November 13, 2019 · 6:08 am

Licensed to drive–again

Wednesday was the day we decided to try and renew all of the driver’s licenses, my moto, my husband’s moto, and his truck license. I also needed to make my 6-month lab appointment. Plus we still needed to get the moto title transferred to my name. Not everything got done on Wednesday, but we made a start.

We got up early and did our morning activities. My son was supposed to head early to the tortilleria because his aunt had a 9 am order of 20 kilos of tortillas to wrap. That didn’t happen. 

My husband lost the goats between the time he opened the gate and the time it took to tie Lady. They were completely gone–vanished. He ran back to the house and had my son put on his shoes to help him look. I went upstairs and peered into the distance from both the front and back porch. I didn’t see them either. 

More than an hour later, my son comes back with all of the goats. They had run up the hill, past my father-in-law’s place to stop under a mesquite tree and eat vinas (seed pods). They seemed to have been there the whole time.

I hollered for my husband from the back porch. He came a-runnin’. All the animals were returned to their stalls and we got ready to go. My son arrived late work, but he said it worked out fine since he managed to finish wrapping the tortilla order just as the customer pulled up. Whew!

My husband was a mess. He was covered in grass and twigs and other debris. Sweat plastered his shirt to his back. He didn’t want to take the time to change since he had to be at work soon. We decided to try and at least get the licenses done. Everything else would need to wait for another day.

It was just before 9 when we got to the office and there were only two people who arrived before us. We talked to the guy at the desk. He printed out the payment sheet and sent us to Farmacia Guadalajara to pay. Each of the moto licenses cost $456 pesos. The truck license was $852. So much for this week’s paycheck. However, they are good for five years, so there’s that.

We returned and turned in the receipts. We debated whether to wait or come back the next day. I was all for waiting because we had other things to do on Thursday. While we went back and forth about it, the clerk gave us an eye exam. No problems there for me with my new progressive lenses from EyeBuyDirect! 

So we waited. One of the guys who were there before us decided to come another day. Bully for us! Finally, it was my turn. I had to provide a cell phone number and an emergency contact number. I gave my sister-in-law T’s number. Then I needed to give my height and weight in meters and kilos. I didn’t know those, so the guy just took a guess. 

I signed the forms and had my picture taken in front of the official GTO background. My face came out really blotchy and red, but whatever. I’ve had worse pictures I suppose. 

My husband hadn’t combed the grass out of his hair, so his picture was even worse. His IFE picture makes him look like an escaped mass murderer, so I guess this one was better than that. Even so…

And that was that. My husband ended up being late for work, but this isn’t something we’ll have to do again for FIVE years. Yippee!!

The next step to getting me back on the road again is to get the moto title transferred to my name and license plates. But that will have to wait until I save some more money up.

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November 11, 2019 · 6:46 am

Failing at Your Own Business–Online Summit Presenter

I know you are probably thinking “Give it a rest already” the Work Freedom summit is OVER. But, to be true to form, I must write and share my latest epic income-generating disaster. 

If you’ll remember, I participated in the Work Freedom Summit a few weeks back. I spoke about publishing eBooks, something I know a bit about. Of course, I could have also presented information on freelance content writing, teaching ESL online, affiliate marketing, creating online courses, blogging, overcoming insurmountable obstacles, and finding your passion. However, when the hosts got around to my application, apparently everything had been taken but the eBooks topic, so it was a take it or leave it situation.

So let’s talk about the interview first. I thought it went ok, until I went to share my slides. Just before the call, I had been practicing and forgotten to reset the slides, so I began with the end in mind or something. Being flustered, it took me a few minutes to even figure out why the slide I was looking at wasn’t the title slide. To make matters worse, instead of typing 1 and hitting enter to return to the title slide, I SCROLLED through them backwards looking in panic for the title slide. 

Then there was that oversight on my part about the link to the handy worksheet I had prepared. I was supposed to send the host a copy of that document erroneously believing that it would be included in the bonus section or at the very least, a pdf link after my bio. Nope. It appeared absolutely NOWHERE because I FORGOT to send it!

So today, feel free to download this document about the steps on How to Turn Your Blog into a Book (which is an upcoming eBook).

Another issue that I’m sure was all in my head was that I sort of felt like the kid sister in this whole experience. You know, the one mom said you HAD to let tag along but you really didn’t want to because somehow I was left off the initial contact list and missed the first few communicants from the presenters. Then I was supposed to get an email to check my profile page but didn’t so had to ask the host about it. But it all worked out.

I was able to attend a few of the sessions during the summit and listed those in a previous post. I just wanted to make a commentary on the communication styles of the presenters here.

With one notable exception, the women presenters participated in a dialogue with the host and the men expounded their thoughts at the host. I know that’s not really a new observation on the differences between male and female communication styles, but seeing it in these back to back sessions really brought it home to me. The communication styles also influenced how I, as a female observer, absorbed the information presented. I was more interested in, hence felt like I learned more from, the dialogue rather than the pontificating, naturally. 

I also noticed that not one of the presenters in the sessions I attended used slides! WHAT? I thought that conducting my session as a class would be the most natural way to provide the information to viewers and as a consequence, spent some time on slide creation. ALL of the presenters were just talking heads, no additional graphics, nothing in the background to spark creative interaction, NOTHING! They might as well have been podcasts (which I also recently did for that first time and you can find that here.)

