Living at Lake Chapala in Mexico

Good morning and welcome back to Living at Lake Chapala in Mexico!

I'm not sure what happened to me and this blog. Maybe I was suffering from a touch of burnout following the many blogs we posted during the aftermath of the September storm in San Juan Cosala. Whatever the reason, San Juan is moving forward, and so are we, into a brand new year.

The new issue is our 62nd issue!
We here at Living at Lake Chapala have started into our 7th year! That's right, over the past six years, we've published over 900 full-length articles - most with between 3 and 12 photos.

As usual there is a lot happening here at Lake Chapala, and as usual that's reflected in our new January 2008 issue of Living at Lake Chapala which has been available at http://www.mexico-insights.com/ since January 1.

January 2008
The January issue is stuffed with great articles - including one of our perennial favorites, our annual Cost of Living update. We've again polled six local households - some singles and some couples, some homeowners and some renters, and asked them to keep track of their costs for a month. You'll find the results in a chart in our Cost of Living column.

We've also gathered up the holidays and most of the special events for the coming year in our Feature Article, presented a wonderful array of hearty soups for these chilly evenings. One of the benefits of Living at Lake Chapala is our ability to become whatever we want in retirement. This issue has a good selection of these stories. We've profiled a glass designer, a woman who has opened a nutritional center and gym, a woman who has turned from interior design to operate a new B&B, a trio of men who have created a business by filling a need, and a Canadian policeman turn art teacher. Now that's a lot of folks reinventing themselves in retirement!

In addition we've maintained a good Mexican touch to this issue - we also meet Ismael who is Jose Cuervo's star jimadores (agave cutters). Ismael has been featured in videos, TV commercials, magazine ads and is even featured in the mural on the wall of the Guadalajara airport. You'll understand why when you read this article. Then Phyllis Rauch, owner of Los Dos B&B in Jocotepec, takes us on a delightful tour of some of Jalisco's historic haciendas, casones (town estates) and ranches.

This month more of our subscribers read our new issue during the first two weeks than ever before. We now have the ability to remind our subscribers on the first day of each month that our new issue is up and read to read at our site. We've wanted to do email a reminder for several years, but we just couldn't get past spam preventitives. Our Web Genius, David McLaughlin, is right on the ball and has us all set up and had emailed every subscriber by 10 a.m. on New Year's day.

At last subscribers won't forget to read the issues or even worse, forget that they subscribed!

Read A Recent Issue:
If you've never subscribed to our online magazine and have wondered what it is all about, we'd be happy to have you read one of our recent on line issues--it's easy.

Please note that our magazine is never printed, and we can not email it or send it to anyone--it's just too large. Just imagine, each issue prints out to between 75-100 pages, and contains from 75-100 photos! That'd be a BIG email!

Instead, all of our subscribers go to our website and then read the articles there.

Here's FREE access to our November 2007 issue:

1. Go to http://www.mexico-insights.com/
2. When the page appears on your screen (the heading is yellow and says: "Living at Lake Chapala") click on the words "Log In". You'll find them toward the top of the right hand red column.
3. When the page changes you'll see the log in boxes. Type the following in the box marked "User Name:" nov2007
4. Type the following in the box marked "Password:" pancho and then click on Log In
5. When your screen changes, you'll see the words, "Welcome November 2007" in the upper portion of the red column.
6. Then you'll be able to click on the Archived Issues section and then select the November 2007 issue. Now you can click on the headline or the red words "Read more" of each article on that page, and read the entire text.

There...that's what we are all about. If you want more, we'd be happy to have your join our family of subscribers. If you need help with the process, please email us at judy@mexico-insights.com and we'll be happy to help.

Watch for our next posts in a day or two. We'll be talking about January holidays, driving tips for Mexico, how to sail through the current winter season and about the upcoming holiday that signals the end of the Christmas season on February 2.

Meanwhile, remember...
Life is Good at Lake Chapala

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Judy King is publisher of  Mexico Insights' Living at Lake Chapala, a monthly online magazine for people interested in Mexico's Lake Chapala region, in the state of Jalisco.

Judy, a 16-year resident of Ajijic on Lake Chapala's north shore, conducts weekly newcomer's seminars, shares her expertise about Mexico in her monthly online magazine, and in the "Mexico Lindo" column for the Lake Chapala Review.

Judy also is a speaker for local organizations and visiting tour groups about the Lakeside area and Mexican customs and holidays.