Monday 12/2- You might remember from the end of our last blog post that we tried to set up our new Christmas tree yesterday but realized that we couldn’t finish decorating it because we didn’t have any hooks to hang the decorations. Today, Ramie had some errands to run, and on the way home he stopped to pick up those paperclips so we would be able to finish decorating when I finished working. We also got another exciting delivery from Randall today. Ramie found a really good deal on a windshield for Dusti prior to Black Friday and decided to order it. We could have bought one here from the place where we bought Dusti, but they wanted $800. Ramie found the exact same one for $350 on sale and it would cost us another $150 to ship it here, which is still saving enough money to justify it. The installation project will have to wait, though, because he has other things that take priority this upcoming week.
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| The funny phrases that DuoLingo comes up with and the timing of them. It's like it listens to us. 😬 |
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| Tree is done and Skye looks so pretty posing for her picture in front of it. |
Tuesday 12/3- What project will be Ramie’s priority this week? Our friend Karen is here this week (unfortunately by herself, as Dennis could not get the time off work) to meet with her house builder and make the next set of decisions pertaining to the build. Ramie volunteered to help her with everything she needed to do to make more decisions on their house build while she’s here. Today Ramie went with her to meet with their builder, Michael, to do a walk-through of the in-process house. Karen's head was spinning because of all the information that was thrown at her. She needed to make a lot of important decisions, and it's always a lot harder when you're only one half of the decision maker and may not understand the long-term effects these decisions might have. Ramie was gone all day and didn’t make it home until around 5pm. He was exhausted and hungry, and ready to rest because tomorrow would be another busy day for them.
(Real-time update: Karen and Dennis just made their one-way trip to Costa Rica to make it permanent at the end of March. Congratulations and welcome to your new home!)
Wednesday 12/4- Hey all, Ramie here to explain what I had to help with today. This morning we got to an early start, I was supposed to be picking Karen up at about 7am, but ended up getting delayed and I didn't pick her up until about 7:30ish. Today Karen and I would be going to the duty free zone in Golfito to purchase all of the appliances Karen and Dennis would need for their house, so that when the builder was ready, he could just put them in place and hook them up. Since we purchased all of our house appliances here when we were building our house and have been back a couple of times since then, I knew how this worked. It had been many years since Karen had been to Golfito, and many things have changed since then. If you want to read about our experience buying appliances for our house back in 2021 you can read about it here.
I decided that today we would try to save some time on the long drive by taking the north road "shortcut" into Golfito. We have never gone to Golfito on this route, but had come home from there this way once before. It was a VERY rough path when we took the road several years ago, but I know that it cuts off quite a bit of time from the normal 2 hour drive. There was also a rumor that it may have been paved sometime since then, which would make it a perfect route to try. There was very little traffic on the highway on the way south, so we were already making good time this morning. When we got to that “shortcut” I quickly found out that it was not paved like I had heard, but at least it had been recently graded and was fairly smooth for a dirt road. The stores opened at 8am, and even though I was delayed picking Karen up this morning, the “shortcut” saved us a lot of time and we got there before too many other people showed up and the place got obnoxiously busy.
The first step upon arriving is to register your ID, this is a required step so that you can make purchases. Then, when that’s done, the fun begins! We proceeded to the stores that I knew from our experiences have good selection and prices. There are probably 30 stores in this shopping complex, and they all tend to have the same or very similar things. Some specialize in different brands, quality brands like LG and Fridgeaire, to Chinese brands that you’ve never heard of. One thing that we learned was that you have to price compare between the stores, because even though there may be 2 stores with the exact same thing, and even stores owned by the same brand in this complex, the prices between them may be different. If this all sounds like a big money grabbing game to you, I can confirm that it just might be!!
Once we made it through the first store on my “must stop” list, we moved onto the next and then the next. Eventually, after a couple of hours we needed to sit down and compare all the price quote sheets to try to put meaning to what was where, and which place was best for which items.
It's very overwhelming and everything starts to blend together after a while, it’s good to take lots of notes and pictures while you’re looking, otherwise you can’t remember what’s going on! Once we got some organization to the quote sheets, we wanted stop and check out the stores that we bypassed, just in case they had a better or less expensive version of something we needed to find.
When we had made it through all of the stores, Karen had some big decisions to make. Which stove, fridge, washer/dryer, microwave, & TV was she going to purchase?
As with anyone looking for appliances in any country, she had her needs and her wants. One of her wants was a separate stove top and oven. You know, the kind that the stovetop is mounted on the top of the counter and the oven is built in into a cabinet somewhere else in the kitchen. Sadly, there was not much selection for these styles, and she had to opt for a traditional 1-piece stove/oven combo. Unfortunately, the entire time we were walking around looking at all of the appliances, this was not something that she had been looking for. So, what now? We had to start that search all over again! The one thing that we did know is that the first store I took her to had the best pricing on most of the things that she planned to buy, so we made the walk back to that store and found the same guy that helped us earlier in the day. He was happy to show us some stove/oven combos and Karen even liked one of them.
