 |
| My latest picture: Birds on a Branch Over Water |
So many amazing things happened in 2017! The fact that we planned this move and actually carried it out is the most amazing of all! Even Janice, my wonderful sister, didn't believe we would! All those phone conversations when I enthusiastically described to her the latest interesting things I had discovered about moving to Mexico - how to acquire temporary residency, what kind of car to buy to bring with us, which shots Otto needed, how to avoid scorpion bites, how many varieties of poisonous snakes lived in Mexico and how to avoid being bitten by them (any of you who know me well know that I would research this), and all the rest --- and she only told me recently that she never thought we would actually move here! Very happy she didn't mention it at the time :)!
Probably the second-most amazing thing that happened in 2017 was that I retired, at 62 (almost 63)!! That was the culmination of a dream, actually, many years of wishing, hoping, fantasizing and dreaming! And the thing is, not having to go to work or prepare for work or schedule my life around work, and being able to do so many things that I love is HUGE - much more wonderful than I even imagined! I feel a sudden thrill of joy even thinking about the wonderfulness of retirement! In Spanish the word for retired is jubilado! Yes, Jubilado! :)!
We have also acquired wonderful friends here! Such a pleasure to share our lives with so many wonderful people who are fun and interesting and who, mostly, live only a few minutes from here! We often miss our friends faraway (come visit!) and are very happy to be building new friendships and a sense of community that adds so much pleasure and satisfaction to our lives.
We have learned SO MUCH as we live this adventure - have had our minds expanded by living in another culture with people whose ways of living, and beliefs, and accepted truths and whole world-view is different; and have discovered strengths and resilience and capabilities in ourselves that we would never have known we even possessed if we hadn't lived here; and experienced a lot of happiness and some pain and and overall have really, really loved being here.
We have also experienced homesickness and worry, and illness - I have been to the emergency room twice (influenza - many months ago), as well as (every now and then) uncertainty about our future here, and concern about health issues. And, besides that, we have been lost many times and once were trapped in a parking lot, and have spent way more money than I planned to spend in all those Excel spreadsheets I created before we moved here estimating how much we'd save every month and how much would go to dining out and rent and travel and all the rest. Laughable to look at them now!
And what about 2018? We are planning to move again - this time to a quieter neighborhood (MUCH quieter) as where we live now is only one house away from an events space that occupies the whole center of the block, and from which enormously loud music emanates, reverberating all around our house, on weekends and holidays and many other times - all evening and, often, all night long; and, in addition to that - music is played next door every afternoon at top volume; and also the trucks rattling by over the cobblestones and the vehicles going by slowly with loudspeakers blaring - advertising gas and ice cream; and the motorcycles, and, of course, the fireworks going off - as loud as a war - they are going off right now!
We are also moving to save money. Our current rent is too high to allow us to accomplish our financial goals, which are extremely simple - spend less than we bring in. We are looking now and may have found a wonderful place to move, where we would spend far less than we're spending to live here and would still live comfortably (and the condo complex where it's located has two pools!) :)!
We hope to take trips in 2018, but no plans have been made yet. Many guests are scheduled to visit, including two dear friends arriving in 3 days! Also, Eric is doing more volunteering. I am enjoying making pictures more than I have in years, (maybe ever!) and will be in a four person show in March, as well as participating in an open studio event (my pictures will be shown in a lovely garden) in February. I have just started photographing dogs and creating digital pictures from the photos. Enjoying that every much!! And we have brunch with friends every week and dinners out and so many fun, interesting, meaningful and entertaining activities and events; and besides all that, the sunshine every day really is, I have to say, very nice!!!!
Probably the second-most amazing thing that happened in 2017 was that I retired, at 62 (almost 63)!! That was the culmination of a dream, actually, many years of wishing, hoping, fantasizing and dreaming! And the thing is, not having to go to work or prepare for work or schedule my life around work, and being able to do so many things that I love is HUGE - much more wonderful than I even imagined! I feel a sudden thrill of joy even thinking about the wonderfulness of retirement! In Spanish the word for retired is jubilado! Yes, Jubilado! :)!
We have also acquired wonderful friends here! Such a pleasure to share our lives with so many wonderful people who are fun and interesting and who, mostly, live only a few minutes from here! We often miss our friends faraway (come visit!) and are very happy to be building new friendships and a sense of community that adds so much pleasure and satisfaction to our lives.
We have learned SO MUCH as we live this adventure - have had our minds expanded by living in another culture with people whose ways of living, and beliefs, and accepted truths and whole world-view is different; and have discovered strengths and resilience and capabilities in ourselves that we would never have known we even possessed if we hadn't lived here; and experienced a lot of happiness and some pain and and overall have really, really loved being here.
 |
| Our Christmas tree and the bamboo trees decorated with Christmas lights |
And what about 2018? We are planning to move again - this time to a quieter neighborhood (MUCH quieter) as where we live now is only one house away from an events space that occupies the whole center of the block, and from which enormously loud music emanates, reverberating all around our house, on weekends and holidays and many other times - all evening and, often, all night long; and, in addition to that - music is played next door every afternoon at top volume; and also the trucks rattling by over the cobblestones and the vehicles going by slowly with loudspeakers blaring - advertising gas and ice cream; and the motorcycles, and, of course, the fireworks going off - as loud as a war - they are going off right now!
We are also moving to save money. Our current rent is too high to allow us to accomplish our financial goals, which are extremely simple - spend less than we bring in. We are looking now and may have found a wonderful place to move, where we would spend far less than we're spending to live here and would still live comfortably (and the condo complex where it's located has two pools!) :)!
We hope to take trips in 2018, but no plans have been made yet. Many guests are scheduled to visit, including two dear friends arriving in 3 days! Also, Eric is doing more volunteering. I am enjoying making pictures more than I have in years, (maybe ever!) and will be in a four person show in March, as well as participating in an open studio event (my pictures will be shown in a lovely garden) in February. I have just started photographing dogs and creating digital pictures from the photos. Enjoying that every much!! And we have brunch with friends every week and dinners out and so many fun, interesting, meaningful and entertaining activities and events; and besides all that, the sunshine every day really is, I have to say, very nice!!!!