Monthly Archives: October 2010

Progress to Puerto Rico =Slow

Our momentum and progress to get to Puerto Rico seems to be slowing down. I think there are a variety of reasons for this. For one thing, my dad’s death has made things just a little harder to work through. For another, we are still uncertain of what we want in a place out there. Do we want a vacation home? Do we want to live there permanently? If so, what should we do with all our properties here? We aren’t too concerned about this one because we can always hire a management company, but it is still something that we’d have to think about down the road.

The other factor is that Britton just got a big promotion at work, and the fact that my work, while the funding is never stable, seems to keep on a-going. So this definitely good news. Britton is pretty excited about learning his new role, not to mention the larger paycheck and it is always hard to turn away from a good job. But it is sort of bad news because it makes it harder to move on…Britton calls it our graduation from Greeley life.

So we are just kind of stuck. We’ve been looking at properties online and have found a couple that we like again. A similar pattern seems to emerge. We like both the quaint -and cheap!- country-side fincas (farms) but we also like the ocean-view villa types where we could rent out rooms and be closer to people.


A serious consideration -a house with 11 acres

After Awilda’s deal went south and another property we had been seriously considering was sold, it put a damper on some of our plans. After all, it is a lot of effort to start over: search out places online with multiple realtors and multiple web sites, fly down there, figure out a time to meet with each of these realtors, negotiate a deal, sign a contract, find a bank, handle all the paperwork from 3,000 miles away since you HAVE to deal with a Puerto Rican bank (for some reason U.S. banks don’t deal with PR eventhough it is part of the US…), then -and this is the part we have yet to do- fly back down to close on the property.

And then what? Do we wait a few months and move there permanently? Do we just live two lives here and there (like snow birds)? Will we have enough income from our properties or should we also do job hunting? All of these questions get exhausting. 

We really want to get there…but there are so many things to consider. So we’ve just slowed down. We are taking it easy. We just continue to save money, as that always makes doing whatever you do a little easier to transition. If it comes quickly, it comes. If not we are not going to force it right away. We will get there one way or another, some time or another. The hardest thing of all is to be patient. Especially for me.

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Halloween Party in Greeley

Last night we went out to a Halloween dance party in Greeley. My friends Shana and Marjorie are in a belly dancing group and have performances now and then. This one was a Halloween costume party and everyone was encouraged to come dressed up. Shana dressed as a nun (which is doubly funny since she is Jewish), Britton went in his afro wig as usual, and I dressed up as a bunny rabbit. We saw some other pretty creative costumes like Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (a flight attendant with diamonds on her outfit), the Mad Hatter, and Smegal (sp) from Lord of the Rings.


Leah (aka Lucy), Shana the Nun and Me the Bunny

Before we left the house I noticed that my black and white bunny outfit looked an awful lot like Schnoodle, so she even got into the festivities:


Schnoodle Rabbit and Cassie Rabbit

Shana changed out of her nun costume into a hoodlum get-up. She says, “I left the habit for the hood”.


Lorena, Shana and Me after Shana’s costume change

Our friends Lorena and Adriana came out with us after the dancing and we had drinks at Coyote’s Grill just a block over from the dance studio.


A bunch of misfits: Britton, Adriana, Cassie, Lorena, Shana, Leah at Coyotes

While we were over at Coyotes we started to see people coming in in black tie attire. At first we thought they had had a costume party too, but no, they were coming from the Greeley Chorale. It was quite the mixture of people. Our group dared me to walk through all the tuxes in my bunny outfit, and I did to their cheers. It was pretty funny.

We took the Corvette out so it was a fun night all in all.


Britton drove the Corvette with an afro

On a side note, I loved my fake eyelashes but I could never wear them daily, what a pain!


Check out these long lashes!

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…And Autumn Around Greeley and Glenmere

We also took a day off of work and explored Greeley. We went to Glenmere Park and took some more autumn photos. Enjoy:


A winding path through a lot of trees


I call this one “Stoplight Leaves”


There were a few geese and ducks, and I loved the reflection of the colors on the lake

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Fall Around Our Yard

The shift to our Colorado autumn is in full swing. We usually get about one to two weeks of glorious weather with the trees changing colors and the temperature in the middle of the day maintaining at about 75. Up in the mountains the leaves have all changed and dropped, but here where it’s a little warmer we still have some.

At night we have had a few light frosts and our tomato plants, basil, and peppers probably have about a week left till they are toast. We’ve started cracking out the cold weather foods like hot spiced apple cider, chili con carne (with Fritos and cheese of course) and an evening chai latte or hot cocoa. Still, during the day you can where short sleeves and take walks in the changing colors.

Here are a few pictures of fall around our yard.


Fog over the lake behind our house at dawn


The chickens enjoy our white birch trees’ new colors


The flowers out front still look great!


And a few bees are still out working!

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