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Beautiful weather continues here. It is 83 right now, so DH and I were able to have coffee and scones on the sidewalk tables this morning. We brought several bags to drop off at the thrift shop, and bought a few things at 20% off, since it's seniors discount day on Monday. After that, we dropped off our old water heater at a recycle place. It was worth the effort to get it in the Explorer because they charged $10 vs the $75 our trash carrier would have charged.

In my texts back and forth with my primary friends in Brazil, I emphasized since we were coming for several weeks that we didn't expect them to drive us around every day or plan activities like they did for our 10 day visit several years ago. I'm glad I brought it up again, because my closest friend wrote a long email about how her financial situation was in tatters, and she was now taking the bus everywhere to save money, and she couldn't go out to eat etc. I think this was really weighing on her that she was going to disappoint us. Another friend is spending most of her time caring for her mother. After a few back and forths, I think they believe me now when I say we will be quite content to have a beer or a glass of wine with them at our little apartment or their condos and we have plenty of ideas about how to pass our time. But it did give me pause. Am I returning, looking for something that doesn't exist anymore? But it's also freeing in a way too, because there are some things I'd like to do, and things I'd like to show DH that might work better if it is just the two of us.

To that end, I think I have narrowed down our Air BnB choices to 2. Each has one small bedroom, livingroom, kitchen, balcony and a pool. One apartment is a bit nicer than the other and the pool is bigger, and on the 2nd floor. The other would be suitable too, but it is a bit smaller, and not quite as pretty, and it's a smaller pool, but it is on the roof, along with some other sitting areas. So that's kind of intriguing too. Either way, we could have fun. It will be the height of summer there in January, so if it's not raining, everyday is a pool day. : )

I thought I would do some replanting today, but it is so nice, and I'm way behind on reading that I think I will move out to the porch and settle in with my NYT paper, and a book I started weeks ago. Why? Because I can.

Your area of the world sounds wonderful. If we make it to California at some point we will have to seek it out.

My deceased DH didn't like making house offers contingent on the sale of ours because he felt that it weakened the offer so we were always prepared to do a bridge loan if necessary. The 2 times we bought and sold we had an offer accepted on the house we were buying before we put our house on the market so it was a real possibility that we would have to do that.

I've briefly looked into that! Good idea. I will dig deeper into that!

I bet waiting for your buyer's house to sell is indeed stressful. Praying it all works out!