¡Feliz Navidad y Prospero Año Nuevo!
Happy Holidays to All!
What’s up, y’all!
Haven’t written in a bit, but there hasn’t been much to say. Though it sounds exotic to pick up and move to a foreign country, as they say - wherever you go, there you are.
Now that we’ve gotten the stressful bits of moving here out of the way for a moment, it’s been nice to relax. There didn’t seem to be any point in writing you to say, “Today, I worked for my clients. gnob worked on his truck. Then, it rained. Then, it was hot again. Also, I went for a run.”
Pretty much the exact same thing that we did all year in the United States. I told many people before we left that this would happen. We were already living our dream life together, we just decided to go do it somewhere cheaper and warmer. And now that we’re here, we’re back to our normal, boring (for some) life.
I did do something abnormal last month. I called it “No-fiction November”. I didn’t read any fiction for the whole month, just like it sounds. It was difficult. Reading fiction has been my chosen way to escape from the world since I was 6. I’ve never deprived myself of it before, but I wanted to make progress on other projects, like getting residency in Paraguay, for example.
It was tough, especially when the new Jack Reacher book was on my Kindle for the last few days of November, but I managed to hold myself back until December 1 to read it. Of course, since then, I’ve read 13 other books of fiction to make up for it!🤣
And that is one of the reasons why I wanted to move here. Life is short, I don’t want to spend it in a windowless office with fluorescent lighting making money for someone else’s pockets. Here, I can pay my bills working 10 hours (or less) a week, and then I can spend the rest of my time outside, playing with my dogs, or reading a book, or wrestling with the novel that I am determined to get published one day.
gnob feels the same. He’d rather play his guitar than have to listen to one more pompous asshole talk down to him because he’s a “only” a mechanic, so obviously, he’s stupid. But now, he never has to hear it again.
Now that we’ve gotten comfortable, though, it’s time for the next step - find a piece of property to build a house on. Unless our dream house appears on the market, I think we’ll be building. We did confirm building prices, and they are as cheap as I’d heard! You can have a 1000sqft house built for $20,000. And I’ve seen 2.5 acre properties on the market for prices from $4,000 -$7,000.
First, though, we have to get through the holidays. It’s a little bit different here, that’s for sure. For one thing, the first day of summer was a few days ago. The kids have been out of school for a couple of weeks now, and they don’t go back until February. Because it’s summer break in December, which still feels weird!
Now, ask me how I know they got out of school a couple of weeks ago? Because there was a parade, and fireworks, and people singing in the streets. Apparently the last day of school is a huge celebration here.🥳
But that was just the beginning. From that day forward, through this very second, the fireworks have been nonstop. Day and night. They are beautiful, but some of them sound like cannons! gnob told me someone just drove by while throwing them out of their car window, and it doesn’t surprise me at all. They love their fireworks here! I imagine it will taper off after the holidays, but who knows? Maybe they do this all summer?!? 🎆🎇 I’ll keep you posted.
Here, Christmas Eve, or Nochebuena, is celebrated more than Christmas Day. Christmas Day is spent at home, recovering from the night before and eating leftovers. People are going to be up all night partying tonight, and at midnight, we have been advised to stay indoors.
This is because in addition to the fireworks, people like to shoot their guns into the air at midnight to celebrate. Everyone retreats indoors for a few minutes, you know, so as not to get hit by a falling bullet. Looking forward to that tonight, though in all honesty, we’ll probably already be asleep!😁
Here’s to 2025 - may all your dreams come true in this next year! And maybe by this time next year, our dream will come true, too, and we’ll be in a house of our own. Then you can come visit and see for yourself what a tranquilo paradise* Paraguay is.
Thanks for reading this week’s update! Feel free to use the button below to leave a comment or ask a question. We love to hear from you!
Have a great week!
*My phone constantly autocorrects Paraguay to paradise, I think it’s a sign.
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