Last Monday afternoon, I drove out to meet with the foreman of the lot-clearing crew to reiterate the scope of work we all agreed to. The meeting went well, and then it rained and/or was insanely windy the rest of the week, meaning no further progress has occurred. While our water heater looks somewhat new, it also seems to be leaking in the room it is stored in, and our hot water is getting ...

Welcome back, here is an update from last week! Monday morning I woke up feeling not quite right; not nauseous, but not right. Something was "off" with my stomach and I wanted to SLEEP. No fever, no bird-flu symptoms, just super-fast digestion if I ate anything - and I wasn't very hungry. Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday, I easily took 3-hour naps AND slept 8-10 hours at night. Nathan was entirely f ...

Time is absolutely flying by - I feel like I wake up and before I know it, it's 2:30. I do the same things every morning - feed the cats, clean their boxes, make ice cubes, do the night's dishes, maybe make coffee (to fridge for Nathan's iced coffee in the mornings), pick up around the house, water/check on the outside plants, and then try to prioritize the rest of my day. This past week thre ...

I've been slacking a bit with the holidays but will be back to our regularly-scheduled programming now! On the 30th, we parked for dinner and our curiosity got the best of us - we see random, small, mostly windowless buildings that say, "Games" on them, and peeked into one on a side street - it was a small casino! After dinner we popped in for a little entertainment - it had at most 20 machi ...

As I mentioned in my previous blog, we planned to go to Immigration on Friday since Wednesday was Christmas and Thursday was Boxing Day, which is a holiday here - a holdover from being under British rule. We parked at the Wings Plaza on Friday, walked into the building where Immigration is, and found... ...CLEARLY closed, no signage at all! Nothing on their website about holiday closures. ...

Last Thursday, I took Shadow to the only vet on the island, San Pedro Veterinarian Hospital, south of town. When I called, they were able to get us in the same day or the next day, which was a relief!  Unfortunately, it looked like rain was inbound as I loaded Shadow into his carrier and Nathan strapped him into the cart, so I grabbed a beach towel to drape over his carrier just in case. We ...

Our "Tax-Free Weekend" was not the Supermarket Sweep I had anticipated - I forgot the swatch for my blue paint, and Comex didn't have a concrete coating that Nathan wanted - yet. It should be in-country by mid-January. I'll have to go back this weekend (tax-free weekend #2 of 2) to get white and blue paint and probably more roof sealant. At $75BZ per gallon, may as well slather that stuff on. ...

Lots going on here on La Isla... My Feature was published on Tuesday, I'm super-excited to have such a big project in my portfolio! They didn't use my Ex-Pat Interview (yet) which is a bummer for the couple I interviewed - it will push out in a future issue. It will be delightful to be paid for that assignment in a few weeks! Income! Tuesday night we ventured down to The Alibi in its new lo ...

Friday I took my laptop and a patio chair cushion to SAGA Humane Society to hang out with their cats. SAGA can always use help walking the dogs they care for, or socializing the cats - they have around 30 cats currently, in two rooms. The new shelter is so nice! Concrete, air-conditioned...and they own it. The previous location was wood (hard to sterilize!), no A/C, and rented. Most of the ca ...

Tuesday morning I awoke to a WhatsApp from Oscar - he built us 4 teak pool chairs this time last year at a great price. We moved down a 22" Blackstone flat-top grill I had won at work, but we didn't have anywhere to set it. I asked Oscar if he took custom orders, and he did - so I sent my chicken-scratch rendering over. Two months later, our table arrived! It's perfect. But our grill is alrea ...