A day in the life of...

We wake up to my iPod's* choice at 4:55 and remain in bed for those glorious 5-10 minutes. (I have given up trying to meditate then, because all that would happen is that I fell asleep again!). Fernando brings my best-part-of the-day to me: my cup of Joe with hints of milk, no sugar and proceeds to wake up the kids. After they've jumped into the shower I trail downstairs and start preparing breakfast.

Then it all happens suddenly: Fernando and the kids appear, plates are served, lunch or fruit packed, kisses given and by 6:10 I find myself waiting for the school bus- we now go to the corner to make it easier for all-and I'm alone.

I've made it a habit to rake the fallen flowers on the front yard, it takes me 5-10 minutes, and after that I take a walk through the neighborhood, spotting different birds and looking out for the tiny monkeys I've seen before (so cute!). I haven't walked more than 30 minutes, but it's a good start.

When I return, I take a shower and turn on my computer to check my emails and the news. (I sneak in a game or two of sudoku, but shhh, don't tell anyone).

These days I'm still working on cleaning out boxes, papers, etc. and trying to figure out where things will go, this, believe it or not, has taken a BIG chunk of time and I don't even feel I've made progress.

This was also the time to do housework, but last week I have a new helper, Luzia, who takes care of basically everything: the house, the clothes and cooking. She had been working with the landlord and his family for over 13 years and is already a great-grandmother because she had her first baby when she was 15, and her daughters followed suit!!! She loves talking and shares stories about her family (and sometimes the neighbors) with me. She knows plants well, bugs and different fruits that I'm not used to and will cook them for me. Luzia saw a slow cooker for the first time and she didn't believe it would cook the beans, but loved the flavor and the idea of it!

It seems every week I have to go and pay something: the rent, eletricity, kid's bus service, kid's school, etc. So a walk to the bank, to the cleaners and why not, to get a coffee take up half a day. People are very friendly, so the bookstore owner will wave every time he sees me, as will the dry cleaning lady, or the newspaper girl. If I so wished, I could easily stop and have a chat with them, they are eager to know about Mexico and about my first impressions of Brazil.

Another day will be spent going to the grocery store, especially if I'm going to that store for the first time! I scrutinize the shelves and the products and ask anybody around me if I don't know what it is or how to use/cook it. The local products are actually cheap (compared to US or Mexico), but anything that is imported will have a higher price tag, usually double the price in the US.

Mexican food is not known here, but I managed to find a package of flour tortillas with instructions printed on the package on how to use them, fold them, etc. They are made by a huge Mexican bread company (Bimbo), so you can say they're the "real McCoy"! American products are also limited, for example there is only one [local] barbeque sauce, two or three salad dressings (people here either make their own or use vinegar and oil), etc. Forget about hamburguer/tuna helpers or casseroles or things like that. I miss Kroger. And Target. And Marshalls, Macys, in fact shopping is nowhere else in the world like it is in the US and you get used to that pretty quickly., so I miss all of them in alphabetical order. Anne Taylor. Container Store, etc.

By 3:30 I better have most things done because the kids will be home in about an hour, and from that point on things go rather fast again! We talk, do homework, watch some tv or read, wait for Fernando, have dinner and go to bed!

*last week my iPod died. I over worked her for 4 years, loaded her up with thousands of pictures, songs and podcasts. Took her everywhere and got her new friends: the iHome wake-us-upper and some iHear speakers (I made that name up) in the kitchen... she could've even hook up with the new tv, but no, she decided my casual tossing her and dropping her were no good and she needed to go get a better life! Now we're using Fernando's.