144. More Firsts: Some Good, Some Bad!

Ahsoka Tano Din Djarin GIF from Ahsoka Tano GIFs Even after being in Costa Rica for nearly 3 years, every once in a while, we do something that is the first time for us. This week had plenty of them!! Monday 1/22-Wednesday 1/24- The first official days of the new job are here! While I started on-boarding, getting my systems set up and technology things squared away over the last couple of weeks, today was the first full day. Even though, at the end of the day, I am doing more or less the same type of work that I was doing at the old job, I’m discovering that they do things quite differently here. I’ll be learning lots of new processes and procedures, but I’ll definitely be giving them my recommendations for how to do things differently and more efficiently. I don’t want to be that new guy stepping on people’s toes, so I’ll be taking some baby steps and see how it goes. Not only is the “new one” pulling me on board for as many hours as they can, tax prep season is starting up too so w

63. Down With the Sickness, Finer Details, Finishing Touches, and Adjustments

Saturday 1/15/22- Earlier this week Ramie ended up coming down with a stomach bug that knocked him out for several days. He really couldn’t do much of anything or venture more than a couple of minutes away from the bathroom. There were a few times Geiner wanted us to come down and check things out, but for the most part we were able to answer all of his questions without going down to the house. While Ramie was spending his days (and nights) between the toilet, the bed, and his chair on the balcony, I used this time to get through quite a bit of training and classes that I need to complete to keep my credentials to do the work that I do.

Today Ramie was feeling well enough to venture away from the bathroom for a while, so we went down to check out what has been done on the house in the last week. We discovered that almost all of the deck tile is installed, the shower wall tiles are installed (the floor tile that we ordered last week hasn’t come in yet), the outdoor shower is tiled and that green looks WAY cooler than I expected it would!! They also had most of the carport finished already! We must be at a point again in the construction when things are very noticeable as they get finished. For a while it seemed like nothing was changing week to week, but now in this last week there sure are a lot of new things completed!

Our pool deck tile and the green tile for the outdoor shower

Bathroom tile is done- except for the shower floor...

The carport progress so far

Monday 1/17/22- Well, wouldn’t you know it- I ended up coming down with Ramie’s stomach bug too. Fortunately it didn’t hit me quite as bad as it hit him, and I was still able to function, I just didn’t trust to leave the house, you know, just in case. I stayed at home and continued with all of my training while Ramie would periodically go down to the house and take care of the things that needed taking care of.


Thursday 1/20/22- Since we were getting close to the point of the cabinets being installed, we really needed to get our deposit put down on the granite for the countertops. After we had looked at it a few weeks ago when we were in San Isidro, we were in contact with the company by text. She sent us the quotes that we had asked for and a few more pictures of new granite, and we had made our decision, we just needed to get them the money. I was feeling well enough and felt confident that I would be fine away from the house for the day, so we headed to San Isidro.

Since we made the hour drive, we of course had to make the most of our time there. In addition to stopping at the granite place, we also stopped at the electrical place to pick up some of the items that we had ordered the last time we were there. Sadly only about three quarters of the stuff we ordered came in, which is ok since we didn't need any of this quite yet. We bought the kitchen sink that we had looked at several times but hadn’t actually bought yet, and stopped at a couple of furniture stores to start looking at couches. The living room furniture was the next item on our “must find'' list. Just about everything else in the house that was being made out of wood was being made by Jose who is a local cabinet maker/carpenter. He was building our bed frames, closet, tables, and chairs. He didn’t, however, do anything like couches, so that was going to have to be something we’d look for elsewhere. We kind of had an idea in our minds of what we were looking for, so we did some shopping around just for some ideas, talked to the sales people about customizing items, which, of course, they do, just like they do on everything down here, and came home with some plans for what we might end up ordering. To go a bit further into this. Yes there are stores here like Ashley Furniture where you can walk in and buy name brand furniture, you will pay dearly for it though. These are also mass-produced items that aren’t necessarily made to withstand the climate here, so who really knows how long it would last. The other options are these small family owned businesses who make furniture. Most of them have a showroom and you can buy what they have on hand or if you are like us and don't need it today, you can have a couch and chair custom made to your dimensions, your fabric choice and add extra decorative or functional options (such as a chaise lounge or cup holders). This is a great option and if you find a good furniture maker, the quality is top notch! We were very pleased with how willing they were to custom make what we were envisioning.



