Dad brought Bob a Highland Brewing Company beer, which made Bob very happy. This evening, Bob brought the beer to the proper temperature, uncapped it, and took a blissful swig.
I had never had a margarita, so when Bob and I went to the beach a few months ago, I ordered me one.
I quite enjoyed it.
So when we went to Grenada last week, I ordered another one.
And I enjoyed it even more.
However, when I had another one the next night, and a third one on the third night, they deteriorated steadily.
And we just went out for dinner with Dad here in town, and I ordered one, and all I can say is, it's a good thing it wasn't my first, else none of this would have happened.
I can only conclude that I need to hook up with someone who has experience tending bar, and learn to make my own.
Or, you know, maybe tomorrow.
Today I got my NC Driver's License Out of State Renewal by Mail packet and it all looks doable. Mostly just forms to fill out, and I have to get a local vision test.
This is the 1500th post on this here blog, how about that.
We´ll see about this not having Internet at home thing. I almost passed up coming in to the café today because I didn´t feel like going out in the afternoon, and by the time we finished diner and a movie (¨Star Trek: First Contact¨ - sorry, Spanish keyboard and it´s too much trouble to find the codes for italics), it was 8:30 pm and I didn´t really feel like going out again. But what with the Blog365 thing and everything, I decided to go ahead and do it. We´ll see if that sentiment wins out every time.
No word on the phone thing (prerequisite for the Internet thing), but assuming there´s no actual technical problem like there was in the other neighborhood, it should happen within a couple of weeks.
So we didn´t do all that shopping I said we were going to do yesterday; turns out New Year´s Day is a pretty serious holiday and all the stores were closed. Well, except for the ice cream shop. That was open :)
Today we did a lot of the hardware store shopping, including actual light fixtures to replace the bare bulbs in our four rooms, a shower caddy for our shelfless, towel barless, toilet paper holderless bathroom, and some wood for the first two projects: shelving over the toilet and a base for the birdcage.
By the time we got home, however, we were both worn out and spent most of the rest of the day hanging out and playing computer games (although we did install the first light fixture, which went well and works fine, despite Costa Rica´s approach to household wiring. [By which I mean, we made an educated guess as to which of the two white wires was the ¨black¨wire and got it right on the first try.])
So tomorrow will be the big Getting Things Done day - Bob building and me sewing - and today is...well, pretty much over.
We cleaned out the upstairs apartment and dismantled our personal Internet café yesterday, so in a sense the last night of 2009 was our first night fully moved.
I dropped the girls off up the hill after lunch, and we had a quiet evening at home. We watched The Sixth Sense, which I had never seen, and tried to play a couple of computer games together, but one wouldn´t work right, and one was too complimicated for me to learn it all in one night. We played around with The Sims for a while, then had some cookies and eggnog and went to bed around 11:30, secure in the knowledge that we wouldn´t miss the new year.
And we didn´t. Fireworks are legal here, and our little cul de sac didn´t hold back. They went on for a solid half hour, by my count, but maybe more because we did eventually fall back asleep.
This morning we took down the Christmas tree and decorations, so the living room is ready for whatever ends up being its first semi-permanent furniture arrangement.
We´re at the [public] Internet café now, and then heading over to the hardware store to get some minor construction supplies, some screening to see if we can´t fashion a cat-proof carport area, and maybe price some paint, because the landlord had the main walls painted, but they didn´t finish the edging, and they didn´t touch the bathroom or the aquamarine doors (and not the good kind of aquamarine), and there´s no molding around the ceiling, so there are roller marks all around the edges. We may need to tweak it all a bit.
We watched Wall-E today, and figured out which kinds of bags I'll be making for the girls, and that we'll make peanut butter cookies this evening.
Now I'm here to check the mail and check on the house & dog & guinea pig-sitting situation here on our old street, then off to buy peanut butter and stop by the thrift store to get some more jeans for with which to make the girls' messenger bags.
Looks like the garage area (yes, Dad, there is one) is pretty well closed in, structurally speaking, so we're thinking we may be able to put some screen on the wire and then we can keep the front door open without letting the cat all the way out. We all think that would be a good thing.
