Sheep Guarding Llama

Monday. It is technically a holiday today in Managua, although we never learned what holiday it is supposed to be. The hotel was pretty busy all morning, though. We had over a dozen people all morning. We just keep doing so much better than expected.

I only did two miles with the dogs this morning. Sometimes we need a little break.

Dominica and I took the dogs for a walk together around noon and noticed that it felt super warm. It is only ninety three today, but Google says that it is a “feels like” one hundred and two. We noticed, for sure. In theory it is because rain is headed our way this afternoon.

I felt really tired much of the day today. It was a struggle to stay awake. I had plenty of coffee. Maybe I am not getting enough sleep.

I took Clive for a walk this evening just in time to see the sky get quite dark. So I ran out immediately after getting him home and brought in the chalkboard that sits out front and then grabbed the GoPro and went out to film today’s episode with the gorgeous storm rolling in.

We had quite a lot of rain come down this evening and it lasted for several hours. That cooled things off a lot.

I took an early break from work around five thirty to get dinner. Then it was a long evening of working for me.

This evening we had a crew working through the night to install a new sink in our bar. So our water was shut off around nine thirty. They only had it off for about an hour. But the new sink has a leak and they need to work on it again tomorrow night.

Late tonight I managed to get in my memory training session. It is so hard to get time to do meditation work. There is no thirty minute period of the day, even late at night, that kids and even employees don’t need me! Maybe that is why I am so tired!

I got to bed at a decent time tonight. Trying to get a full night’s sleep as I have been a little tired recently. Clive always getting me up at five thirty in the morning no matter what is going on can be exhausting as there is no way to adjust for more sleep.

I got my Spanish classes scheduled for the week. I was lazy about that. I have them the next three days then my memory training class on Friday.

Sunday. Up at five, but I convinced the dogs to chill until five thirty before needing to take them on our morning constitutional. It was a nice morning and we managed to do three miles (seven thousand steps) before returning to the hotel. A good walk down to Poneloya. We saw a number of people out at the cafes there and hanging out on the beach.

We had thirteen people in the restaurant when I returned, which was right as we were opening. So likely we were pretty busy even before we had officially opened for the morning! By mid-breakfast we were up to eighteen having already turned over one large table. That is not including us, which is another three.

Today is supposed to be very hot. Thirty six Celsius, which is ninety seven Fahrenheit. So today is a good day to hide in the office as much as possible. Both because it is hot and because the restaurant is busy and we do not want to be taking up space.

I did some work on the book today. The dogs were extra exhausted. Probably from the long morning walk and the general heat. I found out this evening that tomorrow is a holiday, perhaps only in Managua. So there are just tons of people here because of that. The restaurant was totally full for the entire day.

Surprisingly taking the dogs out to walk a few times at the peak of the heat did not really feel all that hot today. There is no question that being here for two and a half months we are starting to adapt for real.

I went out and did some SGL vlog videos to upload to YouTube. I’ve been a few days behind and I managed to all but catch up except that while recording the video for last Thursday the camera shut down from overheating! I was not outside for that long and the sun was getting low, but it was still too much for the length of time that I was recording.

This evening we decided that there was nowhere in our restaurant to even sit and that it would not make sense at all to eat at our own restaurant. While out walking Clive I noticed that Puesta del Sol was totally empty, not a single customer. So we ate there. They will be packed after our last table has left, so they are doing fine. They just do not get the crowd prior to sunset as they are not sitting on the beach. It is great that we have them on WhatsApp so I can just text over, discuss our inevitable special order with them, get the price, put together the cash, and walk over when everything is ready. So handy. As if living within shouting distance was not enough.

Luciana got the walnet and gorganzola rigatoni. My mother’s parents would be so proud to know that their ten year old granddaughter was living in Central America regularly ordering gorgonzola. It was their favourite.

Liesl was not in the mood for anything over there so is getting food from our own restaurant. We can at least do roomservice to keep from taking up space in the restaurant itself.

