It was exactly just a year ago today…

…that Colin suffered a stroke.  A stroke that left my dear husband totally paralyzed on the right side.  Fortunately he did not lose his speech. Unfortunately he used the power of the word often that first month about not wanting to keep living as he was. The medical team told us that Colin was lucky to be alive. That a stroke in this part of the brain has never been recorded in a patient in the medical books as ever having recovered. That if he lived he would be basically remain a vegetable. The doctor told Colin to go and buy a lottery ticket as he was very lucky.

It is because of Colin’s extremely strong mind and will power that he is walking today.  The guitar playing hopefully won’t be far behind. I never gave up trying to find the very best therapists. We spent everything we could on therapy and more and trying this and trying that. We seem to have found the perfect combination. One more year and Colin should be back to as normal as he ever will be.

Lots of resting between the tiring therapy sessions. The girls always sit with him.

Now we need peace and quiet and time to do want needs to be done.

Oops, one less doxie to pack!

But first we must get through the difficult week ahead of us. As you read in my last post the house in Kelowna, Canada has been sold. Tomorrow we meet with a Mexican notary along with our brand new ten year Canadian passports that recently arrived.  All the paper work will be properly notarized and sent back to our lawyer in Lake Country, B.C. whom have been ever so helpful to us. Completion on May 27th and possession is May 28th.

The smaller of the two iguanas teases the girls.

We have to be so very careful when opening the RV door so that there are no more battles. Can you see the iguana on the top of the fence post to the left of Carlie’s ear?

Meanwhile back here on Isla De La Piedra we are awaiting the arrival of a second potential buyer for our 45′ Monaco Signature RV. The timing of this buyer has caused some stress but it is good stress. Well can stress be good? Maybe I should say a positive stress because the stress is still physically painful and mentally challenging. It is a welcome stress but must be lived through to get to the end result.

Lots of fragiles to pack.

It takes me a few hours to get started but once I am on a roll – watch out!!  Let the packing begin. It seems that I all have been doing is packing storage totes and now large cardboard boxes. One even came with a scorpion, our first one. Fortunately Colin dealt with it before I saw it. It is rather amazing the amount of things we were able to ‘cram’ into this RV, so very much storage. Nice to have all that we brought from home. And in repacking I am not throwing very much out. Glad those difficult decisions were made the summer of 2024. As I said in my last post, we both had hoped to spend more time in the RV but it that was not in our future.

We had a medical appointment last Wednesday. For the first time in 16 years we were held up for 40 minutes by “that train”!  It blocks the road we have to cross from the ferry boat lancha to get a taxi to get into Mazatlan. The embarcadero is so close to the shipping docks that this train thing happens perhaps once per day. But this was a record long blockage. The doctor waited to see Colin. Mexico is great.

So suddenly we are having to pack up and move quickly. This potential buyer has not yet actually confirmed that he is arriving May 2nd but if he does and buys the coach he is planning to leave here on May 3rd and drive it back to the USA. He is not retired. The gentleman is actually selling his personal RV, today, April 27th.

The older sunset cruise boat.

Fortunately Colin and I had already rented a condo for May 1st. We had expected to move in slowly over the month but now we are moving in mere hours. It has been flurry of activity and planning  and arranging a multitude of details. The rental truck is booked for 2:00PM May 1st and so on and so on…..

And the very fancy newer boat.

But what you don’t know is that this move is only for 3 months!!!  The condo that we intend to live in long term is only available on August 1st. So we are moving into an Airbnb for 3 months in the same complex. Only we are moving into one tower of the complex this week. You guessed it  8O! We have to move yet again the end of July into the other tower. We figured it might take us 9 months to finally get organized 😮 Who else but us would move twice 😳 I know, I know – but it will be so worth it.

The blue line on the left is our 3 month rental commencing in only four sleeps while the red line on the right represents our long term rental starting August 1st.

It has been bit of a difficult several weeks as we have been low on water. It just stopped coming in from Mazatlan. We have it less days than we have it which makes it difficult to get all the laundry done that I had planned to do while packing.

Fortunately 90% of what I wanted to sell has sold which has been helpful. Especially as we are paying for rent for two locations the month of May.

We sold our UTV to a lovely family from Rosario.

Well I best get back to the packing….my priority –  but I needed a break so I posted.

Only four more sleeps.

Thank you all for waiting for me

I love you all and feel so bad about the dozens of you who were so very worried about us and who emailed and sent comments. Honestly our lives have been out of kilter – I really don’t know what words to use to describe the past several weeks. Quite the upheaval. It was beyond stressful and I often just did not eat ( no time ) and went to bed when exhausted. Not the proper way to lose 7 – 8 pounds, no time to weigh myself. Heck, I sometimes went 3 days ( and once 4 days ) without a shower. Just no time. I lived on the computer.

I had to force myself to get Colin’s pills sorted daily. And of course feed the twins, but Ciela is very certain to let me know when she wants to be fed. Perhaps she has been feeling the strain.  Many days she wanted 2 of her 3 daily feedings at the same time. She insisted that her tummy be full. Carlie is always hungry.

Oh my, I just peaked out the window and there is an outstanding sunset happening. But I am committed to writing this post so no photos.

Speaking of photos, I have files & files of events in photos to share with you including Carnaval fireworks and the parade. Do you want to see this or just move forward?

Not sure I can do this in any sequence.  I think I am simply going to express what comes to mind and move on from there. Hang on for the ride.

About three weeks ago, I purchased one of those grounding sheets you see all over Facebook. I LOVE it…..I am finally sleeping more than 45 minutes at a time. I have even slept up to 3 hours a few times during the night.

