Friends, Food and Travel

Moving sure can skew your sense of time! Here it is August already, how did that happen? We have been very busy between our move (DONE), selling items we no longer need (DONE), meeting old and new friends (NEVER STOPS) and attending Spanish classes (TWO MORE WEEKS).

In addition we have been getting ready for our annual trip to the US. We will be gone 2.5 months this time due to taking a two week Southern Caribbean cruise just before our return.

The rest of February....

I know, late again. But really, it's been an extraordinarily BUSY month. Honest! Here is a bit of a photo journey to prove it...

Stu went to Florida for his retired Firefighter reunion.

Stu stopped in to see my brother & his wife before heading to Key Largo for some scuba diving.

While he was gone, I got sick but was finally well enough to attend a Newcomer luncheon at Don Colon's Restaurant.

I had to visit Mall del Rio to pay our Internet, Telephone & Health Insurance. While there I finally got a good photo of this tag on a sweatshirt.

Valentine's Day brought flowers to almost every street corner.

Stu arrived home on Valentine's Day with this beautiful bouquet.

We met up with some motorcycle friends as well as a local, great lunch at Don Colon's.

Our favorite 2-story artisan shop is closed for renovations so many of them have set up shop alongside the cathedral, opposite Don Colon's.

More artisans....

Another meet 'n greet with Moe and her mom, Winnie. Moe plans to move to Ecuador and Winnie will visit during the frigid Boston winters.

A little excitement at the end of our street...glad I have a camera with a good zoom!

The flowers lasted almost two weeks, blooming beautifully!

A new print magazine was launched in town, you might recognize the name at the bottom?

The launch party for the magazine...over 500 people attended. It was a nice mix of locals and expats with several news media folks as well.

So yes, it's been a busy month. Oh, and I've gone to yoga almost every Monday and Friday, written a short story for an anthology to benefit a friend, helped 4-5 friends look for a new apartment, attended a steering committee meeting for a writing conference, started my own writing group, "Writing Our World (in Cuenca)", created a newsletter and website for that AND created the start of a website for our good friend, Simon Cordero, for his restaurant and jewelry business at Magnolia Caffe.

I think it's time for a nap!

Friends, Food, Pastries and Popacuchu

As most of you already know, I'm pretty open here on the Internet and that especially applies to Facebook. I rarely turn down a friend request unless we have no obvious mutual interests or friends.

This means I have a lot of "friends" on Facebook that are researching Ecuador. Some come for a visit, others take the leap and move here. One of our favorite meeting spots is Popacuchu since we get to show off their amazing pastries with the added bonus of it being close to the house (a one mile walk).

Our latest meet 'n greet were with new expats, George and Chad, who relocated here from California. I've been online friends with George for over a year, having connected via his fabulous website - EcuadorGeorge.com

We arrived at 11 am and it turned out that Stu was the only one who had eaten breakfast. Stu and I ordered a cup of the soup of the day, Chad got the soup in their trademark bread bowl and George ordered the cup of soup and half sandwich.

Not sure how we managed to keep talking through the delicious food. Soon we decided it was time for desert with Stu being the abstainer. I got my usual apple strudel, George got a decadent chocolate cake (he asked for the richest, sweetest thing they had in the case) and Chad got something that we never learned the name for but everyone fell in love with. Here's a photo of George getting ready for his bite of Chad's desert.

We continued to chat until well after 4 pm - what a delightful day, both the food and the company. Our topics ranged from writing to pets to apartments to weather to back in the US to food to exercise to movies to The Church Lady to computers/printers to...well, you get the idea! LOL!

Tomorrow I'll post the photos I took on the way to meet up with new friends, George and Chad. We know we'll be seeing them again!

Where is your favorite spot to meet new folks here in Cuenca?

Who knew I'd need a social calendar in Ecuador?

I realized soon after I "retired" that life was going to change. My dreams of lazy days of doing nothing but sipping tea and reading disappeared into a haze of activity. I often wondered how I managed to get it all done when I worked full-time and had several small children?

Fast forward to life here in Ecuador and we are discovering that you can be as busy as you'd like or not at all. There is always something to do, someone to meet, lots of places to go and people to see!

