August 5, 2015
We are pretty settled
into the condo. See photos in our previous post. We still visit our storage
unit as we discover we don’t have some items we need here. We have grown weary
of the unit frankly. But we have made great progress in separating things to be
stored into a smaller unit and things to sell at the yard sale. We now plan on
having the sale at a friend’s house ion the 23rd of August, a few
days after Ron returns from VA. He will leave Sunday and spend 10 days helping
Rachel and Mark pack for their big move to Wyoming where Mark has accepted a full time
position in the music department of the community college where he will develop
the strings department. We are so happy for them. I feel badly that Ron has to
pack more boxes after what he has gone through here.
What doesn’t sell at the garage sale will go to Goodwill. It
will feel good to have that behind us and to get the remaining items into a
smaller unit. Ron plans to have help moving into the smaller unit the week
after the yard sale.
I continue to progress in my healing from the two surgeries.
I have been released by the gyn doc and don’t need to go back until my annual
checkup in April. I see my eye surgeon on Tuesday next week. I am still in
stage four in the recovery process and am hoping I will be in stage five by
next week. This will allow me to bend and to drive. I am most eager to be able
to bend. House cleaning and cooking require lots of bending. Without Ron around
it would be good to be able to function on my own.
Our condo looks great and has many of our travel mementos
around which makes both of us feel at home. We have just started to take time
to explore the neighborhood. Today we discovered a non profit three blocks away
with a fitness center and lots of classes/programs geared for all ages. Today
we will walk up the street to see about becoming members. I will be awhile
before I can exercise but both of us are eager to find a place with exercise
equipment that we can walk to easily in the winter so we can be consistent with
our exercise. I am selling my exercise bike and weight bench at the yard sale.
August 17, 2015
While he has been gone I managed to do most of the pricing
on the items for the garage sale. I visited the storage unit daily for about
four days and the only things left for Ron are technical equipment and
computers.
I had a visitor from LA one night, a former exchange
students from Germany
who lived with us the year the Berlin Wall came down 25 years ago. He is now a
father of three and happily married in LA. He was here on business overnight.
It was great to have a good long visit with Tom.
Mark spent last night with me. He wrapped up his gig with
the Britt Music Festival in Jacksonville
and flew out at 0 stupid 30 this morning. He and Ron will have one day of
overlap to finish up the packing.
My doc appointment went well. I am now allowed to bend, no
longer have to wear the ugly eye cage that made me feel like a Cyclops instead
of a sexy pirate (ha) and I am allowed to sleep on my left side. All good
things. I still cannot lift more than five pounds. I will not be driving from
probably two months. I am thankful that Portland
has such good public transportation. I tried out the neighborhood laundry mat
and it pales in comparison to the Spin Laundry and Lounge. So I most probably
will use Spin, using a taxi to get there, while Ron is in Costa Rica from
Sept 17-Oct 7. I think I have mentioned that we were invited to return to Costa Rica and
staff the airbnb where we stayed in April. We thought it would be fun and a way
to see more of Costa Rica .
That was in April and this is now so I asked my doc if I could go for two weeks
when Ron was there. His response was ‘That is a really bad idea’. End of
conversation.
Our odyssey has ended, not as planned but we all know that
life is what happens while making other plans. We are grateful for the months
of travel and adventures we had and we look forward to our next adventure. I
cannot travel for the next year so we anticipate moving to Mexico in mid
to late 2016 if all goes well.
