First, I do appreciate woot.com. That should be said. I borrowed all of these links from their linking blog.
Second, I've been talking about how spas should have a treatment where fish exfoliate your skin because it feels so cool. You can have your free exfoliation many places along the sawmill river, or apparently you can go to a spa in DC for fishy exfoliation like you can get in Turkey and other Asian countries. http://www.cnn.com/2008/LIVING/homestyle/07/21/fish.pedicure.ap/index.html and there's a picture at cuteoverload.com
Finally, I really liked these pictures and think some of my teacher friends might use them to inspire some arty learning, since I'm not sure how I'll use them next year in my math teaching capacity. http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/ecology/30-most-incredible-abstract-satellite-images-of-earth
I am the queen of the almost done project
In the last couple of days I've gotten the little bathroom toilet removed and most of the rest of the flooring put in. There's a 2 inch gap at the back of the room and frankly, that can wait until after we get back from Costa Rica now that I've taken out and re-set the toilet. That was an adventure. I've almost finished priming the entire shed. I only have to do the window frames to be totally primed which means today I'll do that and then hopefully get started on painting the entire thing. Oh, and I have to put the doorstops in and get the door to a place where it can open more easily. Hanging doors is way harder than you think it's going to be. Unless you think it's hard. I can only think of one project that I haven't even started. Everything else is almost done. And if that doesn't make you breathe easier, I don't know what will. Then again, I still am worried about not being able to "finish" everything before we leave...
Shed Photos
Here are those shed photos Annie was too lazy to post. Intentionally, but somewhat awkwardly, the shed is more attractive than our house. 
Not much we can do about that, but we'll paint the house a pretty red color when we get back from Costa Rica.
The Shed, etc.
I've finally gotten almost all of the shed ready for the big move of everything into it. I still have to put the door stops on the door frame, and I've only just started priming everything, but it does feel quite good to be almost there. now if it could just cool off a bit so I can work for a longer period without practically dying, that'd be great. So there. I'll put up some pics once I get it painted, probably. Unless jor takes some and posts them herself.
cars, etc.
So, we looked at the IRS information about donating cars and it's less of a good thing than it used to be. That means that we're selling the 98 white subaru legacy wagon too. It's got stuff wrong with it visually that doesn't really affect how it runs, and about 150k miles on it. Only one owner - jordan - and she took pretty good care of it. Let us know if you know of anyone...
Otherwise, today we figured out that with our upcoming brief trip to Burlington, we weren't likely to have enough time to send our Coris back to Boston to get certified before we sent them to New York to get authenticated by the Costa Rican consulate and get them back before we left. And that meant an impromptu trip to Boston. The good news is that it only took 15 minutes once we got there and we were lucky with parking in the center of Boston because I could stay in the car in our illegal spot that wasn't double parking. And the other good news is that since we were feeling so good about how well it went that we wandered in the North End for a while and brought back cannoli for people (including me). I do love me some cannoli.
Random musing: when you're living in tight quarters, tenement style, do you have a good relationship with the persons on the other end of your clothesline? Do you share or do you each have one that connects on the other's domicile? This is what we wondered about while wandering. I do rather like wandering.
Otherwise, today we figured out that with our upcoming brief trip to Burlington, we weren't likely to have enough time to send our Coris back to Boston to get certified before we sent them to New York to get authenticated by the Costa Rican consulate and get them back before we left. And that meant an impromptu trip to Boston. The good news is that it only took 15 minutes once we got there and we were lucky with parking in the center of Boston because I could stay in the car in our illegal spot that wasn't double parking. And the other good news is that since we were feeling so good about how well it went that we wandered in the North End for a while and brought back cannoli for people (including me). I do love me some cannoli.
Random musing: when you're living in tight quarters, tenement style, do you have a good relationship with the persons on the other end of your clothesline? Do you share or do you each have one that connects on the other's domicile? This is what we wondered about while wandering. I do rather like wandering.
stuff to lend, stuff to sell
We have stuff that we need to get rid of, temporarily or permanently. Here is a big list. If you want to borrow, buy or just get some of this stuff, let us know.
Things to Lend Out While in CR
* sewing machine
* typewriter
* tools
* non-gas non-electric plain old push lawnmower
* gas grill
* guitars
* bouzouki
* cats
* plants
* queen sized bed & normal sized futon that folds couchlike
* various other furniture
We are selling my green 2001 Toyota Corolla with 70k miles. It gets mid 30s mpg all of the time and if you are a hypermiler, you can probably get more, but I'm still learning. Blue book is $5500 and it comes with a cd player and good speakers up front. I've also got snows for it, but I might just sell them.
The couch needs to go, but I'll probably just freecycle it. I've also got a broken electric bass (just the electric parts are broke) and a broken mandolin (not remembering what's up with it, but it might be neck related).
Things to Lend Out While in CR
* sewing machine
* typewriter
* tools
* non-gas non-electric plain old push lawnmower
* gas grill
* guitars
* bouzouki
* cats
* plants
* queen sized bed & normal sized futon that folds couchlike
* various other furniture
We are selling my green 2001 Toyota Corolla with 70k miles. It gets mid 30s mpg all of the time and if you are a hypermiler, you can probably get more, but I'm still learning. Blue book is $5500 and it comes with a cd player and good speakers up front. I've also got snows for it, but I might just sell them.
The couch needs to go, but I'll probably just freecycle it. I've also got a broken electric bass (just the electric parts are broke) and a broken mandolin (not remembering what's up with it, but it might be neck related).
Video calls
I hope y'all are setting up your Skype accounts (skype.com) so we can call and video conference for free through our computers. It's super fun and a little weird like the Jetsons. If you have an account please email it to one of us so we can be in touch and see your face when we miss you.
paperwork
At this moment, I'm officially sick of trying to figure out which forms I need to send to which offices and how much they'll charge me for the privilege of stamping my paper from a different office to say that it's real. So there. That's what I have to say.
Marketplace is a lovely radio program.
And now they've added a lovely interactive game to edumacate people like you and me about the US budget. It's way harder to make a national budget than it is to decide about which kind of cheese you're going to buy.
Play Budget Hero
Play Budget Hero
Moving to Costa Rica
We went to Costa Rica for vacation in February and by the third day were saying to each other, "We need to find a way to live here." Within a few weeks, Annie had gotten a job as a math and science teacher for grades 5-8 at the Monteverde Friends School. We never made it to Montever
de on our travels, but got close enough to know we're going to love it. So is Toast, our 1 year old black lab. Just call her Jungle Dog. If anyone wants to take our two black cats for two years while we're away, PLEASE let us know.We will update this blog often while in Costa Rica so that you, our friends and family, can keep up with what we're doing and seeing. But it will be sparse until then. A lot to do before we move out of the country.
