You might have noticed that things have been pretty quiet around here, and honestly, I think it’ll stay that way until the end of the year. A lot has happened in my personal life, taking up most of my energy. For the past month, I’ve either been crashing into bed from exhaustion or binge-watching TV shows to avoid thinking about an endless to-do list of online tasks I didn’t want to handle. And that’s okay. This blog is meant to be fun; I don’t treat it like a business, at least not for now, so real life will always take priority. Also, I had an overload of personal finance stuff and didn’t want to write boring posts about saving money on groceries. So, I decided not to write anything at all. Like going to the gym, once you stop, it’s harder to get back into it. I’ll leave that for 2015. Meanwhile, here’s a little recap of what’s been going on lately.
This past month, I started work on my new house. After my breakup a few months ago, I remained in our small beach house, which I operate as a guest house but only own 50% of. My ex lives 300 miles away, so I’m not worried he’ll show up randomly, but I wanted a place that was entirely mine. Buying him out wasn’t an option, and with the guest house still running, I liked the idea of living completely separate from it so both the guests and I could have our independence.
My new home is right in front of a 90-acre land development, perched on a larger 2-acre lakefront plot we purchased in the spring to give residents beach access. The plot has a road leading down to the lake where you can drive your car, launch a boat or jetski, and have picnics on the beach. There’s enough space for 6-8 houses. I hope my house can be a model so if people don’t want to build, I can offer them a similar construction on another plot. These houses will share the beach with residents from the development, but with 100 meters of beach, there’s more than enough for everyone. My house will be the first one you see as you come in and sits at the highest part of the plot, offering nice lake views and more privacy.
To help with the building process, a friend of mine flew over to act as my contractor and supervisor for three months. I was exhausted from having builders in my house non-stop for the past two years and didn’t want to deal with any of it, so I gladly offered him a cut to manage everything for me. However, he had an emergency and had to return to Europe within a week. I considered stopping everything to wait for his return but decided to take over instead. So, for the past month, I’ve been deep in construction mode all by myself, an experience both empowering and nerve-wracking.
Since my new house is about a mile away, I walk there 3-4 times a day to make sure everything is running smoothly, draw plans, and go to town to buy materials. Thankfully, my friend is still assisting with technical aspects like plumbing and electrical systems from afar, but taking over the management of 15 builders who were disappointed to hear they’d be dealing with “the lady” again wasn’t easy.
Despite the challenges, I’ve put my best effort into it and am pleasantly surprised at our progress. In a month, we’ve nearly completed the first floor. This makeshift office has been my workspace, trying to use the computer in what will one day be my living room!
The house will be similar to the previous buildings but will have two stories, with a kitchen-dining-living room on the first floor and two rooms upstairs. Each room will have a large bathroom, and the master suite will include a walk-in closet.
In the end, I’m pretty proud of what I’ve accomplished in a month, but it’s been a lot to handle. So, to treat myself, I’m spontaneously going back to Europe! I just booked tickets to return in January, visiting a friend in Madrid for a couple of weeks, then heading to Paris to see family, and having a girls’ meetup in the South of France, plus visiting my grandparents about five hours from Paris. I haven’t been back since September 2013 and didn’t really miss it. I haven’t even left Guatemala since a Miami trip a year ago and was fine with it, even though I used to feel the urge to travel abroad 2-3 times a year. I generally prefer to go in May or September for the fair weather and better moods, but I found a $250 ticket from Cancún to Madrid that was too good to pass up.
Preparing for the trip has taken another big chunk of my time. We’ll leave the house to dry before adding a second floor, but while I’m away, the workers will handle smaller tasks like kitchen countertops and storage, closets—which I have to draw up precisely to come back to a pleasant surprise.
I also have Airbnb guests for 10 days over New Year’s, so I’m in the process of training the maid and handyman to manage guests without me. This isn’t a small task, as they are humble village people and quite nervous around foreigners, but I trust they’ll do fine. It takes time to get them to pay attention to details and reach an acceptable level of cleanliness every day.
Napoleon, my little Great Dane, will also stay at the house while I’m away, and that’s okay with the guests. I had to buy him 150 pounds of meat since he’s on a raw diet, and then the deep freezer broke yesterday. Yay for unexpected problems! He also found an ugly little village dog who seems to have become his girlfriend, and since she was stealing his meat three times a day, she now sleeps here so she doesn’t miss out. I took her to the vet for a parasite shot and washed her in the lake since she was so smelly, and now she seems to think this is her new home. I’m kind of happy about it since Great Danes have separation anxiety, so he’ll have a friend while I’m gone.
I initially worried about her mating with Napoleon since she’s pretty small, but I found her owners in the village, and they assured me she couldn’t have puppies, so one less worry. Although I wasn’t thrilled about her at first, she’s grown on me. Plus, she does a neat trick where if you throw food at her, she catches it mid-air, like a drunk friend catching peanuts, except she never misses.
Oh, did I mention that BOTH my cars broke down? The old Suzuki had a burst gas filter and was leaking gas while I was driving, which was terrifying once a guy pointed it out. I didn’t dare drive it back to the mechanic. The newer Hyundai had a burst radiator that blew steam a few weeks ago. I replaced it, drove for a day, and then the car broke down again because a gasket got damaged. So, I’ve been on foot for a while, which is super convenient when you need to buy construction materials every other day…
That’s all for now. Thanks for sticking with me, and if we don’t chat before then, I wish you all very happy holidays. See you in 2015!
