In four weeks from right now, we'll be in our villa! Eeek! Exciting, yet overwhelming. Today I worked on shipping labels for our goods. They need our name, destination, phone number, and box number. I made about 120, not that we will have anywhere near that many boxes! I want to put one inside, and two outside, to make it easier to sort them. Plus there's no need for me to take a few pages o ...

Today we knocked out a few more items on our list: -Stop 1 was a Dollar Tree store - Nathan has been trying to figure out how to package our old beach cruisers to protect them for shipping, that doesn't cost more than the actual bikes did 15 years ago. He saw a video (probably on TikTok) of a guy using pool noodles to basically build a protective bubble around them. 8 noodles x $1.25 each, i ...

The past 24 hours we have chipped away at a decent clip...making good progress! Yesterday we had a few more smaller furniture pick ups, and Nathan spent the morning in our garage consolidating items, making inventory lists, and cleaning out his stand-up tool chest. Speaking with Jhimel at Belize Freight (who has been INCREDIBLY patient and responsive!), he said to empty the tool chest, as he ...

It's our last "Independence Day" here in the U.S.! Nathan is braving 115f and muggy, awful, blazing-sun weather to golf with his dad and family friends, while I'm at home, lounging in the A/C, working on moving checklist items. An important one is now checked off: WE RECEIVED OUR IMPORT PERMITS FROM BAHA! This allows us to bring our 3 cats into Belize legally, provided we pay the applicable ...

It seems my "Day Counter" is off a tad, or maybe it depends on what time of day I check it, but we are 32 days away from departure now. We both had optical appointments today, and I'm proud to say that somehow, for the 3rd straight year, my eyesight has IMPROVED. It defies logic. I'm almost 47. I thought my eyes were getting worse, but it turns out, they were getting better - my glasses/cont ...

As we inch closer to expatriation, it's time to start selling off more of our possessions that don't make sense to move. Namely, all of our furniture. Indoors and out. I spent most of today photographing, measuring, and entering listings on Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, and NextDoor.  I'm arguably the WORST at pricing items - I either go way too high, or way too low, like my circa 2022 Pat ...

We survived our last trip to Vegas!  Let me back up a bit: We normally go to Las Vegas twice a year, and ONLY to gamble - we're not into shows, fine dining, clubs....just free casino drinks and the long-shot chance to become a thousandaire. When I ran Argent Decor, we'd coincide our trips with the Las Vegas Furniture Market and double-dip. In my last job before my current "island quasi-reti ...

A big part of moving abroad involves selling off your worldly possessions. If you are unfamiliar with Ambergris Caye, the island in Belize we are moving to in 38 days, the primary mode of transportation is via golf cart. The vast majority of non-cart vehicles are going to be construction or delivery trucks, or taxis, which inexplicably are predominantly Toyota Previa minivans, circa 2002. Th ...

Under 40 days to go now..! Today, I narrowed down to 7 short-term rental homes. Our parameters were pretty basic; we wanted to be closer to the airport (6AM international flight, 3 cats to wrangle), have at least 2 bedrooms/2 baths, and not be $5,000 for 16 days. While our home is scheduled to close 14 days before we fly out, we budgeted to "move in" 3 days before closing, as our goods should ...

Yesterday (day 41) was a day I had been dreading: The day I had to lug 3 cats across town for a Vet appointment. They all needed rabies vaccines in order to get an import permit from BAHA. While I love our normal Vet, who is right around the corner, she doesn't carry PureVax, which is less likely to cause cancer at the injection site. My very first cat, Amber, developed cancer from her rabi ...