Life Transplanet

I’ve heard about the new law, the Impulso Vivienda or Puerto Rico Housing Stimulus, that Governor Fortuño recently passed. Basically it sounds like they are trying to spur growth in the housing sector by encouraging more construction and more sales of existing houses. It seems the thinking is similar to the U.S. mainland use of the tax credits to spur more home buying.

I am not sure how much CRIM, sellos y estampillas (property taxes, seals and stamps) normally cost, but it sounds like with this program they will be waived for a period of 5 years if you buy a house between September 1, 2010 and June 30, 2011! 

We’ve received conflicting information about property taxes in Puerto Rico and housing in general. It’s hard to find accurate information as every person we talk to has a different interpretation. Some people have even told us there is no property tax!? In any case, it sounds like good news for people like us who may buy a Puerto Rican house within this time period.

To read more about this new law check out this Caribbean Business article or this blog post.

Usually when we hear that expression we think it must be urgent, it’s an emergency. But really everything we do is a matter of life and death one way or another. I’ve been thinking of the impermanence of our existence (or the seeming permanence of death) and it overwhelms me. I’ve never really thought too much about death before. It just seemed like it was supposed to occur occassionally and so it did. And the people and pets I’d lost to it before my dad had felt like they were going on a long vacation or moving away. They were acquaintances or even with my grandpa, I never knew him that well. I wasn’t as deeply connected as I was with my dad. And so the loss seems so huge.

Is there a light at the end of the tunnel?

With my dad, everything seems to have changed. I just want to know what happened to him. Where he is now. What is going on. How can someone be here with us in this plane of existence and then suddening is not?! And if that is it -we exist and then we don’t-, then what’s the purpose? What’s the purpose of all of this in the first place? There is so much life all across the planet -lifetransplanet if you will but no one truly understands it.

It’s like we (kind of) understand the biological processes and the chemicals and minerals and all sorts of things, but we don’t understand what that spark is in the beginning or that flame that we carry with us until we die. That same spark that must be in seeds to germinate into trees and plants, frogs, mosquitos, Schnoodle. It’s why we eat food- that spark that sustains our flame. And it’s that same spark that makes us create something out of the “thought realm” like building or remodeling a house, writing a book (or blog!), or creating a data file.

Because what are thoughts? Are they simply the chemical results of our brains’ activity? And if so, why would this thinking create so much of what we see as reality in this world? Every building we see, every car on the road, every THING we have started at some point as a thought-a spark of creativity.

And then, what are memories? Mind travel machines? Why do we yearn to learn so much? Why is so much of our lives spent trying to figure stuff out? To remember so we don’t have to repeat mistakes? To have some connection to those who no longer exist?

And so, if only to confuse us more, then what are dreams? Could our sleeping world be parralelled with the death world as many suppose? Are dreams just there to help us sort out our days and process the things we didn’t have time to process while awake (or alive)? What is our subconscious? We understand so little about our conscious life, but our subconscious? We know even less.

I’ve been having dreams almost every night where my dad either hasn’t died yet or has come back and everyone says “you gave us a big scare” and he just chuckles as he would. I had another dream where we were waiting in the hospital but it was more like an airport -a soul port- and he was a departure (if you think about a hospital, it is kind of like that -people dying are departing and people being born are arriving at the same centralized place).

I didn’t want him to go wherever he was going. I wanted him to stay with me. So we could just hang out and plan the future. So we could talk about things like this -the philosophy of what life and death are without actually having to experience it deep within my being. In my dream when he saw me start to cry, he also began to cry to see me so sad. And I awoke from the dream shaking and crying in “actuality”.

So what is going on here? Why is it that we just walk around our lives completely oblivious to the most important thing: that we only have so long in this form. We do so many things in our lives that are meaningless, or worse: mean! And I suppose we are lucky that we don’t have to think about death all the time or our lives would be weighed down and so heavy we wouldn’t even want to get out there and make something of it. But we have the perfect balance (usually): we understand the impermanence of our situation, and yet we have enough time to create the world we want to see -even if it is just in our home and backyard. And in the process we can change society as a whole for the better. And granted, that is subjective, but I think most people could agree that we want peace, love, joy and cooperation. We want to be treated as good people with something to contribute.

