Five years later...

And I still miss him. My passport will expire in 2013. While paging through it last week, I noted I still list John as my emergency contact. I should probably change that in the next one. (I also use the Hampton and Guadalajara addresses, too. Also need to be changed.) But oh the trips with John between June of 2003 and April of 2007...St. Barts, the Cook Islands, Paris, Costa Rica. I still have my previous passports, too. China, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, London, Ireland, Paris, Rome, Frankfurt. Then there were those trips to Hawaii... Good times. Great memories.

It's a small world after all...

I don't know how many times over the past 20 years in Mexico I have thought, "If only Señor Snell could see me now." Well, now he has.

I hosted a dinner at the Central House on March 2 for Iowa Sister States/Partners of the Americas. (Iowa and Yucatan are sister states.) As I was greeting people, I noticed a group of four unknown gringos coming in the door, but it took me awhile to make my way over to them as I a little distracted as I made sure the waiters, musicians, etc. were doing what they were supposed to be doing. But my attention was instantly focused on one particular guest when he said as we were shaking hands, "Me llamo Rogelio Snell, Señorita Grimsley. No se si tu recuerdes de mi." (My name is Roger Snell, Miss Grimsley. I don't know if you remember me.) I actually thought I was going to faint. Remember him!?!?!?!? He said he thought he recognized me the minute he walked in the room and then he heard me laugh just before I came over to his group to introduce myself, and he knew for sure! He said he would know my laugh anywhere.

We talked as much as we could during the event, and then we met again on Sunday to have more time to talk. Good times.

My gym bag - more products than tools

I need more practice. What looks balanced on the polyvore site does not look balanced when posted.

What is in my tool kit?

This is it....all the tools that are in my make up kit today. And, yes, I do have Cinderella band-aids and, yes, I do consider Tylenol a tool.

What a start to 2012 Part II

Before the vans taking the faculty group to the Cancun airport even reached the corner, I was in my car and racing to the Hyatt Hotel to meet my all-time favorite uber-chica Montse, her husband Manuel, my next favorite chica Ceci and her wonderful husband, El Capi. (El Capi is the retired AeroMexico pilot who was the purveyor of several wonderful air tickets to Madrid and Paris when I was living in Guadalajara. You might have heard me talk about his retirement party for 1500 of his most intimate friends and family members.) Anyway, they made a surprise visit to Merida; their timing was perfect. I was ready for a break. And I got it.

We walked, talked, ate, laughed, caught up, laughed some more, ate a lot, and talked continuously for three days. Three days was not enough.

What a start to 2012!

The past two weeks passed in a blur. The faculty group arrived on January 4, and the action was non-stop until they left on January 10. Their development workshop was across-the-board successful based on both the formal evaluations and the personal emails received from many participants. While the Yucatan program was not necessarily the focus of the workshop, for the first time in a long, long time, I feel the program is secure. I feel faculty will be recommending more of their students travel here now that they understand the breadth and diversity of options available. I also feel I will have a visiting professor each semester instead of just an occasional visiting prof.

The purpose of the workshop was to help the faculty develop their own international/intercultural skills. It turned out that while many faculty are experienced international travelers and have lead programs, 7 of the 22 participants had never traveled outside of the United States. All had expressed an interest in leading short -term international programs which is the current trend in study abroad. We arranged for them to experience much of what the students experience when studying here. Some were great; others fell apart. Interestingly, several of the highly experienced travelers had the most problems adapting to the activities. Each portion of the program included intense discussions, required readings and journaling.

A new addiction!

This polyvore only took about 15 minutes to put together. I can't/won't tell you how long it took to create my first one.

My make up routine is a mixture of high end and low end. The high end includes a Chanel foundation for special occasions. The low end is my go-to mascara by Mabelline. My favorite and most used product is Laura Mercier's tinted moisturizer with sunscreen. My funniest product is, according to the manufacturer, an industrial-strength concealer for my eyebrows. I bought it in Paris after Patti and I had our eyebrows done at Sephora in 2009. I will need to replace it in about 10 years. I could not find it in the polyvore archives but will keep looking.

This is my entire make up routine: Foundation or tinted moisturizer, mascara, lipstick mostly alone but sometimes with lip liner, eye brow pencil, and a little eye liner in navy or grey.


Now to think of other polyvores!