The Slow Dash to the Finish

Mischelle and I have been here in Belize for ten days and time seems to have flown by. Mischelle had to leave yesterday for home, to take care of our four legged kids and to pay the bills that are due. It looks like it's time for me to start paying all our bills online so I get used to the process and make sure I don't miss any payments. We accomplished most everything we needed to do that, required input from Mischelle. Now it's up to me to finish all the details and make sure the work gets done. We enjoyed our last day at the Don Quixote and lounged around the pool all day. It was a nice way for Mischelle to finish her work trip.









That evening, it was over to the New Millenium for a few farewell drinks and dinner. Jorge is the bartender and waiter and his sister, Sara, runs the kitchen. Dependably good food for very reasonable prices. And it's the local meeting place during the week and weekends, except for Fridays, which are spent over at Smugglers Den.







Now that Mischelle has left, I have moved over to Bob and Martha's studio apartment in the village of Consejo. It's a nice, comfortable, safe place to stay, close to the work site. I've stayed here so many times, it's going to be strange once the house is finished. It's been my second home, in Belize.





Now it's time to make any last real changes, make sure everything is the way we want it and let the workers do their job. Our site foreman, Amir, and I are now on the same page and I feel he will get the job done right. I've added some small changes to the patio and pool area and where there are changes in colored stucco. It's all those little changes that only can take place during the last stages of construction. It's all fine on paper, the drawings, the computer simulation. But it's until you see the actual home, that you make those final, subtle changes, that can change the whole character of the home.







They have started applying white stucco to the outside pillars of the patio. The main house and retaining wall will begin next week when we receive the complete batch of colored stucco from Mexico. We have decided to go with a light, mint green stucco with white as the accent color. It should blend nicely with the surrounding colors of the vegetation and trees. It is also a different color scheme than the surrounding neighbors, so that even though it is a subtle color, it will stand out in the neighborhood, just as much as our neighbors that have the bright colors of Central America.










The cistern access openings were in the wrong location (in front of the pool steps), as I had seen in the pictures e-mailed me before we arrived, but have since been corrected and are going to be perfect in the new location. The pipes for the cistern intake have also changed from the patio area to the far outside corners of the house and when encased in block will look like pillars at the ends of the building. It's amazing look inside the cistern and to realize that basically you have a flooded basemant. Our "basement" cistern is a large room, that is eighteen feet by twenty feet large, and 10 feet deep. Over twenty thousand gallons.







With all this hard work, it was time to head back to the office. There was a "board" meeting that I had to attend. An exchange of ideas, things to come and to plan for the future.








It's Sunday tomorrow, so I will be able to rest from all this hard work and planning. But wouldn't you like to be here as a planning assistant?