I think it starts with that realization, and it ends when you have fufilled some sort of purpose (or get taken out of the game too early). And it should not just be a realization of ourselves, but of others. Of treating others with respect as the beings that they are on this planet whether animal, plant or human. It is about being kind and also about forgiving.

But in the end, I really don’t know. This matter of life and death is just as mysterious as ever. It’s a puzzle that we’ve been asking throughout the ages over and over again: why am I here? …And where do we go after? Where are you, Dad?

I keep hearing this song lately and feel compelled to listen carefully to it

The moment you’ve all been waiting for…well, at least that we’ve been waiting for… the completion (nearly so) of our latest rental project. So, I love to look and compare all the work we put in since we bought it. When you are in the midst of it all, you never think it will look good, but somehow it does! I love these before and after pictures…And, we made our deadline of finishing up by September 1! Now…we just need a tenant…

Kitchen Before

Kitchen After -the fridge and stove will be delivered from Hispano Appliances tomorrow probably

Bedroom before

Bedroom after-I love nice wood floors!

Bathroom before -green and yellow? Really?

I think the bathroom is the most dramatic change

We’ve been working on our rental pushing really hard to get it done in only 2-3weeks with the goal of having it rented by September 1! We took some time off of work to do it, but now we are back to work and have all of our other responsibilities in addition to working on the rental. BUT we are over the hump. We are almost through the ugly part.

In a remodel, as in life, sometimes you have to go through ugly parts to see the beauty underneath. This house wasn’t too bad to start with so it was a real struggle for us whether or not we wanted to do a complete renovation or just a minor refurbishing. We decided to do it the way we would want it if we were to live there.

But in the process, you make things really, really messy and ugly. Britton tore out all the cabinets, cut a hole in the wall in the bathroom in order to put a showerhead up, pulled out the bathroom vanity and toilet so tile could go there. The only outside help we hired is for tile installation (but we still picked out, bought and delivered all the tile) and the floor refinishing. Everything else (painting, installing cabinets, cutting and installing the countertops, trim, new faucets, etc, etc) was done by us!

Making it ugly (Bathroom)

In order to make it pretty (almost finished!)

I really love doing these rentals. I think it’s because it’s like life. You go through so many frustrations, and joys all in the same project. You are able to have both end goals and process goals all in one. (The end goal being having the house remodeled and someone renting it, the process goals being all the stuff to get there, the checklist of items-showers, tile, floors, painting).

There can be a real sense of accomplishment and achievement. You learn as you go. You try your best. You make mistakes, and try again. You want to make things a little better for you having been there.  And you want to get ahead; you want to keep moving forward. And sometimes when it looks so ugly that you just want to give up, you have to look deep inside and find the strength to push just a little harder, a little further, and it will all be worth it and beautiful in the end.

Making it uglier than before we started (kitchen)


Nearly complete -and looking good

Today Britton and I celebrated 5 years of marriage! Together with the amount of time we dated before we got married, we’ve been together 10 years! It’s amazing how time flies. I remember our wedding day so vividly. It was nice and warm and sunny. We were worried about the weather since we were having an outdoor reception at my parents’ house in Nunn. But everything turned out great! We had great live music, good food and drink and lots of lovely family and friends turned out.

I like how you can see the Nunn Tower in this picture and how happy we are

Out in front of my parents’ old house -the house I grew up in!

So to celebrate our five year anniversary…well, we worked on our new rental property. Or I could just say Britton bought me a house for our anniversary, lol. But seriously, we did work almost all day on the property painting and Britton put in a shower faucet fixture for the bathroom. But we DID do something just for fun, and that was to go out to Bisetti’s our favorite little Italian restaurant in Fort Collins. It’s also where we had our first date. We got all spruced up and took the Corvette over there. The food was great and it was fun to reminisce about our time together and to think about what the future could hold. We also walked around downtown and heard a live drum band. Overall a great day moving us into the future and remembering our past.

Anniversary Dinner at Bisetti’s in Fort Collins

Time to celebrate!