Sunday 11/23- As you’ve read so much about in past blogs, we are still in the midst of stage 2 of the Lego project. When we first started going through this batch, we thought they seemed a lot cleaner than the first disgusting set that we bought, but the more we work with them, the more we realize that they are kind of gross. Not visually like the first batch, but more microscopic. I could tell that they were musty or moldy mostly by the allergic reaction that I got every time I worked with them, so we decided to wash this batch as well. This time, though, we weren’t going to put them through the washing machine. Instead, we’d do them by hand in a big tub with Lysol and water. We started by doing what was left of each unsorted color, and after those were cleaned, we did each unassembled set, one by one, keeping them all separated and organized so that once they dried, they didn’t have to be re-sorted again. We spent a good chunk of the day doing this, but in between, while some sets dried to make room for the next sets, we just did the regular weekend stuff around the house. It was a pretty laid-back day with this Lego project really being the only thing we focused on.
Tuesday 11/25- Today it was time to get some yard work done. This usually takes Ramie a couple of hours in the morning before it gets really hot and sunny. After he was finished with the yard work it was back to washing more Lego.
 |
| The final pieces all laid out and drying. |
We didn’t have any plans today until later this evening for dinner with Loren and Nancy, so the day was spent similar to any weekend day for us, mainly just doing things around the house. As we’ve talked about in the past and for some other holidays, Thanksgiving isn’t really a thing here in CR except for the Gringos. Yes, some restaurants put on a traditional Thanksgiving dinner (and charge way too much for it) just like they do for 4th of July celebrations, and some Gringos choose to celebrate that way.
Fortunately for us, Loren and Nancy always host a Thanksgiving dinner for a small group of people, and they are kind enough to include us in that group, otherwise it would just be a regular day for us. Of course, I get the day off work because I work for a US company, so it would be kind of just like a regular weekend day I guess. This evening we would be enjoying our Thanksgiving dinner with Loren & Nancy, Karen & Dennis, Randall and Jessica, and Gretel, as well as 3 additional Ticos who would be introduced to a traditional US Thanksgiving meal for the first time. I think Loren and Nancy like to expose Ticos to this US holiday tradition, as we know that there are many who have been invited before. I think this group of Ticos all enjoyed it, and we were told that in the past others who had been invited didn’t enjoy it so much and declined future invitations. Not so differently from Thanksgivings that we were used to back when we lived in Minnesota, by the time we were finished, many of us were overstuffed to the point where it was uncomfortable to sleep that night! Nonetheless, we thoroughly enjoy these Thanksgiving celebrations and thank Loren and Nancy for hosting them every year!
Friday 11/28- Black Friday Shopping!! While not a true holiday, it's a day that my boss decided we were going to be closed. I used this as a very rare “true” day off for myself. I didn’t do anything productive at all; I didn’t even take out my computer to work on the blog! I couldn’t even tell you what I did, other than I was still digesting yesterday’s dinner! We did, however, jump on Amazon to see if there were any “good deals” on anything that we needed or wanted. I honestly don't think we found anything worth ordering except maybe some Christmas gifts for family back in MN.
 |
| We laugh, because they don't call it Black Friday here. They call it Black Walmart, Black (insert store name here). There definitely aren't deals like you'd be looking for in the US Black Friday either! |
The Official Casa Costa Breeze end of November rainfall total was 13.85 inches
Tuesday 12/2- Ramie was called to work at the warehouse with Randall today. It was a typical day there for him consisting of running the forklift and unloading shipping containers.
Wednesday 12/3- Unfortunately, even though it’s only it is only 4 years old, our pool is already in need of re-grouting. Ramie has reached out to a contractor that does this type of work and they were scheduled to start next week. It turns out that another job he had lined up got delayed so he was available to start tomorrow. Alright then, let’s get this done. Ramie shut down the power to the pool equipment and drained it so that the guys could get started right away tomorrow morning when they arrive.
 |
| We were finally able to coax Skye into the pool! |
Friday 12/5- The pool crew showed up again around 8am to start working on the pool. They were able to get all the grout removed, tiles repaired and power washing finished yesterday. Today they would start grouting it, so hopefully it would be a quieter day for me. Since we have still been getting some rain, the first thing they did was hang a huge sheet of plastic over the entire pool area.