I texted our meter number to the phone company guy at the start of business today; no response yet, but I did see utility trucks out and about today, so at least they're open for business and whatever has to happen can now proceed to do so.
And, that's about all I have to say, what with it being vacation and all. Not a lot going on.
Posting a few photos at last. Christmas, after all the hectic and tiring and overwhelming that led up to it, was lovely. The tree was...well, okay. The girls liked their presents, we sat around and watched A Muppet Christmas Carol and napped and played with the new toys and the cat (and made new toys for the cat) all day. Just like it's supposed to be.
Then we even found a grocery store open in the evening, so there are cookie ingredients for tomorrow and everything we need for dinner & breakfast.
Now we're here to check email and post (and say hi to the new neighbors starting to move in downstairs), and then back home.
Look! Space! Yes, the shelves in the bedroom and the space under the bed are packed solid, but the living space is totally livable. We actually have a table. At which to eat and do puzzles, even if other people are home and wanting to do other things. At the very same time.
...which is have all our stuff (except this here computer, plus a chair and small table) in the new house.
An added benefit to that is that I now know the new place won't get any more crowded with boxes and stuff. It can only improve from here.
We hung some quilts on the wall (provisionally, where there were already hooks) and it made a big difference in the bedroom especially, which had been starkly functional until now, and I don't mean that in a good way.
I'm not feeling very Christmasy, what with all the work we've done and still need to do, but knowing the move itself is behind us is, truly, what I wanted and I got it.
Now I'm back here at the online computer to do my Christmas shopping for the girls. It's not as bad as it sounds, though. I have their stocking gifts all bought and wrapped, but the other gifts I want to give them have online components.
One is a membership to an online computer game they love playing, so I need to find out the terms they offer so I can decide how many months they get, and also find something to print out and wrap up to actually physically give them.
The other is that they'll be home with me most of the next week, so I thought a good gift that I wouldn't have to deal with before Christmas would be to find simple sewing patterns for a purse (for Robin) and a tote bag (for Julia) and let them pick the fabrics from my stash and help me make them.
So I need to find some patterns for them to choose from and, again, something to print out and wrap.
And the final thing is to bake cookies together over the coming week, but I can look up recipes for that in my cookbooks (which finally got moved today), or online when the time comes. I have cookie cutters and some of the specialty ingredients (chocolate chips and sprinkles) so there's something for them to open in connection with that.
Bob's giving the whole Christmas Tree In A Land Without Tree Stands thing some thought, and we'll cobble together whatever he figures out when I get home. I bought some ornaments (Costa Rican grocery stores gather all their Christmas stuff in a 1/4 aisle and mark it 70% off several days before Christmas, it turns out), and we made some, and they can do popcorn strings if we all feel up to it.
So.
Gotta go gooping. (That's googling/shopping, you see.)
Merry Christmas, y'all.
I stopped by the place on the way to work this morning and there was a little old man with a big long roller who had already painted half the walls by 8:00 a.m.
Bob stopped by on his way home from work just now, and he said all the walls are painted, so the guy will be doing the edging tomorrow.
He was really nice this morning, and I'm sure we can take the girls over to see it, and maybe run a few carloads over in the afternoon, once he's finished a room or two.
I carried a dozen boxes down to the garage while Bob was at work, but I can't really tell yet how it's going to go. There are empty shelves and things, but there's still a lot more to do.
The girls were all excited when I brought them home this afternoon, so I gave them each a suitcase and let them put things into them; that lasted about 15 minutes, but at least they have their part, and can do more of it if they get the urge.
For a family that's fixing to move less than a week before Christmas, we're ticking along pretty calmly here.
I took my commute on ... I think it was Monday ... to get myself from "How on EARTH am I ever going to get the girls presents they'll like and care about for Christmas?" to a simple, realistic and pleasing plan for how to do exactly that.
I shopped for stocking stuffers on my way home from work for the last couple of days, and I'm wrapping them this evening. I've also picked up a couple of immediate essentials for the new house, like an on-demand heater for the shower (most Costa Rican homes, including the one we're moving to, have no centralized hot water) and a pack of compact fluorescent bulbs. For the most part, the things we're going to have to acquire will come afterwards: curtains by me and some extra table/shelf action by Bob are the main ones.
