I’m sure that most of you have seen the logo above before… at least the multi-colored “México” part.  It has been on advertisements encouraging people to explore the many beautiful and varied areas of México.  Our daughter even snapped a picture in the NYC subway of an advertisement for Mazatlán, below.

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The México Today project is a project of Marca País – Imagen de México, a joint public-private sector initiative to help promote Mexico. There is a website (which is still in beta) for the project at MexicoToday.org.  I’ve put a logo in the left menu bar that’ll take you to the México Today website as well.

I am very excited to have been invited to become a contributor to the México Today program.  There are 24 ambassadors, and we are getting together in Oaxaca next weekend for the kick-off and to get to know each other.  The team is made up of bloggers and travel writers. I was already friends with Kelly of A Canuck in Cancun, Cristina of Mexico Cooks!, and Julie of Midwesterner in Mexico but I look forward to meeting everyone.

The México Today program is about generating positive, interesting, and informative pieces about México and using their website as well as social media (Facebook & Twitter) to share the México we know and love.  (Here are Facebook and Twitter links for Mexico Today)

I want to disclose that I am being compensated for writing articles for the project.  Not all of my articles will pertain to Mazatlán, but I believe they will be of interest to my readers.  When I write something new for the project I’ll link to it here, too.

Over the five years I have been writing this blog I have focused on writing about my life living in México and places we visit with the hope that my first hand experiences would help others decide to explore this lovely country.  I hope you’ve visit the México Today sites and check back here often as there will be lots more to read.

I love a clean house. The feel.  The smell.  Just knowing it is really clean.  I’m a pretty good cleaner, too.  In my past I even cleaned apartments on turnover. I always hoped that giving a new tenant a perfectly clean apartment would inspire them to leave it clean when they moved out.  Of course they seldom did, but I learned to start at the top of a room, clean the moldings, doors, windows, etc. and the floors last.  I learned that there is a big difference in cleaning products.

When I was working I lucked into a wonderful housecleaner when a friend’s had some extra time.  I loved having Tasha – all those grungy jobs like cleaning the tub were no longer on my to-do list.  I’d come home from work and the house would smell so wonderful, and if I came back when she was cleaning she’d be singing along to country music.  Alas, Tasha was part of my life for only a year I think.

The housekeeper we’ve had for the last three years recently decided to cut down her work hours, so we were looking for someone new. I cleaned the house for several weeks as we asked around.  Finally we heard of a friend’s housekeeper with a free day.  We met and hit it off right away.

I am so happy – I think we might have a Mexican version of Tasha at our house now.  What a dynamo!  She is happy and smiling, comfortable working with me on my Spanish… and I feel like a light has been turned on in our house.  You should see the piles of dust she’s evicting from this place!  Paul put his iPad down for a minute and -zip- it was gleaming too.

She is happy for the work and I am so happy she’s here.  Life is good!

The 2011 Dia de la Musica was a great success!  We enjoyed ourselves and saw some wonderful performances and a fun art exhibit, too!  The picture at the top was from the art exhibit a la vuelta de Venus – on the corner of Venus and callejón del Lazo.  I’ve also made a photo album with more pictures, here.

The evening started out late – well the music was to start at 7 and even though we left the house at 7:15 no one was playing.  We headed down to the water to watch the sunset and feel the breeze and wait a bit.  The waves were pretty big, probably still because of the now much diminished Adrian.

On any of the videos, once you hit play you can move the slider from 360 to 720HD for a much better quality video.

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The first stage where we found music was in front of the art museum on Veustiano Carranza.  The group Suncai Gitano was performing a tribute to Joaquin Sabina.

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After running into Dianne & Greg and visiting for a bit we headed over to calle Venus, where we watched the Chadoma Social Club.

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Then we headed over to the Plazuela Machado, where we enjoyed the Camerata Mazatlán.

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We were a bit thirsty and the music was still audible over by Fish Taco so we sat down for a cold beer.  I took a bit of video of people walking by under the lovely yellow blossoms of the tree nearby.

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Thus refreshed, we headed over to calle Venus again, this time to hear the Lori Davidson Group.  The video below is of bass player Ken Embrey, he is amazing.

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I realized I hadn’t taken any video of Lori, so there is a quick one here that shows her amazing voice. She’s a fantastic guitarist, too.

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Then we headed back to the Plazuela Machado to listen to Pumcayo, a group from Guadalajara.  We loved them.  Check out the video below where one musician is playing a banjo with a bow!

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We ambled around a bit more but I don’t have any more videos.  I hope you enjoyed a little tour!  Oh – for those of you who don’t know Mazatlán, here is a map that shows the venues so you can see Centro is quite compact and a great place for this event!