I knew I would have trouble sleeping last Wednesday night before Selene's dental surgery. I did not need the assistance of BEL, our electric company, to keep me slumber-free, yet there they were, flicking power off and on over multiple hours Thursday morning, island-wide. We actually had some rain, for the first time in 2+ months, which must have impacted the lines. The power would cut out, t ...

Two EPIC good-news snippets this week: 1. We have hot water again! The new heating elements work like a charm, and having steaming-hot water on demand once again is delightful. 2. I saw this post yesterday on Facebook: The Patty Flipper is a food truck that resides directly across the street from our neighborhood. It "closed for maintenance" right as we moved here in August. It is HANDS ...

Very hectic 10 days here, I'll skip the small stuff and focus on the larger. I finally finished our taxes - I lost steam after realizing we were going to owe. UGH. A combination of only having half a year of mortgage intrest and taxes in the US to write off, and we killed it on 1099-INT income from Betterment - at times last year, it was paying 6% interest with no cap on what you could depos ...

I saw a Facebook post Wednesday morning that Dr. Baptist was at SAGA on Wednesday and Thursday for consultations and surgeries. I wasn't sure if the regular staff could do x-rays on Selene's mouth or not, so I went down to ask as I didn't want to take up one of Dr. Baptist's slots unless necessary. (Selene has been losing weight and favoring one side of her mouth when she chews). They told me ...

As you may surmise from the main photo, sargasso is back with a vengeance. It is really piling up on the reef side of the island, faster than most businesses can dispatch it. Depending on the wind strength, it is getting pushed into the river - last Tuesday it nearly covered the entire surface, and was flying by! We also saw an unexpected, nationwide power outage last week - for over two hou ...

Rough re-entry into "real life" after living in "vacation mode" with all of our guests. Vandam fixed our water leak as planned...but we weren't getting hot water. Nathan tinkered with the tank, checked the outlets, troubleshot everything he could think of - and then realized, we had a HOT water line leak - meaning, water emptied from the tank. The heating element burned up. Guess what's not ...

Very, very hectic few weeks for us here! I totally jinxed our "good luck" with the rental carts when we first broke down while my dad was visiting. I swapped out carts when headlights or parking breaks went out, but up until my dad's visit, we had not experienced a total breakdown. On one of his last days here, it died by the high school and we had to call to be rescued/have a new cart deliv ...

Last week I took Dad back to Secret Beach to go fishing; I "supervised" from a shady beach chair - what I referred to as, "Daddy Daycare".  That blur in the water is my dad He was unsuccessful in his fishing that day, so we headed to town for dinner, and then to the casino for entertainment. Thursday brought some good news: Dr. Williams, the current Veterinarian at San Pedro Veterinarian H ...

Last week was a race to get things done before our first guest, my dad, arrived on Thursday. The villa needed a deep cleaning, we wanted to set up the bed back in the third bedroom (mostly because the mattress was leaned up against the sliding glass door in the "guest bedroom"/Nathan's office) and general decluttering. We have an unholy amount of linens as we need 18 towel sets and 9 bedding ...

First off, if you are curious about the sargasso season, it is most definitely upon us. Crews are on many beaches each morning scooping it up, but the reprieve is only temporary. Vandam and a friend swiftly moved two truckloads of gravel after working their "day jobs" for us last Wednesday and Thursday - they did a fantastic job and are grateful for extra cash. Our yard is now high and cle ...