Jocie's Blog

After a three day weekend, where I mostly cleaned my house: fans, aircon, freezer, the lot, I am ready for a new week: one which I have already began.   The travel permission web site was up and running after not letting me connect on the weekend.     I had asked our admin officer to get it up for me, being new and all I wasn’t on the system.  But, I didn't really expect it to be hooked up so soon.. but,  there it was.   The Admin officer  had even put in my name and some of the basic information.   I filled in the rest of it… this time actually finding my ABN number because I knew what that was. As well as the vehicle Rego (which actually means the license plate number) so all good.   Paperwork is so much easier when you understand the language and know what needs to be done.   It was a 'go'. I was on the road in a troopy again:  Woohoo! But it was a bit of a slow start. I went into the office and admitted to the t...

Each decade, it seems, life throws new stuff at you.   You can take it as a challenge, an opportunity, or just as it comes.   But, you do have to take it.     That first decade of life is all about your family or the people around you.   They have total responsibility for you.. and ya, a lot of times it gets pretty messed up.   The second decade is all about breaking away and taking on responsibility for your own life.   At least that was how I looked at it.   Maybe it is different today.. although there are still a few ‘back in the day’ folks that for one reason or another are stuck in   their teens. But, for those that did move on, the 20’s were mostly about finding your way back to family anyway: discovering your place in the world.. getting an education, a job and someone to share a life with. Your thirties.. well, it’s all about the family again, only this time, you are sort of stuck .. the job, the mortgage.. life is b...

Winter in Canada Well.. I tell ya.. I don’t want to do this again.   Seriously Canadians are tough.   They have to be.. they are constantly being tested.  I have been out of the country for the better part of a decade.. I am not this tough anymore!  I don't think I am passing the test.  It is that no-man's time.. those days between Christmas and New Years.. those travel days.  I am sitting on the highway between Creston and Cranbrook..in a nowhere land.. pondering, yet again, what I am doing on a Canadian highway in winter!? Someone has not been so lucky as I.  They aren't in their warm car.. watching the stars come out, listening to old CD's.  There has been yet another highway fatality.  We are tough.. but not invincible.  Sometimes we forget that. It is the small stuff that make us strong.  Simple things.. like putting out the rubbish.  Most Canadians have to watch where we put out our garbage becaus...

Lucy and her little grandson  I am so lucky to see Mexico before it changes… everything changes so quickly.   Puerto Vallarta is full of Baby Boomers who would struggle to retire at home.   The cost of living is just too high.   But here, in Mexico, a condo with a view of the ocean is the norm.   And as people from Canada and The US move here in droves, the local economy improves and more condos go up and the infra structure improves.. and.. things change.   PV is no longer a ‘sleepy little fishing village’.. San Sabastian from the first sister's house on the hill The apartment where I am staying is a converted little shop.   The owners decided that instead of being tied to a shop all day, where very little money is made, they could get regular income from a couple of suites.   They are small.. but new… and new to the family as well.   They are excited about their new enterprise.   They have one foot in this new Vallart...