Iridescent echo ❤️🇺🇾❤️

I can't go back to the US given my circumstances even for a short visit.
But I'll be ok and my cousins will be ok. We'll use zoom, writing, art, music, etc to fill the space between us all. ❤️

My mother's sister is not doing well. Similar to my mother's end of life, she is suffering from severe dementia and can't remember her daughter most the time. I just want to be there for my cousin the way she was there for me when my mom died.

That music isn't going to listen to itself

Just speaking for myself, sometimes it's hard to know if the greatest thing is being single or being out of the US.
🤸🏻‍♀️❤️🇺🇾

There's definitely a difficult bridge to try and find/create for my kids who are not ready to jump into a fully Spanish speaking school/university but aren't finished with school. I'm trying to navigate all of it, listening to others in kind of the same situation, trying to sus out schools, etc.

Happy Valentine's Day to all the happily single moms out there!! ❤️

Here it is Carnival weekend and everyone's off Monday and Tuesday. I'm just healing my foot in favor of better times to come.

I think we can agree Bad Bunny was amazing ❤️

I pass on opportunities to go see the music and dance associated with the Uruguayan Carnaval because of my foot which is still not better. :( But anyway here's some cool information about it if you're interested!
uruguaynatural.com/en/farmoreta...

It tastes like a habanero too! 🔥

A yellow orange habanero

My first pepper grown on my balcony. The gal who gifted me the plant said they were jalapenos but it seems like a habanero!?

Because of the way the windows and building is where I live, I can't install air conditioning anywhere except one bedroom that's not mine. And so I'm trying to sleep, wearing as little as I can stand, with my ceiling fan on high plus a floor fan pointed right at me on full blast. And I'm still hot.😑

Got a paper today for my teen to go to school here this coming year. Still very tentative and we have a lot to learn about how that will work with the language barrier. We have other irons in the fire too!

(It details a decrease in price for 2 different procedures.)

It's a letter that is informing members of two cost reductions for 2 procedures: laparoscopic prostatectomy and laparoscopic nephrectomy, by 24% and 38% respectively.

Just randomly got this notice from my healthcare provider. I have never seen a letter like this in my life. (My phone translated it.)

Yes! She's been over a few times now and we plan to keep playing!
❤️🎻❤️

Before I left the US, I had finally gotten around to putting up my family pictures in our home. For packing reasons, I had to take most of the pictures back out of their frames. So I had to start all over here. It's been a *long* process but yesterday I hung them all and I feel great about it!

SALE - Annual Subscription 40% off, now through December 31 for The Conscientious Emigrant Happy End-of-Year Activities!

Thinking about emigrating out of the US, and care about your impacts abroad?

Start here.

The Conscientious Emigrant newsletter, currently on SALE.

SALE - Annual Subscription 40% off, now through December 31 for The Conscientious Emigrant

open.substack.com/pub/theconsc...

They really are the nicest people.
❤️🇺🇾

Instant cringe when I realize how many times I've accidentally said the Spanish equivalent of "very thank you" 😬 And I know better, it just comes out!

But then I thought of it like it's like your favorite season AND it's several fun holidays at the same time. Which is good actually!?
So we are decorating our solstice tree with summer things instead. Does it make perfect symbolic sense? No but we can just appreciate the chaos and enjoy.
☀️⛱️🍓🇺🇾🎄
3/3

And I've always loved summer. We missed summer coming here in March. We did 2 fall/winters in a row and here's summer and I'm really happy about it but until lately I was feeling conflicted with the holidays. 2/3

We always celebrated the "winter holidays" as actual winter holidays, complete with symbolism of the coming longer days, appreciating the silence and rest we get from winter. So here we are in the middle of these holidays plus Summer Solstice. 1/3

I can see definite obvious tangible improvements in my kids' mental health now that we have been here for a bit. It's taken a lot of talking and medical care and work and everything isn't perfect but I'm so glad to see the trajectory even if it's messy sometimes. #leavingtheus

A thing I learned yesterday is if you order a new lamp on Mercado Libre and put it together and it has an American plug, that's actually ok, but if the bulb it came with is 120V instead of 230V, it will knock out the power in your entire apartment! #themoreyouknow #leavingtheus
(All is ok now!)

I found out today I got permanent residency!! Yay!
❤️🇺🇾❤️

YouTube video by Brad Kolodner Baltimore Old Time Jam - Cumberland Gap

Old time (not bluegrass)
youtu.be/4cSAMAsO01Y?...
Also I play Scandinavian trad dance music (I play nyckelharpa and fiddle) but I have no expectations to find that here 😸

I remember playing till I was so tired I was playing my 🎻 vertically like a cello and it didn't matter if it was perfect because there were other strong fiddlers and it all sounded great. Oh, Ohio. Good times.

I miss playing music with my Ohio peeps, it's something I haven't found since I left there. I'm sure it exists in Boston, just didn't have time to find it there. It doesn't exist here.

A thing I've noticed is some people come here to Uruguay and then decide to go back to the US. The reasons are varied; not everyone moved here for the same reasons or have the same circumstances. (This will not be me, just saying it happens!) #leavingtheus

My kids expressed an interest in getting musical instruments recently and I would like everyone to know that I played it so cool and anyway today we went and got them a uke and a kalimba. ✨