We can't get a tree till after we move, so there's no dealing with that till next week. We've made a bunch of Moravian stars to decorate it with, we can string some popcorn, and I'll buy some lights and red balls. Voila, pretty, homemade tree.
The neighbor who sold us Bob's fridge when he moved here actually wants it back, so we don't have to figure out how to sell that or whether to move it.
I don't see doing a whole lot of packing until this weekend, since it's such a nearby thing and we can take the small stuff over ourselves either before or before and after the furniture goes on Sunday. Not like everything has to be boxed on a deadline for someone else to deal with.
The things I most want to have taken care of, aren't really in my hands. I was worried about scheduling with the girls while I'm off work, so I wrote the email that needed to be written, and now I just need to wait for a response. I'm a little concerned about the painting in the house, but it all sounded really good on Tuesday. Hopefully there's no problem there.
So...I guess I'll just get back to wrapping the stocking stuff and maybe make sure the wine from the other night hasn't gone off.
Came back to add:
I realized after I hit Publish, got the wine, and went back to the wrapping that the reason having a glass of wine while wrapping the gifts felt so right was that, nine years ago about this time, I was wrapping Christmas presents with Mom in my apartment in High Point, and she offered to pour us some wine. I only had a little because the big present we had for everyone that year (which Mom of course didn't yet know) was the news that I was expecting Julia, who was born the following August.
We tried a new restaurant this evening; they've been building it for ages, and we actually tried to go a couple of months ago, but it wasn't open yet.
It was brave of us to try, because this was happening again, and...well, let's just say you wouldn't want to be on the road if that were true.
ANYway, the food was good (mine was; apparently Bob's was VERY VERY VERY VERY good) and the ambiance was very nice, and Self Conscious Waiter was self conscious, but also very attentive and friendly.
Then we stopped by the house (which showed no signs of paint or pre-paint processes, but one must have faith, mustn't one?) and talked about where to put things and who gets what room and stuff.
And now we're home and Bob made dark chocolate pudding and we're waiting for that to chill while I talk myself into making the baked treat I had planned to make for my boss's birthday tomorrow, even though I'm all full and ready to just sit on the couch and watch Friends.
Well, the phone company is definitely making strides in and about this neighborhood - I passed sub-contracted phone company minion dudes working on the lines when I left for work this morning, and again when I got back home. I nearly had to forgo posting this evening because the Internet went out early today (Bob was offline by the time I got to work this morning), and only just came back on about half an hour ago.
Again, very glad we requested the phone line transfer before this started happening, and also glad it's going on, since the new house is less than a mile from the old one, and maybe all this Progress will trickle down to that neighborhood and result in us actually having a phone sometime soon.
And on that topic, we're now the proud renters of The Other House. The contract the owner prepared was entirely reasonable; I was taken aback to see "three years" in the first clause, but it turns out (which Bob actually knew and told me) that rental contracts are three years by law. But the owner added some more text that effectively made three years the maximum period (I'm sure it could be renewed if everyone were happy three years down the road), and he added a clause a the bottom that actually makes seven months the minimum, by stating that we would lose our (one-month) deposit if we move out within the first seven months. That's entirely reasonable.
So we signed the contract and paid the first month, AND, it turns out the owner is still going to paint. He said he has 10 houses he rents out, and the guy who works for him just finished painting one, and is ready to do ours starting tomorrow. So we told him "white" and let him know that we'd like to take some carloads over on Saturday and move the major stuff on Sunday, and we think that's all going to work out just fine.
We also ascertained that eight of his ten houses have three bedrooms, and asked him to let us know if a 3BR should become available at any point.
We also gave him a papaya, which seemed to go over well.
The children and their local grandparents have now seen and approved the house, and apparently the landlady got our letter giving notice on the second apartment last night, because there's a For Rent sign on our gate now. My neighbor down the street knows a community group that might want to buy our soon-to-be-spare refrigerator, and the phone company work order has been posted at the new place. I've spoken with the next door neighbor a few times now, and she seems very nice. There are seven houses on the cul-de-sac and at least three of them have very young children. Pamela, next door, is five and an only child. Michael, across the way, didn't want to eat his hot dog the day we were seeing the house for the first time, and was threatened with having his kiddie slide taken apart - apparently for the second time that day. Two children of maybe four and six were at the next house after Pamela's when we stopped by today. No sign yet of older kids.