Now for the nitty gritty. It would have been nice to have received some monetary compensation for my time and effort in promoting, but as no one signed up for the paid version of the Work Freedom Summit via my affiliate link, I earned a big fat goose egg. I’m not as disappointed as you might think, since I went into this as a learning experience rather than expecting to make the big bucks, but still….

Those are the negatives. There were some positives about this experience, however.

First, I learned that I could do this! Remember how I mentioned in a previous post that participating in a video summit was something way beyond my comfort zone? Well, it was, but I did it anyway. And it wasn’t so bad. Neither was sharing a graphic with MY picture on it all over social media. I mean, it wasn’t my favorite thing in the world to do, but I did it!

I also picked up a few useful tidbits from the presentations that I am planning on implementing beginning in the new year. So my time spent in viewing wasn’t wasted at all. (And neither will yours be if you choose to get the lifetime access pass now available. Wink Wink, Nudge nudge) 

Lastly, the summit deadline made me get on the stick and finish the publishing course I’ve been working on. It’s live. You can see it here: Book It: Everything You Need to Know to Publish Your Book on Amazon.

I’m looking for Beta Testers for the course before I make a big deal over it. If you, or anyone you know is brave enough to self-publish or has already self-published, I’d love for you to give me feedback on the material I’ve provided in this course. Please contact me with the form below.

All in all, my first summit presenter experience was a mixed bag of tricks. But I can say, I’ve been there, done that, and it’s time to move on to another venture. 

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November 8, 2019 · 6:11 am

Sometimes I feel like a motherless colt—

In order to bring the vehicles and licenses up to speed, we needed more cash. So one of the horses had to go. It was a toss-up between Lady and Cookie but my husband was leaning more towards Cookie because Red and Lady are best buddies. 

The chicken feather guy made an offer for Cookie. As soon as I heard that, I vetoed the idea. Absolutely not. I’ve seen how malnourished his animals were. My husband said that no matter whom we sold Cookie to, she might be mistreated. I pointed out that with the chicken feather guy is was 100% sure. So no deal. 

I think the chicken feather guy wanted Cookie because there is a distinct possibility she is pregnant with his stallion’s colt. Odds are Lady is also pregnant, which means if we didn’t sell one or both of the mares, we’d have 5 horses next summer. We don’t have space for the animals we have now, let alone FIVE horses. 

Then an interested party in the next village over offered 5 goats in exchange for Cookie. I again vetoed that deal. We don’t have room for the 10 goats we have now, much less 5 more. And we need cash for the vehicle permits. Did my husband think we could just take a goat down to the office and settle up? No, not happening.

Finally, one of La Yacata guys offered $300 USD for Cookie. We knew the guy, we knew where Cookie would be stabled, and we knew she’d be fine. Since my husband paid $10,000 pesos for a pregnant Cookie earlier in the year, it was a substantial loss. Of course, we kept Red who in a year or so will be valued quite a bit, so it might work out in the end. Maybe. 

I also vetoed the payment being in U.S. dollars since then we’d have to run around and try to get the best exchange rate, wasting valuable time. So, the guy went and had his money exchanged himself. At 18 pesos per dollar, my husband received $5,400 pesos. A fabulous deal on a perfectly good mare for the other guy. Not so much for us. 

The money was surely burning a hole in my husband’s pocket because he went immediately to the Honda distributor to order some parts for his motorcycle. They ought to be here next week. 

We also went to ask about the cost of all the paperwork we need to do for my new Kymco, his Honda and Butch the truck. It’s going to cost a pretty penny. But first, I need to renew my license to have the Kymco put in my name. 

So back to Red. The first night he was extremely upset. He couldn’t be put in with Lady because he’d try to nurse and she wasn’t having any of that. So being all alone in his stall upset him. When we opened the door the next morning, he ran over to Lady’s stall. She reassured him with nose kisses and gentle mane grooming. He calmed right down.

But when the herd went out for the morning foraging, he became agitated again and ran around for a while. He eventually gave up the search for his mother and settled by Lady to graze.

The second night was easier. Papa Chivo went out several times in the night to make sure he had enough feed, which kept his agitation to a minimal. 

That afternoon, however, there was the rooster incident. When my son went out to check the water supply for the animals, the rooster, FuzzyFoot was lying on the ground in Red’s stall dying. He had me come out and as we watched FuzzyFoot died. 

Certain that my husband would blame the dogs, we tried to figure out what had happened. It’s possible Red kicked the rooster or maybe laid down on him by accident. We were sure that it hadn’t been any of the dogs since there were no bite marks, scattered feathers or blood.

When my husband got home just a few minutes later, we gave him the news. He thinks the rooster may have eaten a scorpion and thankfully agreed it wasn’t the dogs. Of course, now we need a new rooster to greet the morn’ and encourage the egg-laying.

Our dogs really disliked FuzzyFoot. When he would crow, all three dogs would set about howling in perfect harmony or at least what they believed to be harmony. So now that he’s gone, the mornings are quite peaceful.

Red carried on for another two nights, but then seemed resigned to his fate. As long as he can check in with Lady and has a full barrica (barrel) of feed, he’s ok. We’ll just have to wait and see if Lady presents with a foal next year, which will again put a strain on our animal living quarters. By then, Red will be a young stallion. 

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Would you like more fun animal stories?

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