Last week was mostly marred by pests...I will get to that shortly... Antonio, the electrician, found an uncapped, live wire in our septic pump's circuit, floating around in wet dirt - he removed it, and not to jinx anything, but so far, the new breaker has not tripped.  Tuesday, I found that something had chewed holes in several one-gallon-sized ziplock bags of Kitten Food in our pantry. A ...

Have you ever had the light in your refrigerator go out...? Me neither, and I have had some refrigerators for 10+ years, yet somehow our circa 2017 Electrolux by Frigidaire basic-of-basic fridge's bulb burnt out. Good luck finding anything in a dark fridge! I feared I would never find the correct lightbulb on the island and would have to ship it down (which takes 3-4 weeks), but believe it ...

I am excited to share a WEEK of WINS on the island! Tuesday, I drove one of my neighbors, Tanya, to Publics, the grocery store by the water taxi. Their pricing on almost all items is the best on the island, so it's worth the drive - but Tanya is apprehensive to drive through town, so I offered to take her with me. She still shops like I did in North America; "FORO - Fear Of Running Out", gotta ...

Picking up where we left off last week, our lawyer meeting was relatively straightforward - he's attempting to locate the Marshall assigned to our case. The Marshall will visit Bob's house (the Canadian real estate agent who stole our land stamp money in 2018) and initiate the repossession process, which Bob would have to "buy" back, effectively compensating us. I question what he may have of ...

Last Wednesday, I was invited to our new friends and neighbors', Kit and Brian's home, to show them some of the island ropes - where to find particular things, how to use Belizean Queen to ship items down, and general tips to remain sane. They are experiencing a lot of the same shock we did upon moving down full-time - everything is much more expensive than we prepared for, grocery shopping i ...

Last Wednesday, we decided to go to BINGO at Nauti Crab - Josh at Hurricane's had mentioned that it was a lot of fun, plus the progressive jackpot was up to $2,300! I had to Google what a "progressive jackpot" was in Bingo, I've never played for "real" money before. We made our reservations and are glad we did - it was a packed house! We were seated next to a retired couple who have lived her ...

Last week, a neighbor we had waved to in passing showed up on our front porch - she invited us to a Happy Hour she and her husband were hosting the next night. YES, PLEASE! It started at 5, so naturally, we were on their doorstep a few minutes after 5 and were the first to arrive - we're still on "US time" and didn't want to be rude/late - we wanted to make a good first impression! Throughout ...

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 ...