Not only would this help keep the rain out and the new grout dry, but it would also keep the sun from beating down on the guys working and the newly installed grout. It’s better to allow the grout to dry naturally and not heat up and dry so rapidly. When the sun hits it directly it can cause it to cure too fast and result in cracking. Once they had the large piece of plastic up, they got to today’s work. Thankfully it was a much quieter today since it was all done by hand and the only power tool they used was a drill to mix the grout.
Since Randall and Jessica would be gone for more than just their typical day or two, we decided that we would bring Hunter to our house this evening to spend the weekend with us so he wasn't all alone at the warehouse. As always, he was super excited to go for a ride in the truck and to come visit our house.
The first thing that happens when he gets to our house is to get brushed right away. We try to get as much fur off of him as possible before he gets to come into the house. Even with the brushing we have to sweep the house multiple times a day because of how furry he is. We try to give him multiple brushings a day while he is here to keep some of it outside instead of inside, but it is a never ending battle with Hunter fur!
 |
| Everyone all relaxed! |
 |
| Hi, I'm Molly |
 |
| Hi, You know me.. I'm Skye |
 |
| Hi, Im Hunter |
 |
| All 3 actually sitting and waiting for dinner to be served. |
 |
| If there was room, they would all be sitting on the chair with Ramie |
 |
| Do you see the pattern here? Yep, always were Ramie is. |
This took way longer than I anticipated, and then when I was done with the clothes, I had to figure out all of the other odds and ends things that I might need. Man, I feel like this used to be so much easier! But back then, I also started about a month before the cruise and didn’t try to get it all done in a single afternoon.
Monday 12/8- The pool crew didn't work on Saturday or Sunday so they showed up again today to continue the grouting. Ramie had to work with Lowell at the warehouse since Randall is on vacation, but these guys were quite self sufficient and didn’t need any supervision or have any questions, so it didn’t bother me that Ramie wasn’t here to deal with it.
Tuesday 12/9- Today was the last day of grouting work on the pool, now we have to wait 4 days for the grout to fully dry before we can fill it. Ramie has a remodeling project starting at some of the houses that he manages in the neighborhood, so he spent a lot of time there today going over everything that has to be done.
Wednesday 12/10- Ramie worked with Lowell the entire day again today. They took a trip to San Isidro that he didn’t expect, to do a delivery and it took about 5 hours. It was a long drive for a very easy delivery; when they arrived the workers building the house unloaded everything. All Ramie & Lowell had to do was supervise.
For me, the last 2 weeks at work have been fairly quiet. I was getting things all tidied up so no one else had to worry about them while I was on vacation, and all of a sudden, this week things got SPICY! Out of nowhere I now have too much to do and not enough time to get it all done. I guess I’ll be working my butt off for the next few days to get everything back under control for the rest of the team, and hopefully only leave “easy things” for them to worry about while I was unreachable.
Thursday 12/11- Another week has gone by in the rainy season which means that Ramie is out in the yard taking care of all of that again. He really does enjoy the yard work here. He always gets started on it no later than 8am and tries to be done with everything by noon at the latest, otherwise it just gets too hot in the sun to do strenuous work.
Friday 12/12- The turtle season is supposed to be finished, but some of the other teams are still randomly finding nests. This means that the walks have continued for all teams. Today was the final turtle walk for Ramie’s team. They weren’t supposed to find anything, but they ended up finding 3 nests. For this time of year this is completely crazy! Of course, this happened on the day that Ramie had obligations at 7am that he would be running late for. Since he wasn’t home yet at 7 when the contractors arrived, I had to let them in and get them going. The pool guys were back this morning to look over the pool and give us the go ahead to start filling it. Since everything looked good to him, I showed him where the valve was to fill it. In the meantime Ramie had asked him to look at the house next door that might need some pool work too, so I let him in over there to take a look. Since the pool had been filling for a while during the time he was looking at the other pool, he checked everything one more time to make sure all was looking good, and once there was a couple of inches in the bottom and he was satisfied, the pool contractors left. It's going to take a while to fill the pool, but since Ramie isn’t here it would be my job to keep an eye on it.
