexico Beautiful" campaign. And good luck finding a trash can.
5. Concrete. Houses, buildings, streets, sidewalks...everything is made of concrete. And along with this, you will find in the window of every hardware store wheel-barrow's and bags of concrete mix.
6. Churches. One cab driver told me there are 450 churches in Guadalajara...Catholic of course. Most of them have bells that they ring on the hour, half hour, sometimes on the quarter hour, and occasionally at other times that don't seem to have much logic (maybe it is a call to mass?). Most churches have either a fountain or a "kioska" (a gazebo) in their courtyard.
7. Kids in Uniform. Seems most of the kids go to private school, especially the younger ones. The little kids wear green pants with green sweaters, the teenage girls wear the good old schoolgirl plaid skirts with white polo shirts. To dress it up, they wear funky socks.
8. People in Pickups. I'm pretty sure it is illegal in most places in the states to ride in the back of a pickup truck (no seat belts), but here it is common place. I've seen cops riding in the back of trucks, little kids standing in traffic, and tired workers taking naps in the back of trucks without back ends to keep them in.
   
9. Homeless People with Deformed Feet & Legs. Seems the Rotary Club might have missed Guadalajara. To their credit though, the homeless people are pretty few and far between (considering the population is 4 million)
   
10. Opticos. Almost every block in the city has an optical store. They've also all got a "mini-super" (a tiny convenience store), a shoe store, a paper store (because gift wrap gets its own store here) and a costume shop.
    
11. Dulces (sweets). Three forms: candy, ice cream, and "pan de dulces" (bakeries). As a result, you will also notice that most women over 30 pack on a few extra pounds.
12. Homes. Tons and tons of them. The city seems to have a never ending sprawl of residential areas. The houses are all skinny and built adjacent to each other, like row homes. Interestingly, this seems to be true of all income classes--we went on a drive around what I would call a "richie neighborhood" and those houses were adjoined as well--just bigger.
    
13. Old Colonial Buildings. The heart of the city is 450 years old and the architecture reflects it. My favorite part are the pigeons that congregate in the plazas.
14. People Selling Random Stuff. Toys, keychains, fresh potato chips (which of course you douse in hot sauce and lime), fruit, bubble wands, sticks of gum, magazines, newspapers, popsicles, window washings, you name it...
15. Tile. Many of the sidewalks are paved in tile. On top of concrete, of course.
16. Roundabouts. An attempt to manage the insane traffic. Most of them have very lovely fountains in the middle.
17. Tacos & Abogados. There are taco stands everywhere. Some are permanent restaurants, others are mobile street stands. Most of the restaurants also sell abogados (I'm probably spelling that wrong), which are something like a philly cheese steak--shredded meat, beens, and hot sauce on a hoagie bun. I'm not a big fan of the abogados but Erik likes them.
    
18. Jesus. Of course this is pronounced "Hey-soos". He's everywhere. Every bus has at least one, and there are numerous billboards around town.
19. Farmacias. My favorite is the one with the "Doctor Similar" mascot. No difficulty finding a place to fill your Rx here.
    
20. Delivery Drivers on Mopeds. No matter what the weather, if you order your food to go, it comes via moped. And you should see the "all weather" getup that the driver wears. With the almost daily rain shower, this is much needed.
    

Guadalajara - Week 2

From Guadalajara

So I've been in Mexico now for two weeks...all the time drafting a blog post in my head. Thank you Becky for reminding me to actually write it!

Erik and I are living with a local family in the suburbs of Guadalajara. The husband, Rafael works for FedEx and his wife, Olivia, takes care of the house and family. It is a full house, with one other exchange student, a college age daughter, Olifer, who is in law school, and a kid named Jaime who lives upstairs--I think he rents a room. And as is typical of a Mexican family, there are a lot of other friends and family in and out.

Every day we take the bus into the city for school. The ride is about 45 minutes and sometimes it is standing room only the whole way. This is the worst part of the day and we do dread the bus. In an effort to make the bus time more productive and entertaining, I've loaded up my iPod with music from Itunes Latino. We dread the bus so much that one day last week we actually walked the whole way home--which took 5 hours.

We attend the IMAC school, which primarily exists to teach the locals English. Our observation is that all of the middle class in Guadalajara know at least some English, and most of the schools are bilingual. For 4 hours a day, we learn Spanish. I personally find this particularly challenging, because the lessons are 100% en espanol. Makes it very hard to comprehend every detail when the explanations are all in the language you don't yet know.

We've done a couple of weekend outings, which I will write about some other time. Overall, the experience has been great so far--so much so that we extended the trip by a week so that we can be here for the 16th of September, which is Independence Day. Unfortunately, I forgot the USB cord for my camera, but I will get Erik to load some pictures from his iPhone and supplement them later.

Guadalajara, here I come...

It's been an eventful week in my house. To make a long story short, working with the husband didn't work out, and this week we both found ourselves without jobs.

This created a unique situation. No bosses, no jobs, no kids, hardly any bills...when will we be in this position again? Retirement? 25 (optimistic) years from now???

So we are going on an adventure. I've always wanted to do a language immersion program but it's just never been right. I've been married, had a job, had bills to pay...how was I supposed to take more than a week's vacation?

A week from tomorrow, we leave for Guadalajara. We fly into Puerto Vallarta (tickets bought with miles--thank you FWI), transfer inland by bus, and stay for 4 weeks with a host family. The host family feeds us 3 meals a day while we participate in daily Spanish lessons at the local school, see the sites, and practice our Spanish in the authentic Mexican city.

How will I live without Facebook and 24/7 email?! Well, I'm sure I can find a cyber-cafe for my daily fix (and blog updates). What about TV? I-tunes? If I'm going to eat Mexican food 3 times a day for 28 days...I might have to get over my hatred of corn tortillas and refried pintos. Or maybe I'll get lucky and my host family will be just like Chipotle.

It is my dream adventure, I can't wait!