Retire to Ecuador? Why not!

Moving shopping carts to the second floor, Ecuadorian style.

Heading out today...4 hour drive from Cuenca to Guayaquil, plane leaves close to midnight, arrive in Miami around 4am. Work our way through customs, pick up our rental car and get outta Miami quickly! Breakfast stop, then arrive in Vero Beach around 10-11ish. Two days with family before driving back to TN. Not sure when the next blog will be! ;) Most posts will probably be in our stateside blog - check us out/follow us there .

Malls the world around are pretty much the same

I should have posted this earlier but we were out shopping for gifts to take back to the US with us. It's been a hectic week as we try to figure out what needs to go back to the US with us. We leave later this week...WOOT! Excited to see everyone, and excited to attend my first ever writer's conference. (Check out my writing blog for more details). Many of you know I write fiction from time to time. Well, the first book in my Klondike Mystery Series is ON SALE! Here is the sale schedule: August 23, 2014 at  8:00 AM (PST)  20h     $1.99 61% August 24, 2014 at  4:00 AM (PST)  20h     $2.99 41% August 25, 2014 at 12:00 AM (PST) 20h       $3.99 21% August 25, 2014 at  8:00 PM (PST)  Original list price $4.99 CLICK TO BUY NOW Oh, you don't have to have a Kindle to read the book - check out the Kindle Reading apps for your PC, Mac, smartphone or tablet. Be sure to tell your friends about the sale - get it before it's back to full price!

Mercado Shopping

Some of you may remember Stu attending the creativity-inducing furniture workshop back in April. Here is a photo of the bench he painted for me! Well, he did it again! He started with a small round-top table and two chairs, all from Rotary Market. I had bought a small tablecloth to brighten the corner. Here is the work in progress and the final results - pretty nice, I think! He even added the compass points to the map of Cuenca on the table. Oh, remember that tablecloth? Well it got used to cover the chair seats. Perfection!!

The end of July we went on another outing. Our friends Soledad and Jim run sort of an Ecuadorian Cracker Barrel about 7km outside of town. We had been there early in our move here and had visited their new in-town store as well (no restaurant there). They sell furniture and other decor items as well as food products. They are the folks that got my sofa slide table for me! (We still love it). Back to the story, we all met at the in-town store, about 18-20 folks, shared some bubbly and snacks as we looked at their latest offerings. Soon the bus arrived and we all piled in. We sat in the back with the "kool kids" including our friends Jaci & Micki. Before we knew it, we were at Juana Vintimilla Gardens. Several of the folks had been there before and raved about it. A gorgeous setting with an amazing variety of flowers and other plants. I took a gazillion photos and have been assured the next time I visit I will see completely different views. You can see them all

Little Garden Shed

There has been a lot of talk about expatriating (a misused term since the majority don't give up their citizenship) lately, both here in Ecuador as well as in the US. Just as in the US and other countries, some folks like what they find, some don't. Expatriating  isn't for everyone. Paradise may or may not be around the corner. I know folks who sold everything, packed up and moved to a foreign country - sight unseen. More than half are still in their new homelands but more than a few have either moved on to another country or back to their original homeland. Others made multiple exploratory trips but still weren't happy once actually living in their new country. A good friend of mine recently posted a rant about transitioning to life in Ecuador and I thought it was worth sharing, with her permission. I occasionally run into people who say, "I've had it, Ecuador just isn't right for me". They proceed to glumly gather up all the remnants of th

Cuenca, Ecuador from Valdas Kotovas on Vimeo .