Monday 5/4- UGH, work! Do I have to?? Even though I didn’t want to, there was a lot to be done that was waiting for me. I had so many emails to follow up on and had to meet with the rest of the team to discuss all of the cases. Ramie got to work cutting the grass and taking care of the yard, and Skye spent most of the day still sleeping.
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| Nope, I'm not going to move |
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| Ok, maybe I'll move to my other favorite spot. |
Wednesday 5/6- Ramie headed back to work at the warehouse this morning to finish building those pallets because the shipment is leaving tomorrow.
About the time that Ramie got home from the warehouse, I was just finishing work as well. Frank, the owner of the Airbnb next door, has been in town since this past Saturday and was heading back home tomorrow. He wanted to get together with us to catch up and today was the only opportunity, so we met up with him and two of his friends for an early dinner. We spent about 2 hours chatting with them all before we went our separate ways. They had a busy week of doing touristy things around the area, so they were pretty exhausted and had to hit the road early tomorrow morning to head back toward San Jose.
Thursday 5/7- After working with Randall for the last two day, Ramie had been saying that his body was very sore, more than he usually gets, and more like he had been working out at the gym (which he doesn’t do). Last night in the middle of the night he broke out with a fever and chills. Today he had just enough energy to do some computer work, but spent most of the day resting on the couch.
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| Skye will always keep him company and pretty much laid with him all day. |
This afternoon I had a Dr appointment with a new doctor that I found here in Uvita that may be able to help me figure out what is going on and why I’ve been feeling so crummy for a while. You might remember a few blogs ago I went all the way to San Jose to meet with a specialist only to be extremely disappointed.
Well, I figure this doctor is only 5 minutes from home, so even if it turns out to be another disappointment, it's worth a shot. Even though he felt like crap, Ramie did end up coming with me to the appointment, as I like having him with me as a second set of ears. This appointment was quite different from the last one, and this doctor spent almost 2 hours with us to go over everything. I was very happy when we finished, as I was confident that this doctor actually understood what was going on. I left with a plan, had to order some meds and supplements, and in about 6 weeks we’d meet again to see how things are doing. Fingers crossed that we’re on the right path now.
Friday 5/8- This morning Ramie woke up even sicker than he was yesterday. He didn't sleep well at all and has been switching between freezing and sweating all night (it sounds like when I had those kidney infections a while ago!). After he got up for the day he managed to make it to the couch where he took up residence for the rest of the day. He ended up watching 5 movies while I worked. In addition to the fever and chills, the only other symptoms are a headache and no appetite. It’s not ideal, but I suppose it could be worse. I’m trying to keep him fed with things that he will eat, and hopefully all of the rest that he’s getting helps him recover.
Saturday 5/9- It was yet another low key day for Ramie. He thinks his fever is finally breaking but he still had zero energy, so didn’t stray far from the couch. We worked on the blog in the morning and that’s about it for the day.
Sunday 5/10- Even though Ramie is feeling a bit better, we still did not do much. He still doesn't have an appetite and is not even close to feeling normal, so we worked on the computer and did a bit more blog work today and not much else.
Monday 5/11 & Tuesday 5/12- Ramie still wasn’t feeling great so he didn’t do much but rest, but he would spend a little bit of time doing some light work around the house when he got bored, but even that would exhaust him quickly and he’d have to take a break.
Wednesday 5/13- All of this laying around was really bothering Ramie’s neck and back and he was in dire need of an adjustment. Fortunately Benny was around and able to accommodate a last minute appointment. I normally would have gone too, but Benny was only available during my work day and I had a meeting that I couldn’t get out of, so I had to miss out.
Saturday 5/16- A few days after Ramie’s chiropractic adjustment his neck was still bugging him, and I wanted to go get adjusted too, so it was back to Benny’s this morning during his normal “office hours”. When we returned home we spent the rest of the day working on the blog and doing other small things around the house. Ramie is feeling better now, but not still 100%. Poco a Poco (little by little), as they say.
Sunday 5/17- Since Geoff would be heading back to Canada a the end of this month, his departing wish was to have another ATV day, so today was the day for that. We thought about going on a new route that they had never been on and we had only done once before, but the route goes down the main highway for quite a while to start, and with the way drivers are down here, I’m just not comfortable driving on the highway for that long. We picked them up around 9am and discussed the route options that were available and opted to do one of our normal routes. We were in no rush and took our time stopping for breaks and enjoying the views. We were supposed to meet Deiner around 1pm after he finished his tour to hang out for a while.
