Starting to think of home

Now that we have about a month left of our current stay here in Mexico City, my thoughts are turning to going home to Chicago.  I have started the airline tickets search as well as making a partial list of what will go back to Chicago with us and what will stay here for when we return next year.  I'm planning where I want to eat with my family when we get back, and I can't wait to visit Barnes and Noble and Joann Fabrics.  I want to have a backyard bbq with friends and family and I want to take long walka with the dogs through our neighborhood.  My limit for a stay here in Mexico seems to be five months.  Longer than that and I get too lonely for Chicago and especially for my family.  By the time we leave in September we will have been here for almost six months.

And our time here in Mexico City has been good.  We've traveled with friends to Patzcuaro, visited so many beautiful and fun neighborhoods in Mexico City, and we have visited with our family here.  We have had backyard bbqs with family and friends and have thoroughly enjoyed the garden that Arturo has worked so hard on, as well as the glorious view of the mountains from our bedroom balcony.  We have created a daily routine here that I will miss when we are back in Chicago.  Mexico has been good to us during these months. If my family lived here with us it would be close to perfect.  But they don't, and that is why my heart can never be completely content when we are in Mexico.

The last two weeks we have been so lucky to have our good friends from Chicago, Tom and Goya, here in Mexico.  They have been staying in the Condesa neighborhood in a super lovely condo.  We have spent good days and evenings with them going through Mexico City's neighborhoods and eating at fun places.  They leave tomorrow and we will miss them very much but it is easier because we will see them again in a month.  Next week I'll post a blog about one of the visits we made with Tom and Goya to see the great Mexican artists Rina Lazo and Arturo Garcia Bustos.  That was a super day!

In the meantime, here are a few photos but I have to say that I have not taken many pictures at all during the last two weeks.  Instead, I've been too busy talking with Goya.  I'm hoping Tom can send me some of the ones he has taken when they get back to Chicago!

Have a great weekend!