Once the dryer was up and running, he had to investigate a leak by the bathroom sink and replace the faucet. As he has learned to expect in Costa Rica, something that should be an easy job turned out to not be an easy fix! Before coming up the mountain Ramie stopped at the hardware store to buy a new, faucet. Well, I guess a “standard faucet” didn't fit the hole in the old sink. Since the sink itself was in bad shape anyway, he got permission to replace the entire sink. This will have to wait for another day though, because it would require a trip back down the mountain to buy a sink, and then back up to install it. While he was gone dealing with other people’s projects, I had to deal with more of our own contractors!
Before high season starts and the schedule of guests gets full, the Airbnb that he manages next door was getting the air conditioners cleaned and the septic tank pumped. I made sure these guys could get into the house and had access to the things that they needed to get started, and then left them to do their jobs. Ramie arrived home just as the septic company was finishing and could go get the final “report” from them, fortunately everything checked out and the system was in good condition. As soon as Ramie walked back to our house, our pool cleaner company guys showed up to get our pool back online and add all of the needed startup chemicals. Sometimes Ramie sure has a lot going on all at the same time but he sure is good at handling it (and I am thankful that I don’t often have to get involved in all of that).
Meanwhile for me, work things were still blowing up left and right and I was doing my best to put out the fires as they popped up. I really didn’t want or need this excitement right now, I would have been more than happy to have another quiet “boring” week like I had after Thanksgiving!
Shortly after the septic guys left, Ramie got a call from Elise, the renter at another house he manages, that her septic didn’t seem to be working either. Ramie went to that house to check it out, and sure enough, it seemed to be backing up. Ramie quickly called the septic guys who just left to see if they were still in the area and could come back. Thankfully they were eating a late lunch nearby and were willing to come pump that septic as well. Ramie informed Elise that they would be coming and then came back to our house for a bit. When they arrived and opened the cover they saw that the tank was beyond full. Well, this explains why everything in the house is draining so slowly! As they were pumping it they discovered a bigger problem and called Ramie down to look at it. They showed Ramie that the plastic septic tank is caving in and explained that it's just a matter of time before it cracks and caves in. This is probably the result of very wet soil pushing in from all sides, and the plastic just wasn’t strong enough to hold it’s shape. Since there is nothing that can be done with it at this point, Ramie took some pictures to send to Josh and Steph to inform them of the problem. They will have to decide what to do about it and how soon, but the likely needed solution will be to dig at least a new tank, if not an entirely new septic system.
Saturday 12/13- Today the contractor on the schedule was the glass repair guy for the Airbnb next door. You see, what happened here a few days ago is one of the kids of the last guest just happened to run right into the glass patio door and break it. We had to use duct tape to hold it together until the glass guy was available to come replace it. Ramie also had to have the A/C guy come back since, after he finished the cleanings, one of the units had stopped cooling. Fortunately he was able to get it working again, but only by stealing a part out of our own A/C for the time being. The part could take a while to come in, and we don’t use our A/Cs, so the missing part wouldn’t affect us, but guests at a rental house may be quite upset if they don’t have air!
Remember a few paragraphs ago when I mentioned that the pool grout repair guys had to use grinders to remove the old grout? Well, even with the doors and windows closed, this cause a LOT of dust that somehow still made its way throughout our entire house. I don’t have the time or energy to deal with all of this, so we called the cleaners in to handle it for us, and they were here bright and early this morning. While they were cleaning, we had to run to town for a little while. For what seems like months I have really been needing a chiropractic adjustment but things just kept getting in the way when Benny the Chiropractor was available, and then he was back in the US for a while, so it just continued to not happen. I needed to get this done before we went on the cruise next week, and today was Benny’s first “work” day back from his trip, so today was my opportunity. He had a very busy day with lots of people there, but we happily waited our turn and felt so much better after it was done!
Sunday 12/14- Today we finally got to do some stuff for ourselves, Ramie, decided that he would start packing for our cruise (since we are leaving this week!). It didn’t take him as long as it took me, things are so much easier for you guys, and in just a couple of hours he had all of his stuff packed and ready for the trip.
Our friend Geoff is back in Costa Rica for the summer (CR summer, that is), we were able to fit in a quick last minute get together for a few hours and went to their house to visit and catch up with them.