Friday 1/21/22-
Today we had another meeting with Geiner down at the house. We went through everything as it was so far, and he told us that his crew was getting really close to being done with everything that they could do. Right now we are waiting on other companies to finish up their parts including the electrical, doors, windows, cabinets, etc. The doors and windows will hopefully be put in next week so the house can be locked up. Once we can lock the house, then his guys will be able to put in things like the toilets and the air conditioners. The cabinets and vanities are looking like they will be 2-3 more weeks, and then after that will be the granite. They should be working on finishing up the electrical in the next couple of weeks, so then Ramie can then start installing the lights, fans, outlets and switches. We are still trying to work out the situation with the internet down there. Ramie is calling around to some of the companies and another one of the neighbors who is building some rental properties is trying to get the internet set up as well. Unfortunately neither of them are having very good luck. All of the local internet companies are saying that it will be about 3 months until they can get anything installed. Unfortunately, now that I’m working and rely on the internet, we won’t be able to just wing it like we did when we first moved down here and didn’t have internet for the first month and a half. Hopefully we’ll be able to find a company that will bring the internet down to us sooner rather than later. I joked with Geiner that we’ll have this beautiful brand new house that’s ready to move into, but we won’t be able to move in without the internet. If we do decide to move into the house before the internet is ready he might have to set up another desk in his office and he’ll have a work roommate. No sooner had this come out of my mouth, than he was on the phone trying to pull some strings with some people he knows trying to expedite our internet setup! I meant it as a joke, not as a threat, but if it gets things moving along, we’ll take it as it is! HAHAHAHA
 
Ramie enjoying our pool for the first time


The carport with it's roof on

Saturday 1/29/22-
Back at the New Years Eve party we learned that Benny, one of the guys who lives up Loren’s mountain and whom we have met a handful of times at different get-togethers, is a chiropractor. He has lived down here for about as long as Loren and Nancy, and has his permanent residency so he can legally work here. Every Saturday morning for a few hours he sets up a chiropractor table in the back maintenance area of an ATV tour company and dealership and does adjustments for $20. When we learned this, we were super excited! I used to go to the chiro every month back in MN, and Ramie would go periodically when he had a neck or back issue. Neither one of us has seen a chiropractor in about 9 months and we were both feeling a little bit creaky and thought it would feel fantastic to go get adjusted. 

When we got down there, there was already a line of about 6 people ahead of us. It really was just a portable chiro table set up next to all of the ATVs that needed to be worked on. He had a couple of lawn chairs set up for his “waiting area” and a fan blowing on the “patient area”, and that was it. We watched the people ahead of us all get adjusted and he clearly knew what he was doing. We were surprised, though, that he seemed to be doing a lot of adjustments that weren’t just the typical back, hips, and neck that we were used to. Eventually it was our turn. Ramie went first.
 
Since we were new, Dr. Benny explained everything that he was doing. He did simple tests of having you try to resist him pulling or pushing on your arms or legs in certain ways, to determine what needed to be adjusted. Things like if you couldn’t hold your arm up while he pushed it down, then he had to crack a certain rib, and things like that. We were absolutely amazed, he did more adjustments than any chiropractor Ramie or I had ever been to in the US (and I personally have been to at least a half dozen different chiros.) After Ramie was done, I was up. He did the same thing for me. I strongly believe that if the chiropractors I had been seeing for the last 10+ years did what he does, my shoulder problems could have been solved years ago! It felt so good to be adjusted again, and we’re so glad that we finally did this. Dr. Benny might just become part of our routine every month or 2 in the future!

(Real time update- we haven’t been back since, but it is definitely time.. I’m feeling creaky again!)

After we were finished with our adjustments we headed down to the house to see what has been worked on in the last week. We saw that some of the windows were installed (we knew they didn’t finish, they would be back next week to do the rest), the pool has been filled up (the pump isn’t wired up yet so it isn’t running, so it’s still very cloudy, but at least it’s full!), and Jose was there installing the front door. We spent some time at the house checking things out. There was a slight issue with the valve of the outside shower that Ramie was trying to troubleshoot, so he spent some time on that. We wanted to wait until Jose was finished installing the door so we could see it, so we kept ourselves busy until he finished. We really like it! The color of the wood matches the color of the ceiling remarkably well (that was completely unplanned), and this is the same color that all of our cabinets and furniture would be also. Every day that goes by we get more and more excited to see the finished product!

It has been a while since we stopped at the mini golf and talked with Loren, so, since we didn’t have any real plans for today, after we were finished at the house we stopped to talk to Loren for a while. We spent an hour or so catching up with him before heading back up to the house to find some lunch and relax for the rest of our Saturday.

Pura Vida!  

 

 

Comments

  1. I'm caught up now. Finshed 1/29. I cracked up with the chimpanzee fopping around on the floor when you were talking about Ramie having flu symptons!!!

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    1. Hahaha, well that is actually a Sloth. I suppose the long arms kind of made it look like a Chimp. Just a little monkey knowledge, Costa Rica has 4 kinds of monkeys, Squirrel, White Face Capuchin, Howler and Spider. Thanks for following along and getting a laugh at my illness! Hahaha

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