The Future Holds Dust and Sand

After two years of talking about it, we are actually going to remodel our bathrooms. We have made everyone we know sick with our bathroom planning conversations and honestly I, myself, cannot hear about it anymore.
I think I am dreaming when I go into the kids' bathroom and see that it has been demolished. At this point, the actual rennovation has to happen, right?
We have been waiting for sooooooooo long, that all the construction nightmares that people talk about, I will welcome with open arms.
I am so excited!!!!!
I am getting a new closet out of the deal, the kids are getting a nice, spacious jetted spa and a slightly bigger bathroom. My environmentally conscious better half insisted on "dual flush toilets" (you press one button for #1 and the water consumption is just 0.9 gpf, you press the bigger button for #2 and it delivers a 1.6 gpf) (gpf=gallons per flush). When he was trying to "sell" this toilet to me, I looked at him with great big eyes (well, at least as much as I can open them, which granted, is not much at all) and a light bulb went on in my mind. "Ohhh, so that's why in your parents' home there are 2 buttons to flush" I never knew. No one ever explained this system to me. I always pressed one, I don't know which one." I feel so stupid! For 15 years I have visited bathrooms in Europe and I never had a clue about the two flushers. Wow, I feel enlightened!
Anyway, I went off subject.... back to our beautiful soon to be remodeled bathrooms...
Right now, Patrick and I share a sink and I cannot wait to be able to brush my teeth without waiting in line or blow dry my hair without sharing the space with a man shaving. Did I mention the walk-in shower with a glass block wall; the "car wash" style shower panel with 6 body jets and the heated tile floor? Yep, we are getting those too. In my mind both bathrooms are just gorgeous. I truly do hope the reality will be the same.
After all this wonderful mess, the nicest part of our home will, by far, be the bathrooms so don't be surprised if we invite you for tea and cake in the bathtub.
So, that is the dusty part of the news. For the sandy part, we are just so happy to announce that we are going to Guatemala for Easter (a whole two wonderful, fantastic weeks). One of those weeks we will spend in my sister's beach house. I cannot wait! There is too many exciting things happenning! Life is good!

My Perfect Heaven

I am currently reading a book recommended by my boss. It is called "The Lovely Bones" (the name of the author escapes me). It is about a 15 year old girl who is savagedly killed. The story is not so much about her, but rather about her family, their grief and how they find love and a new "normal" in their lives. I am not even half way through it, so I cannot review it yet.
There is one concept in the book that caught my attention and that seemed fun to explore...
This girl goes to heaven, but in this book, heaven is not one place. Each inidvidual person has a different heaven filled with anything and everything they liked while alive.
I starting thinking about how my heaven would be...

The first real problem I see is that the people you love are not with you anymore, but if I think about it, it is my heaven so I say everyone I have ever liked, would be there. It is my rules anyway...
My heaven would be a beautiful city with nice huge parks. The weather would be mild and all days would be sunny. The sky would not be totally blue, you would see those big puffy fat clouds. You could see a volcano or two far away in the background (close enough to admire, but far away enough not to have to go climb it).
There would be people around, but it would not be overly crowded. I would work in my heaven. Doing nothing does not seem appealing to me. I obviously would not over do it. I would take long leisurely lunches and many, many long weekends.
My children would be the happiest, most well rounded kids ever. Their Spanish would be flawless and I would always approve of their friends and all of their friend's parents would be our good close friends as well. We would all get together on weekends to have parties with dancing, drinking and great food.
My friends and family would not always agree with everything I say, but we would all appreciate the others' point of view and we would constantly learn from one another.
All days would be good hair days. No one would ever be overweight and I would not need a "boob-job" simply because, well, you know... they would be naturally perfect.
The term "house work" would not exist. As soon as you would take your clothes off, they would magically be nicely washed and ironed back in your closet. In my heaven, Patrick would do all the cooking because he likes it and he would also have lots of time. Right after dinner, all the cleanup would instantly be done, so we could have more quality time together.
I love watching my tv shows so they would be around, but commercials would not exist.
Planes would not be necessary because we would all use tele-trasportation to move around.
I am sure I am missing a lot of stuff... oh well, I have to now work hard in making sure that many, many, many years from now I will get my chance to be in my heaven. What would your heaven be like?

What I want my Kids to Remember about their Childhood

After reading the title of this blog, you might think that I am about to get very profound and that what I wish for my children is for them to remember a home filled with love. You might think that I want them to remember that they always felt safe and that we encouraged them to go after their dreams. You would guess that I want them to remember that they could not get away with stuff. That their parents were strict, but at the same time they were tremendously spoiled from time to time. It would be great if the moral lessons of working hard, being fair, polite and to have good manners will stay with them forever.
Yeah, yeah... I of course want them to remember all that good stuff, but that is not what I am talking about.