Monday 12/15- I bet you wouldn’t have guessed it, but Ramie is busy again! He got the replacement sink for Stuart & Gem’s casita and went to replace that, but he had to stop to pay all of the utility bills for our house and the rental houses as he passed through town. Replacing a sink in an old house has its challenges, and doing it in CR just makes it even that much more difficult. Ramie chose a pedestal sink to replace the one that just hung from two small brackets on the wall so that it would hide the drain pipe under the sink as well as help to support it. Let’s just say, to mount a sink on a partially tiled wall and set a pedestal on a floor that is not level makes a job much more difficult that it should be. He was able to get it done and looking pretty good, though, in just a few hours.
That wasn’t the only excitement for today, though. This afternoon we went to visit Karen & Dennis who just returned from their trip to FL, but Jorge had some electrical problems at his house that we were asked to stop and look at first. You may recall in a prior blog (If not click here) that Ramie had to do a bunch of upgrades to Jorge's house including replacing some very dangerous and broken outlets and other electrical work. This time Ramie was told that Jorge didn't have electricity in the kitchen or bedroom, but that was really all we knew.
When we arrived, we chatted with Jorge, who is always excited to see us. Then Ramie started troubleshooting, while I kept chatting with Jorge. Ramie looked into the obvious possibilities like a tripped breaker first. Nope that wasn’t it. Next he checked for a tripped GFI. Yes, it was tripped, but it didn’t have any power to it either, which indicated something different was going on as well. He moved around the house looking from one outlet to the next to figure out what may be causing the issue. He found a very badly corroded and broken outlet that wasn’t part of the repairs that he was hired to do last time. This would have to be replaced for sure. Fortunately when Ramie did the work here last time, there was an extra outlet that he left with Jorge, and he could use that now. When that still didn’t fix the problem, Jorge mentioned that when his wife was visiting him about a week ago. She was cleaning in the kitchen and she sprayed the tile wall with water to wash it… the wall that the GFI was on.
Well, we all know that water and electricity don't mix, but GFI’s are very sensitive and much different than a standard outlet, so it turns out that a fried GFI outlet is likely the problem in the kitchen. He didn’t have an extra GFI, so this would have to wait. Ramie then moved to the bedroom where, according to Ramie’s electrical tester, all the outlets had an open neutral. His first thought was that this is likely due to a bad outlet in this room as well. Since this was a bigger issue than anyone originally thought, Ramie would have to gather some parts and come back tomorrow to fix it. Of course, all this has to happen right before we are leaving for a vacation with no time to postpone anything!
Once the troubleshooting was done and Ramie had an idea of what parts he would need, we finally made our way up to Karen and Dennis’s house to visit. When it was about time to go, Dennis suggested going out for dinner together now instead of cooking at home. This was not in the plans for today’s busy day, but I suppose when the alternative was probably eating leftovers for dinner at home, I could be convinced, so we went to LaChoza, the Mexican restaurant that we all like.
Before heading back home Ramie had one more stop to make at the printing shop to get our cruise documents and luggage tags printed. That wasn’t all for today, though, because when he got home he still had to coordinate with Josh & Steph about their rental property project and go to the bank to deposit money into the CR account so that he could pay the upcoming bills. He either had to take care of the bank now or within the first couple of days when we get home from the trip, and he decided he would rather do it now.
Of course, banks here do not operate quickly, and it took over an hour just to deposit some money. He has also been trying to sell some Lego sets online, and a guy wanted to get one for his kid for Christmas. Since we wouldn’t be here to get it to the guy, Ramie asked Randall if he could hold onto it and meet with the guy when he was passing through town later this week. Ramie’s intention was just to drop the set off quickly and head back home, but things here never go as planned. While Ramie was at the warehouse, they had a container come in. They needed help! Ramie gave them a quick hand getting a very large statue out of the container first, and then offered to go home and change into work clothes to come back and help with the rest. As if we didn’t already have enough stuff going on recently, it just keeps right on going up until it’s time to leave. Fortunately it only took about an hour and a half for them to unload the container and it wasn’t one of those all-day jobs.
On the bright side, for the next 10 days we wouldn’t have to worry about any of this, no one can call us to come into work! We will be out of reach!!
Pura Vida!
Comments
Post a Comment