I realize now that I’ve been remiss in posting lately. We’ve both been heads down working as much as we can to make up for a couple of unanticipated costs – which means long work weeks and little down-time. Luckily, progress is being made so it is easy to see where all the hard work is going. As I write this, I’m waiting for my work computer to boot up to snag a few hours today.
The glorious thing is that we’re both together – in the same place!!! I flew down the day after Thanksgiving and spent a sunny week down in Pescadero – mostly working, but I did get to see the progress of the house. Then we flew back up to Oakland together. The objective this year is to do the friend/family holiday tour and see as many of our family as we can, which manifests in a flight to Portland followed by a four-town road trip ending at my Aunt and Uncle’s house in Bellingham. It will be a bit challenging because we’ll both be working the entire trip, but I’m hoping for quiet spaces and good wifi.
On the homestead front, work is rapidly progressing. I’m not going to jinx it by mentioning the projected finish date, but we’ll say it is still sometime in the spring of 2018.
I’ll get to some pictures (we have a pool!!!), but first I thought you might be interested in how all the money changes hands. Everything is cash, and keeping the workers in pesos is a part-time job for Switch. Pretty much weekly, he writes himself a check from our US bank to deposit into his Mexican account. When he writes this check (in-person at the bank) his signature needs to match his passport signature exactly. I’ve heard this is also the case in other countries where you take a special class in elementary school to practice your signature. Sans that experience, signing just like you did in a moment in time over ten years ago is challenging to say the least.
Once the signature is accepted, it takes at least a week for the bank to clear the funds, after which we have to transfer the dollars into pesos. Then, it gets all gangsta when get handed a load of peso bricks (sometimes a whole backpack full) and take it to the builder. Fun times!
Okay – here are some pictures of our pool. Woohoo!