I come from a big family and when I think about my childhood the thing I remember most of all is simply the chaos of so many people. I remember going on vacation with my immediate family (the 21 of us). Always sitting in extremely long tables at restaurants and loving being part of all the mess. I remember always looking up and wanting to be like my sister Yolanda. (that has not changed, even though nowadays I look down on her, simply because she is shorter than me ;).
I do hope Diego and Isabel remember how great it is to be part of such a big, fun, complicated family when we go visit, but I want my legacy to be more direct and immediate.

I picture Diego, for example, talking to his kids many years from now and saying " the thing I remember most about my childhood is that we were always dancing. My mom was always trying to teach us new latin steps and even though the whole thing was very silly, we had a lot of fun".

I make a very conscious effort of constantly having music around. Sometimes it is salsa/ merengue stuff, very often it is simply whatever is popular in latin pop. Currently we are well versed in High School Musical , Hanna Montana and The Jonas Brothers. As long as we are singing and/or dancing in the car and around the house. Poor Patrick tries to play jazz and classical music but it never lasts for too long because I am always changing it back to what the kids or I want.
So that is it. I hope my children remember a house filled with DANCING!

How to Age 10 Years in Two Minutes...

I was minding my own business yesterday morning. The most immediate worry I had was that I had forgotten (again) to bring my lunch to work and I was pondering whether I was going to buy some fast food, wait and eat after work or go buy a wonderful (NOT) frozen meal.

Suddenly, the cell phone rang... It was my good friend Gyongyver (aka Pearl, Gaby).
..."Paola, have you heard what happened"
(here I thought, oh goodie! She will tell me some good gossip... boy, was I ever wrong).
She explained to me that a friend of hers had called her asking for my number because she wanted to talk to me. Apparently her son had kicked Isabel on the mouth and broke a tooth.
"What?!?!?!?!?!?!" " I have not heard anything. The school has not called me! What happened? How did it happen? Was it an accident? Where were they? Where is she? Does Patrick know?
I promised her to call her right after I called the school and find out what the hell was going on?

While I was dialing the school's number (good thing I know it by heart) I could imagine my beautiful girl all bloody and I could picture the tooth on the floor. I felt really mad at the school for not calling me immediately. How can it be that I find out from someone else?! I felt guilty for being at work and not protecting her. That is it! From now on both my children will be home schooled (ja, ja, that last one I just made up for dramatic purposes... that thought never entered my mind).

I guess I wasn't making much sense on the phone because whoever answered the phone was absolutely not understanding me. I regained my cool, took a deep breath and started again.
Oh dear Lord, what a relief when she explained to me that in fact, all the story had happened... two days ago and the little girl was Isabella in Kindergarten. Not my daughter!!! Not Isabel in Jr.K

When I went to pick Isabel up, I checked her smile anyway, just to make quadruple sure. I actually saw poor Isabella as well and it was 2 teeth that were knocked off.
Yep, if you notice yet another gray hair... you know why.

Republican No More (Part 2)

Let us get right to the point... I could not disapprove more with George W. Bush!
He has made such a mess of things in so many levels.
It makes me really angry to hear the rest of the world trash the US because of the idiotic (just my humble opinion) foreign policy of one administration. This country has been very good to me and after 10 years, I guess I have earned the right to feel protective of it.

I was so relieved when I found out that I was not alone. I actually found a website called republicansagainstbush.com Pretty cool, I thought... But wait! Something weird started to happen. My strong dislike of the Republican president made me actually open my eyes and realize that everything is not either black or white. I actually started noticing that I did not agree with everything and anything Republican.
"What... It cannot be" "I must be wrong because surely they are not. Are they?"
Even worse... I started agreeing with a couple of points some Democrats were making. "Dear Lord, I have been living in the Bay Area for too long. Next thing I know, I will be in favor of gay civil unions. Hey, but I am in favor of gay civil unions!?!?"

Instead of running to the nearest Republican shirnk, I decided to accept the possibility of the world having shades of grey. I find myself now in a very intereting position. All politicians on both sides of the aisle will campaign to earn my support. Hey, I guess I am pretty special. I still agree on a lot of the conservative views (specially regarding economic policies and against unions). I favor the solution Democrats present on Immigration and about universal healthcare FOR CHILDREN. I am in favor of gun control and pro-life. I would love to see the Libertarian eduaction program in place where parents have absolute freedom about where they children will go to school. I could go on and on...