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| This is no joke, and you need to take this very seriously. Many people die every green season by going over the edge of the mountain on these back roads. |
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| The obligatory test-tube shots, these seem to make it on all of our rides. |
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| Pictures never do the mountain views justice. |
After we finished the popcorn that Tracy bought with for our snack we jumped back in Dusti and made our way back the way we came. On the way out we ran across a group of dirt bikes heading to where we just were. Ramie told them we couldn't pass and they just laughed and understood. Even with this little side quest and snack break, we were still a bit early to meet Deiner. Even though we headed toward the plantation, we drove right past it and stopped at the big waterfall to take in the view. Since we are on the tail end of dry season and haven’t gotten many big rains yet, the waterfall was barely a trickle, but this is always a nice place to stop for a bit.
When it was finally close enough to 1:00 to meet up with Deiner we went back to the plantation and arrived just as he was finishing his tour. We hung out with Deiner, Rita, and Emilio for the next couple of hours and got the treat of Emilio's chicharrónes and Rita’s tamales. They are always so accommodating when we go and see them. Sadly though, it's a school night (work night) for Dana and Tracy so we couldn’t stay out late and we made the trek back home around 4pm. Everyone had a great ride once again and it's always so much fun hanging out with everyone.
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| Who's this handsome guy? |
Wednesday 5/20- During the middle of this week our real estate listing finally went live. If this is news to you or you haven’t heard about this yet, I’m going to have to ask you to rewind and read our blog post 199 about Our Big Decision.
If you have not seen our house listing yet Click HERE!
Saturday 5/23- Bright and early this morning Ramie had to help Randall unload a container, but that took less than an hour and he was home before most people were even up and doing anything yet. They say that those are the best types of containers to unload!
Ramie’s back has still been bugging him, so it was back to Benny for the 3rd time in 2 weeks for him. I sure hope it fixes him this time! I told him he has to stop being so hard on his body! Benny made some adjustments to his ribs, which is what he said hurt the most.
This afternoon we spent a couple of hours grilling a whole bunch of meat.
What? Why so much meat? Well, my new doctor is putting me on another new elimination diet for the next month and is taking away even more of the things on the already limited list of what I can eat. Because of what this elimination protocol does, we figured that Ramie would benefit from it as well, so he’ll be doing it with me. Not only will it be good for him, it will also help support me since the first time I went through my big food elimination he continued to eat all of his cookies and candy while I was suffering. Anyway, meat and protein are some of the main things that are allowed on this protocol and a lot of my other staples like beans and broccoli are being taken away… The way I look at it, at least for the first week until we figure out our new eating habits, grilled meat is going to be one of our go-to things. Yes, we’ll be eating veggies and fruit too, but truthfully, a lot of our main staple veggies like onions, garlic, cabbage, broccoli, and beans are being taken away in addition to many of the ingredients that I’d normally use to make homemade salad dressings. This is going to be difficult and I am going to have to get creative. We started yesterday and we have 30 days of this to get through. I think the worst will be Ramie’s sugar and wheat withdrawals—wish us luck!
Sunday 5/24- Since we obviously covered a large period of time in just a few blogs because of tax season where we didn't do a whole heck of a lot, we have been spending a lot of time trying to write more content for you. Currently we typically only have 1 blog ready at a time where we used to have 3-4 waiting to be posted. While we are trying to catch up with all of the work of writing, editing, adding pictures, and making them fun and interesting, it really is something that you can only spend so much time on before you get burnt out of it and have to take a break. When we have used up our creativity working on the blog we try to spend some time relaxing before jumping into the next project.
Ramie always seems to have projects to do, but now that I have some extra time on my hands outside of tax season, what will my next project be? I have had a roll of 3” high density foam that we have been moving around the house for over a year now. Originally we bought this to make some cushions for our dining table benches, but we decided to skip that project, as we don’t think it would really work very well. We talked about just selling the foam, but we likely wouldn’t get anything for it. Instead, I decided that since I also have a stockpile of canvas fabric that I would make a new dog bed for Skye. She has been using the dog bed that I made for Breeze when we first moved into our house and the foam in that is breaking down. This foam is too thick to fit in that cover, so I’d have to start from scratch for the new bed. Since I was already making one for Skye and it would only use a portion of this foam I decided to use the rest to make more dog beds and try to sell them. We spent the afternoon measuring & cutting the foam and fabric, since I needed Ramie’s assistance for that. I could work on the rest on my own tomorrow or whenever I felt like it again. Besides, this first part took the rest of the afternoon and was certainly enough for today anyway.