With that, we had pretty much found everything on her list, so we started the process of buying everything. I was able to negotiate the price down on a few things since we were buying every single appliance from this one store. As matter of fact, 3 years ago, in December 2021, Dana and I did the exact same thing as Karen was doing today, and even worked with this same exact salesman. If you want to go back in time just click here. To celebrate that fact, I decided that it was time to upgrade our current TV that really drives me nuts. I guess, this wasn’t really a spur of the moment idea, Dana and I did talk about it before coming down here, knowing that it could be a possibility. Our TV still works, its just that it is slow and has intermittent internet connection issues and I get really irritated waiting for it. I’ll just sell it to offset the price of a new one.
Since all of these appliances wouldn’t fit in Karen’s rental car or my truck, our original plan was to come back on Saturday with Randall to pick up all of the appliances using his big delivery truck. The salesman who was helping us asked if we had delivery and I told him we did. He then asked how much we were paying for it and I blurt out the actual price that Randall was charging us without thinking about it. As soon as it was out of my mouth, I knew right then that I had messed up. This guy said that his guy could do it for cheaper. Of course he can! The problem here is that I never normally tell these people the actual price, instead I tell them something considerably lower to see just how good of a deal I could get. In this case, as soon as I said the price I was kicking myself, I'm sure I could have gotten the delivery for much less. but I was tired and not thinking, and was focused on and excited about my new TV. Regardless, with the time it would save us by not having to drive all the way back down here on Saturday, Karen decided it was worth it. With everything paid for, the last step was to inspect everything. Here, they unpack all of the appliances so you can inspect them for damage, you give your ok, and they pack them back up. For the TV they even plug it in and give you the remote so you can make sure it all works. They do this so you can’t come back later and say they delivered a faulty or damaged item.
After the inspection, the guy helping us called for the porters to come with their carts. The porters’ only job is to move the purchases from the store to the exit of the complex. You have to pay them separately at a rate of $6 per cart. He called 4 of them over to take everything that was purchased to the truck that will be delivering them to Uvita for us tomorrow. These guys really don't mess around! The first guy took the fridge, the 2nd guy took the stove and a TV, the 3rd guy took the washer and another TV, and the 4th guy grabbed the dryer, microwave and some other small appliances, then, away they went. We were walking as fast as we could and these guys were leaving us in their dust.
The thought is that the faster they drop off a load of stuff at the front and get back to their staging area, the more trips they can make and the more money they will make, so I guess I don't blame them! Once all of the appliances were out front, they were loaded onto the delivery truck and in the care of the delivery guy. With all of that accomplished, we were ready to be done! We were both worn out, tired and hungry. Outside this shopping area there are food vendors set up, and just a few steps away from where we were was a carne asada (grilled meat) stand. It's cheap, and tastes good so I immediately went that direction. I must have been pretty hungry and not thinking clearly because when I was ordering mine, I asked Karen if she wanted one. The reason that this is funny is because Karen is vegetarian and doesn't eat meat, she just laughed and said she would pass. After I received my two big sticks of meat we walked to the truck and I took a moment to eat one of them before we got in the car to make the drive back to Uvita. I think we arrived home around 4pm.
Thursday 12/5- The appliances from Golfito would be delivered at 9:00 this morning, but the big truck that they were bringing them in would not be able to make it up the mountain to Karen’s house. Fortunately, Randall’s shop is located right at the entrance of the road to Karen's house so we would be hiring Randall’s step son to help us offload the appliances from the big truck to his smaller truck, and then take the appliances to Karen’s casita, you know, the little house that we rented when we first moved here, for temporary storage. Once the delivery arrived, they backed the two trucks up together and we just moved from one to the other, strapped them down, and made the slow bumpy drive up the mountain. After what seemed like a 15-minute drive for the one mile distance, we arrived at the casita to unload it all. It only took us about 20 minutes to unload everything and place it, but that was enough for me to throw out my back pretty badly, fridges are heavy and can easily do that!
It’s a good thing I don't have much to do the rest of the day. With that being done, I dropped Karen back off at her car and she was on her own to do the things that she had planned for the day. I went home to take some painkillers and maybe whine a little bit!
Of course, I can't sit still for too long and I decided that I was going to start looking at the installation of the windshield on Dusti. What I mean is that I did start installing it. Let me tell you, though, that this installation was by FAR the worst instructions I have ever read. One step would tell you to install piece A, then tighten all the hardware. The next step seemed to skip ahead 3 steps because the diagram then had a bunch of pieces installed and nowhere did it ever tell you to install that stuff, and you then had to loosen everything that it just told you to tighten. That happened at least 3 times during the install (shame on me for thinking the first time or two was a fluke of the instructions and not reading ahead before taking the next steps). I was able to mostly finish this project before it was time to go get cleaned up and head to dinner with Karen, Loren and Nancy this evening.