It has taken me a lot of time to be able to say out loud that I no longer consider myself Republican. I am a die-hard Independent. Ahh... that felt good!

We are thrilled about Patrick's promotion, aren't we?

Patrick started his profesional life in 1995 just after finishing university (God, we are old). He has worked as a software engineer all his life. Like most of our friends, he is very dedicated and works hard. He has had ups and downs along the way, but I truly believe that things happen for a reason. Take Logitech, for example. I thought Patrick would stay there for a long time, but things worked out differently. (I dislike them terribly, but please keep buying Logitech mice and keybords, etc. We still owe some of their stock and some of our dearest friends are still working there).
Anyway, Patrick is now in a small company turned huge company (they were bought last Summer) and he was getting a little anxious about his prospects with them. he started looking around and testing the waters for a better oportunity... and he got it!
He was just promoted to a position that still has no title and we have no clue of the salary increase (if any), but we are very excited still.
Patrick is now very aware of the meaning of "be careful what you wish for". He always wanted to have more responsibility. He always wanted to be a manager and be able to mentor young engineers. He always wanted to be more involved in the development of new products. Well, he is getting his dream and feels completely SCARED!
I think is cute and funny. As my father said, he would think less of Patrick if he did not feel a little scared about the new challenge ahead. I told him that he feels like the pre-schooler that is scared about starting Kindergarten. He doesn't want to leave his old friends, and he is not sure if he is going to like his new teacher.
All I want to do is kiss his rapidly expanding forehead and say "my darling Patrick, everything is going to be just fine and you will be great. I promise".
How do I feel about Patrick's promotion? I thought you would never ask...
Part of me is very happy and proud. the idea of more money is promising....but... I cannot help but feel somewhat worried about the balance in his life. I already promised him that I will be very supportive and understanding until he gets the ball rolling. I am sure there will be long nights, trips, weekends working, etc. That is all o.k. for the first six months and here and there after that. I just pray to God that his new job won't consume him in a way that he will have no time left for his two wonderful children and his amazing, sexy wife.

Am I a Republican? Not anymore (I think)

People who have known me for a long time know that I have always been a little obsessed with US politics. It all started when I was a little girl. The political atmosphere in all of Central America was very unstable. The sandinistas where already inside Nicaragua. I knew that my parents were worried about Guatemala's future. Carter was the US president and it was an election year. It's funny... I was only 8 years old and I remember it all so clearly. It seems like everybody was talking about the upcoming US elections. My father explained to me that to Americans, who would win (Carter re-elected or Reagan), did not matter nearly as much as it did to us. Carter was not doing anything about the turmoil in our region and my father kept insisting that it was in the best interest of Americans not to let the Central American countries fall to regimes like Cuba's. The Republican candidate Gov. from California- Ronald Reagan got that, and promised to help out if he became the next president.
He won and when the results came in, I remember understanding how big it was becasue you could here fireworks all throughout Guatemala City (or maybe throughout my neighborhood). The ones that normally we hear at midnight on Christmas Eve.
That was the night I became a Republican!
Four years later I was staying with a family in Salt Lake City studying English and I was very happily surprised when I found out that my "dad" was the biggest Republican political junkie ever. They had fundraising dinner parties and I helped bake US shaped cookies. We placed a jelly bean around Washington DC and another one around Utah. The night before the election I volunteered to go house to house to leave door hangers encouraging people to go out and vote. When we celebrated the re-election of Ronald Reagan the following night, I felt as if I truly was part of that victory. What can I say, Iwas hooked for life. From then on, I would take a very profound interest in US politics.

The next 15 years passed and I was one of the proudest Republicans (mind you I was not an US citizen, did not leave in the US and was underage) alive. The university I got my B.A. from has very strong conservative economical views and a political philosophy leanning heavely towards the right. Needless to say, that school fitted me like a glove.

Those were simpler times. I was so sure of who I was (politically speaking) and what I believed in. So what happenned? Many things all at the same time... keep reading.

I was obviously very happy when the first Bush became president. Simply put, a Republican in office could do no wrong. I was disappointed when Clinton became president. To this day, I find some of the things he did reprehensible. Take the "morning after pill" for example. Making it so readily available seems absolutely irresponsible. I don't want to get into the abortion debate...

Anyway... when it was time for a new president I supported George W. Bush and I can honestly say that I am so relieved that I was not allowed to vote becasue I would have voted for him and would not be able to forgive myself for that mistake.
Ah... so this is where things start changing and my world started turning upside down. Yep, I guess. Stay tuned...