Dominica got rigatoni pomodoro, and I got seafood lasagna. I also ordered three pizzas and two orders of bruschetta for our crew who are working so hard tonight!

We ended up having to deal with a staff problem tonight. No fun, our first firing event since coming down here. Luckily we have a manager so we only had to deal with so much of it. But it is still stressful, especially when dealing with it in a touch economy like this. But it was a serious issue and clearly she knew that she was doing multiple things that were guaranteeing that she was getting fired sooner or later.

That made for a stressful night. So I stayed up late with Dominica and Ivonne having cosmos while they destressed.

Saturday. July is already over. Our time is Las Peñitas is going fast. We are now on two and a half months here. It feels like we just arrived. But, it also feels like we have been here for forever. It’s got quite a lot of “home” feel to it.

Today Liesl asked to start Unity (the game development platform) classes. She spent a few hours watching training videos on YouTube about it. I spent a few hours trying to get it installed on her gaming machine.

I had no real work today. It was great. Now that we have a weekend guy on staff it is making our lives so much easier. Not only do we have greatly improved overall company capacity, but we have coverage specifically over the weekends when traditionally I was stuck being on call and while things were generally not very hard on the weekends, getting suddenly interrupted so that I could never enjoy doing anything relaxing really wears you down.

This afternoon Liesl and I went out on our first photowalk together. I just used my OnePlus 8 phone with Ektacam to do more traditional street photography while she took the Nikon D90 with the 35mm f/1.8 prime (50mm equivalent) so that she could learn more about that. That’s the camera that she has been learning to use so that she gets the full control experience. She did colour work and I mostly did black and white. We had a lot of fun and walked rather a bit. We walked quite a bit through the barrio and to the south end of town past Barca de Oro where she has never been.

Liesl wants to go out and do photography a lot more often. She enjoys using the camera and going on the walks. It is a good way to get her out and walking, if nothing else. She is one that likes to just stay at home if at all possible. She’s pretty happy just hanging out in her room most of the time. So any voluntary outdoor activity is a big deal. Luciana wants to swim almost daily and wants to go to Carla’s pulperia at least a few times a week; and once in a while she will even walk the dogs with me at night when it is cooler. No one but me can handle their midday walk as it is just too hot.

It is amazing but I appear to be the only person here, Nicaraguan or otherwise, that does not instantly burn when going outside. Even all of the locals are amazed that I get no effect from the sun. I get hot, but not burnt at all. I really do not notice the sun in any way and I am outside more than almost anyone (because of the demands of the dogs.) I wonder if the insane amount of sweat that I generate from the top of my head acts like a sun barrier because it is always there and must impact the light passing through it.

This evening was some Genshin Impact with the girls. The three of us played for maybe an hour. We never get a lot of time to play. But I am steadily making just a little bit of progress. The girls did not have anyone come over tonight so it was a good night for us to hang out together. I have seen very little of them in the evenings this week because Michellez has been over so much and they are all so excited to have access to their big Steam gaming rig again and the Oculus VR system. Ivonne is really enjoying that, too.

I got to bed at a semi-decent time. My late night walk with the dogs went pretty long. We did about two miles before calling it a night. My watch has measured my month of July as coming it at just a hair over one hundred miles of walking! That’s a lot to keep up for a whole month. And I am not sure if that is tracking all of my walking or if it is only the time that I am running the GPS tracker, which is just a fraction of my overall walking time.

It is amazing how much I can just feel myself getting healthier being here. And we are making absolutely no effort to eat healthy food. Everything is just naturally healthier and there is almost no snacking or dessert. Having our own chefs means that we can order real food, including healthy food, and do not have to worry about how long it takes or the effort. Instead of going for chips because they are ready and I can just grab them quickly, I can text the kitchen and ask for a real meal, and ask for it to be delivered to my office. So I do not have to think about it again until it arrives and ready to be eaten. So I can just keep on working without having to involve myself in the food process.