In the last week we have gone to a wonderful one year anniversary in Cuenca party where we enjoyed seeing old friends and meeting new; I have had a pastry treat with a new friend while we discussed writing and life; I've had breakfast with a large number of women now living in Cuenca,; I've gone to a creative writing seminar that was amazing; I've shopped for groceries and collected laundry for Mr. Wash to do (yeah!); we've gone out to a delicious dinner where we enjoyed watching the Argentine Tango (and met more new friends); and tomorrow we are meeting good friends for lunch!

Phew! Wonder what next week will bring? Oh, and just so you won't think we're among the missing, I plan to post a random photo taken in Ecuador every week...what day? Hmmm, how about Sunday? We'll call it Sunday Sundries!

Ciao!

Life, Taxes and Bananas

I know, no blog for a while but we've been busy working on getting all our tax information compiled to go to our accountant back in the US. Every year we try to simplify things and every year it still seems to take forever. But we are almost there, one more document to add to the pile and off it all goes.

We still try to go into El Centro a couple times a week, often trying out a new eatery. Last week it was The Loft Garden Cafe. They were The Loft Cafe but recently moved to a new location with an outside garden. We opted to sit outside but under cover from the sun (and eventual afternoon rain). We added them to our WiFi list (we now have over half a dozen free wifi spots in town), ordered our lunch and enjoyed the garden laid out in front of us. All the food is made fresh - good for the tasting, sometimes not so good for waiting. We didn't feel the wait was too long but have heard others complain. We will be back!

We have also been meeting new folks who are either here on an exploratory trip or recently relocated. It's always fun to share our experiences with them. Of course food and coffee are usually involved. LOL! This group was meeting at our favorite pastry shop (they also serve regular food), Popacuchu. It's a nice mile walk either way, along the Yanancay river.

Stu has been busy getting the last of our wall hangings hung, we still have empty spaces on the walls and nothing up in the loft at all, but since I bought these in mid-January, it's nice to see them on display. Plus, they help cut down on the echoes!

Me? Busy writing. I have so much on my plate and sometimes feel guilty that I'm spending too much time writing. I found a wonderful writers critique group with Thursday lunch meetings and have been to two sessions. I'll keep going whenever I can. It's fun to hear others read their work and realize that I sometimes have a good comment to contribute. At the last meeting I read the short story that I'm writing for the soon to be released anthology for my author friend fighting cancer. I took a lot away and I'm in the middle of rewriting it now.

A side note on our life here. When we got our last propane tank swapped out we were told one of the valves was bad. We had read that these go bad frequently but aren't expensive to replace. When Stu was out running errands the other day, he picked up two new valves, about $5 each. Yesterday he swapped them out and we then headed off to visit friends (and pick up our new to us stepper). We headed home by taxi in one of the hardest downpours we've seen yet, lots of thunder, too.

Soon it was time for dinner and when we washed up the dishes we noticed the water wasn't really hot but didn't think too much about it. By 11pm when Stu went to take his shower, NO hot water. Nada, zilch, none. The calefon (our instant on hot water heater that is the most common way to heat water here) was firing but that was it. Then he tried the stove, turned on and fizzled out. So he dressed and went out and swapped the tanks. Oops, STILL no hot water.

He took a cold shower (braver man than I) and said he'd look at it in the morning. I slept in and heard him in the utility room banging around. He ended up taking off one of the new propane valves and putting the old one back on. Voila! Hot water. The new ones didn't let enough gas flow through to provide the calefon enough power to heat the water. So tomorrow we will search for the correct one. The new one fit (left) and looked like it would work..

I suppose you want to know about the bananas in the title. We do most of our vegetable and fruit shopping at the local Mercado, less than five minutes away. The last batch of bananas had a Siamese twin! We wondered if it would have one HUGE banana inside or two side by side ones. Today we got the answer and today I hate a half that was a whole!

I will try to not wait so long between blog posts, then they won't be so long. [good luck to me on that]

My latest mystery book is DONE!!!

It's done, it's live - finally!! You can now purchase book two of the Klondike Mystery Series, Barely a Spark at Amazon.
BUY NOW

Police Sergeant Jim Sanders has been appointed the Acting Police Chief while his boss takes a vacation in Montana. Jim thinks two weeks will be a breeze, crime isn't a big thing in the small town of Bradford, Pennsylvania.

