2007 Is A Big Year For Us!

Regular readers may have noticed that the quality and the quantity of my posts here have dropped off in the last month or so. That is because I have had a lot on my mind!

Paul and I are coming out of the closet...with our plans to move to Mexico in the Fall of 2007! We are really excited and are pretty much 100% focused on our formulating our plans.

We've been keeping another blog to follow our decision-making and also the nuts and bolts of the move. So, rather than go into all the details here, check it out at Paul & Nancy's Countdown to Mexico.

We don't know where we're going to be moving yet - we have a post on Countdown about that, too - but we have narrowed it down to four places for now: Mazatlan, Queretaro, Zihuatenejo, and Merida. There are pros and cons to each of them but I really think we could be happy anywhere down there.

You might ask "why?" People I've told so far have had varying reactions. You might think that it's all because we are fed up with the US and that is part of it. We are tired of the consumer oriented culture here, and find that it is really hard to extract ourselves from it. We want a challenge, and a new culture and a new language will give us that. We love our family, and while some will be closer, it will will be more of a challenge to stay in touch with the rest. We hope to land in a place with easy air access from the US to make it easier to entice people down.

We both love gardening but are ready to leave our ten acres for something more modest. The idea of Zone 11 gardening is very exciting to me. Tropicals, yeah!

Paul already is pretty good at Spanish, and he has a wonderful accent. I have been working at it like crazy - probably spending a couple of hours a day at it. I have lots of CD's and MP3's and use them as I go around my daily life - walking the dogs, cleaning, vacuuming, driving, etc. I have several books and workbooks that I work on, too. We watch Spanish language TV and pretty much the only music I play anymore is in Spanish. I know I am improving but I can't even call myself intermediate yet. Ten years of French continues to trip me up. This morning my CD prompted me to say something "young lady" and I responded "mademoiselle." How frustrating is that???

Now that you know about our plans, I'll be writing more here. Suggestions and comments are very welcome.

Hasta Luego!