Well, we found this sweet little rental house near the hospital and knew right away that it would be great to accomplish goal number one on our list as part of our process goals to Puerto Rico. We got it for a nice price, but it does need some work, so Britton and I have been going over there every night this week to paint, clean and update the place. Luckily we have been having some wonderful weather (in the 70s), but the time change has made it dark at only 5pm.
Outside of the house -needs painted but not in bad shape
Inside kitchen – quite colorful…will soon be painted and updated
These pink walls took a lot of white paint to cover
I’ll try and post some “after” pictures as well. We hope to have it finished by mid November. It has been kind of fun to have another project to work on, and much more productive use of our time. Once we get it occupied, our next step is to start saving -for goal número 2.
Now that we are getting about 4 eggs a day from our four hens, we have had to get extra creative with how we use eggs. When I talk about our eggs, I feel like the scene in Forrest Gump talking about shrimp. Here are a few of the foods we have tried to make (some more successfully than others):
Fried Eggs
-Over-easy, scrambled, sunny side up
Hard Boiled Eggs
Soft Boiled Eggs
Poached Eggs
Egg Drop Soup
Souffles
Meringue
Frittata
Denver (and other types) Omelet
Huevos Rancheros
Breakfast Burritos
Egg Sandwich
Raw Eggs (Britton, not me)
Egg Salad
Use in breads and cakes
Fried egg and Spaghetti (haven’t tried it, but found it in a recipe)
And of course deviled eggs, Britton’s specialty.
We often bring deviled eggs to parties and they are usually the first things to go, but we never had an egg plate to put them on. So…we stopped by the thrift store the other day, picked up some clothes and I found an old 70’s egg platter, perfect for deviled eggs. Score! It’s kinda cool I think. After finding a mark on the back, we looked it up online and apparently the creator of the china, George Lefton company, is semi-famous. I love thrift stores! 🙂
Pretty cool for a dollar!
Can you think of any other meals we can make with eggs? We need all the ideas you can send us! Seriously.
Britton had been worried about our front porch concrete area as it seemed each year it was falling more and more. We were starting to get water running into the garage and in the winter, it would cause an icy, dangerous area when anyone walked up to our door partly because it was shaded on the north side of the house and was draining toward the garage. So, Britton convinced me that it was a structural issue and not cosmetic, so we forked over the $450 to get it mudjacked. It was pretty interesting to watch them pump so much concrete under the porch (it hadn’t started to fall, but was an empty cave underneath and they suggested it for preventive reasons) and then raise the walkway.
BEFORE
Crack in front porch
Close up of crack
DURING
AFTER
House after mudjacking
Front porch with Kitty -the holes filled with cement are still drying after about a week!
Close up after mudjacking (with Schnoodle and Gourd/Pumpkin)
I think it looks pretty good except I don’t like the hole/spots all up and down our walkway and I think they raised it slightly too high in one area. Overall, Britton says it will do it’s function better now, so I think it was worth it.
Well, it looks like the budget cuts have indeed cost me my job, but the good news is that I will be able to stay on here at the county doing emergency preparedness (EP) work, specifically working on H1N1 stuff. I have already been trained in that and have been doing translations (English to Spanish) ever since I started here, so it won’t be a major change. I will still be able to work on some of my existing projects and programs as well. However, from what I hear, the money for EP will dry up by July 31, 2010, so Britton and I decided that that would make a good end time to move to Puerto Rico. We would probably need a month or so to get everything all ready for the move and so we are planning an ETA (estimated time of arrival) of September 2010.
Britton says I’m like the girl on the edge; ready to make the jump, but still worried
None of this is written in stone, but at least it gives us a working plan. Before we go, we have a few goals that we want to accomplish that we believe are feasible in that time frame:
1) Pay off one of our properties. Britton is very much about security in risk (and I am too, to an extent) and doesn’t want to see all that we have worked toward thus far just lost. This way, he figures, if we have to come back with our tails between our legs we’ll always have a house that we can live in for free.
2) Save up enough for the transition to be able to buy furniture, a vehicle and other necessities. We are not too sure how much this needs to be as we’ve never moved so far away. For those of you who have made a life changing move, what do you recommend? How much do used cars cost in PR? We heard they are about $2,000 more than in the mainland.
3) Find a place to live in Puerto Rico. We would like to go down there again some time this winter with the clear intention of finding a place, putting in an offer and closing (not sure if that would be one or two trips).
4) Find jobs. This is really open for interpretation. This could mean working remote, working on virtual projects (the internet), running a guesthouse and farm and/or one or both of us finding part-time or full-time work there. We are open to all possibilities. We do know that it will entail us remotely managing our properties in Colorado since we are not planning on selling them (nor do I think we should in this market).
We don’t know what will happen in the future, but who does, really? We can’t be afraid to live. It is exciting and fun, and darling, do not fear what you don’t really know.
