I’m walking on sunshine, baby! And don’t it feel good! Wow, what a week. I have to say that I’m feeling good and hopeful and optimistic once again. After several months of “low,” I am feeling the building surge of another “high.” Life is like that I suppose. The ebb and flow of good fortune and feelings, we are all surfers riding the waves of life and I feel like I’m just climbing out of a bit of a trough. A combination of things (losing friends, pandemic fatigue, closure of businesses I relied on, etc) had left me feeling less than ecstatic and more than a bit pessimistic but I knew if I rode out my foul mood the tide would change once again and here it is. Oh what a week!
Over the weekend, someone had posted a question on a local Facebook about the dates for this year’s Lobsterfest celebration. The comments were predictably infuriating: “we haven’t had it for 2 years and we probably won’t have it again this year,” “no large gatherings or events,” “there’s a pandemic.” I don’t know about you, but I’m TIRED of it! The world is moving on but Belize is draaaaging out these restrictions. Finally, last night the Prime Minister announced we’d be doing away with the country-wide curfew as well as the mask mandate while outside. He also said they’d be in discussions to implement other changes throughout the month in an effort to return to normalcy by April 1. Wooohoo!
I taped a podcast with Remi at AdventureFreaksss about expat living in Belize. It was fun to chat about lifestyle, cost of living, easy of immigration, food and entertainment. He does great little interviews with people in interesting locations across the globe and focuses on the affordability of moving abroad. Check him out on Spotify or Youtube, my episode will be up in a few weeks.
I’m dancing around the house doing my chores in preparation for an upcoming trip I’m taking with my little guy. We’re going to visit family in Key West this weekend. Spending time with the Rodden clan always lifts my spirits so I’m super excited and grateful to be taking this long weekend away. Then when we return it’s only a few more days until my friend, Meghan, arrives and visits us here in Belize- fun!
I’m also booked to take a bioluminescence tour with Ian at Barefoot Services this week and I couldn’t be more stoked for it. It’s one of these tours that I’ve heard raved about but like the Scarlet Macaws in Red Bank, it’s only scheduled during a certain time of the year and conditions have to be just right. Fingers crossed but I’m feeling hopeful- everything’s going my way today!
Lastly, our faithful old cat, Abigail, who came with our house when we bought it and patiently put up with toddler-era Mitch manhandling her for all these years; well, she disappeared last week. She’d begun to look a little rough and had recently lost her appetite and stopped eating. One day she wandered off and didn’t return (and the next day my neighbor informed me of a suspicious smell under Captain Jaks’ dock) so we were sad about that. I told Mitch he could ‘adopt’ another neighborhood cat and he choose another black and white cat. One meal was all it took for Shadow to claim her new home but she came with a friend. Mitch is so excited to have TWO cats, he feels like a king and has been so sweet this week. I miss old Abigail but look how cute Bagel is.
Things are looking up; I’m looking towards the future of festivals and new businesses and new adventures. The ups and downs of (expat) life.
Good luck with shadow. Abigail…rest in peace. I’m at the airport and I’ll see you soon. ♥️😎
So very sorry about your kitty. But how exciting now you have two!