Oh….get to the point you are saying!!!!!!!  We are all well. But it has been beyond frantic. I will never be able to describe it all to you. However Carlie did have an adventure with an iguana, not once but TWICE. The first time she must have bit the critter as she had blood all over her muzzle. The second time the iguana took two chunks out of her side, Thank goodness we have the best vet in all of Mexico. She came first thing the next morning and brought 3 medications, I already had the pain pills on hand, thank goodness. Her charge was only 60.00 CAD including coming here on the launcha and the medications.  She was here this past Wednesday to check and the wounds are healing with no infections. No charge for that visit.

Colin thinks that by the time his foot is better we won’t have enough time left for RVing.  We also figured out that this is our last year for our temporal residency. So we would have to get rid of of RV within the next 10 months unless we import it, which is extremely expensive. But as Colin can no longer drive it right now, we had to make a very difficult decision. The RV was put up for sale on the Monaco RV website.

We will import/nationalize our 2015 Jeep but that will cost us $4000.00USD.  We would rather keep our vehicle than buy a used vehicle here in Mexican that we have no idea how reliable it is. But we still have time to get that done. Tons of research and phone calls just on this alone.

And of course we had to deal with our Canadian taxes, due the end of April. Done and paid.

Oh and then I realized that our Canadian passports were expiring early May. Colin did that research. We had to go somewhere in the middle of nowhere to get passport photos. Then Colin even went on his very own into Mazatlan to the Canadian Consulate to make sure we had crossed every T!  We had not.  Semana Santa was in the middle of all of this. Today  ( a full month later ) we got our new ten year passports, very nice booklet, but no comment on the passport photos 🙁

We were very anxious to receive these passports as they were required at a meeting here with a Mexican notary to sign the documents re the sale of our house.

Yes we finally sold our home on the beach in Kelowna  😀

A huge amount of time online has been spent on the sale of this house.  I think that it might have been easier to give birth to twin dachshunds 😳  So many back & forth with the buyers, the realtor and the lawyer and so and so on and so on. As of this past Monday, I believe that all is well and the sale will proceed with the closing on May 27th.

Enough said…..

Oh yes!!!!  We had listed the RV 😎  Lots of back and forth but the RV is here in Mazatlan and the buyers are in the USA. Then suddenly a very bright and promising light appeared. A lovely fellow “M” from Colorado actually flew down here with his friend. We had nothing to hide as I have always been totally honest on this blog and “M” wife found my blog. Good for her.  “D” I loved your gift and wished I could have met you in person. M and his friend Joe ( did that medication help ? ) were so delightful. They went thru the RV with a fine tooth comb. It took a few weeks to get the final news, but M & D decided to go in a different direction and did not purchase our RV.  Honestly it hurt but M was open and explained that they liked our RV but their life took a turn. Good luck to the three of you.

Not too many days later we got an email……hey – now do you understand why I have been totally busy online and not able to post???

We will find out early next week, but it appears that yet another fellow might be flying in to purchase our RV.

We wake up every morning to new things that come out to be dealt with. Seriously no time to eat nor shower…

The plan was for us to get the RV moved to Arizona in August but people are interested and want to see it in Arizona. So with a huge amount of effort on Colin’s part a plan was made to transport the RV to Arizona mid May.

What????????????????

Where will we move to and when and how??? We were to be here a year and had to tell with our landlords ( they love us and cried ). We thought we would leave in August.

Suddenly we have secured an apartment for 3 months beginning  May 1st, because of the RV being sold.  The place we were hoping to get and WILL get is only available August 1st.  Definitely tons of online effort.

So It appears to me that we have a place to move to on May 1 BUT the RV is not yet sold . Nor has the Kelowna house sold yet. Are you beginning to understand that we are living hour by hour as well as day by day!!

And that is just the top ten items…

Dozens more that I am dealing with….hour by hour.

Oh, I have been selling our things including patio furniture  and plants and anything else you can think of.  Stuff we will no longer need as we will be living in an apartment.

It took us a long while to come to terms with selling the RV, to having to leave the Isla and so on. However we have had 16 winters here on Isla de la Piedra. As you know our hearts are here, but logically it is time for a change. We have to move because of our permanate – we can no longer live in the RV.  It certainly hit us hard once we realized the truth. But with Colin not being able to drive the RV right now, it was time for a change.

Neither of us can use the Playa Sur embarcadero which is a short walk away. So we have to drive to the main embarcadero  and cross the shipping channel each and every time he needs to see a medical person and take Didi / Uber. That often adds an hour in each direction. Very tiring.

In the past 5 or 6 weeks we have added a few new therapists. The reflexologist was good for a few weeks as long  she worked on his feet, which was her specialty. Then one day she worked on his hands and created a great deal of pain. end of that. Then a wonderful person came to us with her special therapist Sebastian. He is a kinesiologist and our chiropractor was  ecstatic that we found him…..he is the only one in Mazatlan. Our chiropractor plans to use him for his clients.  Long story short, Sebastian has made a HUGE improvement to Colin’s ability to walk. He is here twice per week, plus we have physiotherapy weekly ( she is the best ever ) and we see the chiropractor biweekly.

Yup, we are busy and we sold the house ( which involves a lot of things that I refuse to go into other than to say they are time consuming  ).  Hoping to sell the RV next week.

Meanwhile we have started to pack our personal times within the RV.

I apologize re falling behind in my blog posts.  I honestly did not have free time to update you. I was just trying to survive each day and figure out how to feed us.

Truly I have no idea how the next 3 weeks will be   – we don’t even have a move day yet.

But once we are get moved I can promise you sunsets like you have never seen. And I will do my best to post at least once per week until we move. You are my family ( we have no other ) and you mean the world to me. Please stick with me for a few weeks longer. Doing the very best I can……

 

😥