The owner was ... he seems nice enough, but I think communicating with him is going to be a learned skill. When we first saw the house, I asked if it would be okay with him if we painted, and his response was, "What do you mean?"
...How do you clarify "is it okay if we paint the walls?"
When I went back to pay the deposit, he asked again, "What were you trying to say about painting it?" So I said we meant that we would buy the paint, and we would do the work, and then he wanted to know what color. I said white or cream, and he wanted to know what I meant by "cream". After a while I think he accepted that by "cream," I didn't in fact mean "vermilion with chartreuse tiger stripes" and, as I say, he seemed to indicate that he would do the painting. There was (needless to say) some conversation about which walls we might be talking about (Umm. The ones with all the fingerprints on them from the previous tenants? IOW, all of them?) I can only assume that whatever he does will be this weekend, since we start renting as of the 15th.
So, the question of the hour is, when do we move? We can either do it over next weekend and early Christmas week, and have Christmas there, or we can hold out and have Christmas here (which would mean putting up a tree, like, NOW), and move the week between Christmas and New Year's.
The girls are in complete agreement that WE SHOULD MOVE NOW. TODAY. WHEN CAN WE GO SEE IT AGAIN??? And Bob and I are shuffling through the factors to decide what'll actually happen.
So we spent most of the day playing the Harry Potter game (it took the three of us most of the day to get Julia's Harry past the Flipendo level) and drawing temporary tattoos on each other. (Well, okay. Mostly it was me drawing them on everyone. Robin got a butterfly and Julia got a parrot and I got a purple gecko.)
And then while I was cooking dinner they started calling from the living room, but I was all cooking eggs and not about to leave them to go look at the computer, and when I finally did, it turned out something had...happened.
The entire display was rotated 90º clockwise. And the children were still playing the game.
I put an end to that, took them in the kitchen and fed them dinner, then came back out to see what there was to see. I posted a jokey little complaint on Facebook, then restarted the computer to fix the problem.
Except.
It didn't fix. Windows came up and said, "Hey, your resolution and color depth are pretty low, how's 'bout I fix that for ya?" And I said sure, and it did. But apparently Windows had no issue with the whole having-to-crane-your-neck-90º-to-the-right-in-order-to-get-your-hand-eye-coordination-to-work-enough-to-put-the-mouse-where-you-want-it thing.
I tried a few things, complained on Facebook again, and eventually went for help. Bob came up and tried a few things, then helped me turn the monitor on its side (which looked weirder than you'd think - I took a picture but I don't feel like downloading it right now) and then he went downstairs to Google it for me.
Then he came back upstairs and fixed it, yay, the end.
Today is rent day and, as such, the only opportunity to give notice on one or both of the apartments until next rent day.
We went to see a house that was available on Thursday, and at the time we weren't very impressed with it. I described it as "adequate", and we let the owner know we were going to keep looking around.
Last night we talked over the options and decided that, while it really isn't The One True House, it would in fact do nicely as a transition from two apartments to all living together, en route to all living together in a more pleasant space and hopefully somewhere that the girls can each have their own rooms.
Except, when I called the owner this morning to see if it was still available, it wasn't.
Fortunately, Bob measured the rooms and some of the furniture this morning and we determined that we can fit everything into one of these two apartments. It'll be tight, but we're ready to both A) All live in the same place and B) Spend a lot less on rent each month.
And that way when we do find something, we won't be paying for three places for the first month.
So, that's the update on that.
And now for something completely different:
We had our second Thanksgiving today. Both versions were really enjoyable. The one on Thursday was everybody from the office, plus families [except for Bob :( ], very intimate and relaxed. Then today was larger, with good friends I haven't seen for a while, and some others who I don't yet know that well. There was talking quilts and talking shop and talking Facebook. And a very slightly naughty joke or two. (I told this one. I'd tell you the one that Dan told, but it doesn't lend itself to text.)
© Blogger template 'Personal Blog' by Ourblogtemplates.com 2008
Back to TOP