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| This visitor showed up today! |
Monday 5/25- Memorial Day-
Since today is a US Holiday, I got the day off of work and decided that I would continue with the dog beds project. Ramie got the sewing machine out of storage for me, and I got everything set up. While I was sewing away, Ramie took out a new “fake Lego” set that he has had for over a year now. He has been waiting to build this because we have been working through all of the real Lego that we have been sorting and building. We’ve got through all of the sets that are complete enough to build, and Ramie recently posted the majority of those sets for sale on some local Facebook pages. Now, since those are done, he figured it was time to break this set out and start building it. He told me that this one is a lot more challenging than real Lego, and the detail is also a lot better. He was able to get about half of it done today by the time I finished with the 4 dog beds. I have done so many of these types of cushion covers over the last 4 years that I’m kind of getting to be a pro. I finished all 4 by noon and then made a big batch of patacones for snacks over the next few days, since green plantains and coconut oil are 2 things that are allowed on this elimination protocol.
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| Boys and their toys |
Wednesday 5/27- Today we would have our first showing of the house! It’s only been listed for a week, and we definitely didn’t expect the first showing to happen so quickly. We aren’t getting our hopes up because we know exactly how it works here, and this is likely to be one of very many showings over a very long period of time. There are just so many houses for sale and it is definitely a buyers market; they certainly have their pick in this area! We did receive feedback this evening that the client liked the house and loved the amount of land that we have, but has to process all of the houses that she looked at before she has any idea what she’s going to decide. We totally get it! I feel like we’ve been in that position once or twice before.
I took a few hours off work to get the house all prepped for the showing, and then when they arrived to look at our house, we just popped next door to the Airbnb that Ramie manages, since no one was staying there right now, and hung out on the patio until they were finished. At least that’s a convenient option if no one is staying there!
Saturday 5/30- Today we heard back from our realtor regarding the showing from earlier this week. The person that viewed our house really liked ours, but was interested in a more “modern” build. He sent us the listing of the one that she was going with and we saw that it came with less amenities and way less land. We are ok with this and know that we are going to have to compete with the brand new builds. The right person will come along and we are in no hurry.
We’re still struggling to find things that are tasty and satisfying while on this elimination protocol, particularly for Ramie’s sweet tooth, so I have been spending time researching things that we could try and spent a few hours today cooking some new recipes to try out. Since we are so limited on what we can have for the 3 more weeks, I have to get creative to try to make things have some flavor.
Meals can stay basic, and I can figure that out, but grab and go or snacky things are what Ramie is having the most difficulty with. I made some egg cups, some peanut butter bars, and some fruit crepes to see if they would cut it. Unfortunately none of them were tasty enough to cure Ramie’s sweet tooth. While I was cooking, Ramie finished up his fake lego set that he had been working on since last weekend. Now what is he going to do to fill his time?!
We are still working hard to get caught up on the blog, so instead of feeling like I’m missing out on good pool time when I’m working on the computer, I used my new/old idea of putting the computer at the edge of the pool and worked on it while soaking up the sun.
This evening Ramie also had a buyer come by to pick out some Lego sets that we’re trying to sell, so that was a nice surprise. I just wish we could sell more of them in bulk and move them faster so they take up less space in our house!
Sunday 5/31- Today was just a typical Sunday for us. I had my weekly 6am phone call with my mom, then we made a quick trip to the grocery store and Chiko’s fruit stand to get some staples for the week. I spent some more time trying to figure out what meals I want to make this week because it’s really not that easy considering how restrictive this is. I also spent a few more hours working on the blog, and for the first time in I don’t know how many months (or years) I am caught up- up to date- through today! This won't last long, though... being caught up never does!
The Official Casa Costa Breeze end of May rainfall total was 11.02 inches (which way less than a normal May!)
Pura Vida!
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