Was it an accident? Maybe suicide? Or could it have been something more sinister. John Crocker was not a well liked man. He smoked too much, drank too much, and gambled too much. But even he had a family and they deserved to know the truth.

Small town Klondike, up the hill from Bradford, suddenly sees a spike in vandalism. Cabins ransacked, cars trashed - who is responsible? Summer tourist kids or someone more menacing?

Sometimes, two weeks can seem like a year...

FIRST AMAZON REVIEW IS IN!From the poster of the review: Loved "Barely a Spark". I was happy to put the first review up on Amazon. Hope you have a great Route 66 trip and then, lady, you better start tapping those keys again - 'cause I want to know what happens next. LOL You really hit this one out of the park.

My New Children's Book to benefit Hearts of Gold Foundation

My first ever children's book is now available on Amazon. It's a rhyming picture book, What Do I Count, and is suitable up to age five. Good bedtime or anytime reading, teaches numbers. Great as a gift to/from parents and grandparents! {Please share the link with your family and friends.}

Kara Jaynes did an amazing job on the illustrations, making my silly words come to life. Thank you, Kara.

Hoping to have a paperback print copy with additional teaching pages available soon. UPDATE: Paperback book is now available on Amazon with the added bonus of additional pages to help reinforce learning basic numbers.

NOTE: All profits go the the charity Hearts of Gold Foundation to benefit needy families and children in Cuenca, Ecuador (our home for the next five years).

Staying connected.....

We are not moving to the Hinterlands of Zarnia, we are moving to Cuenca, Ecuador. Fortunately for us, we found Internet access is very available there, several companies offer the service and many apartment buildings provide it. There is a bit of free wi-fi as well. Since I am a writer, that's critical for me. But we also want to continue our blogs and stay in touch with family. Oh yeah, and visit Facebook. :)

We also want to keep things backed up so we have several portable hard drives for back-ups as well as storage of music, photos and movies. I use both Carbonite and DropBox to keep things backed up offline. DropBox is especially important for me since I use two laptops (my small one for writing and the bigger one for programs I don't have on the small one). Files are kept in sync between the two as well as my phone.

Since I can access the files on my phone, I keep important personal documents there. I can easily pull up a copy of our pup's shot record, a membership card, a travel itinerary, etc.  Comes in very handy.

Of course we don't know what will will get for a phone data plan when we get to Cuenca. Stu will bring his iPhone 4S (unlocked), I already have my iPhone 3G set up in Cuenca for phone/text only, and I'll have my Android which will probably get a pre-paid SIM card in the US.

We've got two Google Voice numbers which are working now, sending any calls to emails and texts. Those will be local numbers for folks back here in the US. We may get a MagicJack or some other VoIP system that will provide another way for folks in the US to call us without making an international call. We will have Skype, too.

So no, you won't lose touch with us when we move to Ecuador. We'll be CONNECTED!

A personal post...

I wanted to share the good news is that my first cozy mystery novel, Not a Whisper, is now live on Amazon. Remember, you don't need a Kindle to read it. Amazon has readers for computers, tablets, smartphones, etc. HERE. You can also download the free Klondike Kompanion and learn a little more about the main characters.

Soon I'll be starting book two in the series, Barely a Spark, due out this year. Please pass the word and for those of you that buy the book, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

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When Cherie Marshall catches her fiancé and best friend in a compromising position, she cancels her upcoming wedding and jumps at the chance to escape to quiet Klondike, Pennsylvania to care for her elderly aunt. She thought her biggest issue would be adapting to life in the middle of a National Forest, so very different from her upbringing in the deserts of Arizona.

But that was before she met State Trooper Fire Marshall Jamison "Jazz" Maddox at the scene of a mysterious fire. As they both become acquainted with the close-knit Klondike residents, things get complicated as Cherie and Jazz find themselves in the middle of a local crime wave where arson, kidnapping, embezzlement and a decades old murder are just the tip of the iceberg.

Mystery not your cup of tea? How about romance? You might want to try my romance novel, Home Again, available on both Amazon and Smashwords.