Last week saw MORE rain, lots of gray days, and not much worth doing out and about. On the upside, I haven't put gas in the cart in over 2 weeks, gotta take wins when you can! Friday night, we were watching a show when power cut out. It was really windy all day, with brief periods of heavy rain, so it wasn't a big surprise to us when it went out. Time to turn on the USB fans and hope the out ...

The rainy season has a strong foothold in our weather – it rained most days last week, to where I didn’t leave the villa at all on three days, and I was dodging showers on the others. For reference, we normally vacationed here in June or July, as the boys were out of school, allowing us to stay for 10-12 days (the max my employer would allow per year.) We never had nearly this much rain in a ...

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 ...