Friday 12/6- With my partial day of rest yesterday, I was back at it today with Karen. Today we had to go to San Isidro to pick out the granite for her countertops and fixtures like the sinks and toilets. We would be meeting Michael at the first stop and he would be our driver to all of the rest of the places we would be visiting. We first started the morning with the countertops. That process probably took 2-3 hours, we looked at all the different slabs of granite and types of countertops available. After granite, it was onto the other stores for the other stuff. We slowly made our way around San Isidro, from one store to the next, seeing what was available and what fit into their budget. With Karen's brain completely fried from all of the ongoing decisions happening over this entire week, she had accomplished making all the decisions she needed to, or at least all of them that we could think of. It was time to get back on the road home, I think we got back to Uvita around 3 or 4pm. I will say, we’re probably both glad that we’re at the end of this crazy busy week. We put in some very long hours, but it went by fast and it was productive.
Saturday 12/7- Hey everyone, Dana’s back to take over again. What was I doing all week? The normal… you know, working. Someone’s got to make a living around here! 😉 I always look forward to the weekends where I can usually do something other than work, and something hopefully more fun and enjoyable. Today, I was finally able to finish crocheting the Christmas stocking I started working on in August, with the yarn I got back in February when my Army girls came to visit. I truly never intended for it to take this long, but life got in the way and it did. Ramie asked if I was going to crochet two more, one each for me, him, and Skye. I don't know if it’ll get done before Christmas, but I would like to. We will see if they are ready in time!
Today Ramie broke out a new toy that he brought from the US this past trip. Since it appears as though the rains are finally slowing down for the season, he is going to try out his new surface cleaner for the pressure washer. This device is meant for cleaning driveways and large areas evenly and quickly. He would finally be able to get rid of all of the algae that has accumulated on the driveway during the green season. He was excited to get rid of that because, even though our driveway is at quite an angle and the water doesn’t sit on it, it has grown enough green on it that it is getting slippery.
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| What an improvement, and really cuts down on the time to do it! |
Once we get into our Costa Rican summer and there are a few days without rain, he will acid wash and seal the driveway to prevent it from getting like this in the future, but for now this is the first needed step. He was just about finished cleaning the driveway when Loren and Karen stopped by for a while to chitchat, since they were already out and about around town. Before we even got a chance to sit down to chat, Loren saw the surface cleaner and was intrigued. He asked how it worked, so, since it was all set up and ready to go, Ramie gave him a demonstration. I think this got Loren’s wheels turning and he was contemplating obtaining one for himself. Boys and their toys! After the demonstration was complete, Ramie shut everything off and we hung out on the back patio chatting for a while. After an hour or so they took off and Ramie finished cleaning the driveway.
Sunday 12/8- Today was finally a day of rest, we didn't do anything of note and just hung out around the house. With all the rain we’ve been getting for the last month or so, the pool is way too cold for us to go in, so we didn’t even relax in the pool. While it is too cold for our warm blood, we think that maybe some of our Minnesota family and friends who are used to much chillier temperatures would love it.
Monday 12/9- It’s a new week and I returned to my regularly scheduled programming, as did Ramie. We took a pause for a little while when Karen stopped by briefly to say goodbye to us before she left the country again. She plans to make one more trip down here, possibly in February to finalize the completion of their house before they intend to move here permanently in March. We’ll see you soon Karen, (and Dennis next time too!)
Wednesday 12/11- With things back to normal, Ramie was back at the yard work and catching up on taming the jungle. Being that it's Wine Wednesday, as Val and Marshall call it, they invited us to meet them at Mosaic for dinner and a drink. I didn’t feel like cooking and we felt like we deserved a night out, so we joined them enjoyed the place, mostly to ourselves.
Thursday 12/12- Ramie’s random adventures while I work at my computer just never end. Today he had a job to do for Loren at one of the rental houses that he manages. The on-demand water heater for the kitchen sink wasn't working and had to be replaced. As usual though, things here in Costa Rica don't go as simply as you would think they would. When Ramie got it installed, the new one didn't work either. Fortunately, he knew what he had to do and began to troubleshoot the situation, only to find that there was an alternate issue with the water pump. It turns out that it wasn't building enough pressure to flip the flow switch on the heater and turn on it. Once he discovered that this was the issue, he didn’t know if the original one was actually still good, so he put the original back in to test it out. Unfortunately, though, it turned out that the old one still didn't work, so the problem was both that the pressure wasn’t high enough AND the water heater was bad, which resulted in Ramie removing the original one for a second time and reinstalling the new one again, for a second time. With the new one reinstalled, he turned the water back on and sure enough, this time it worked as it should. In the end he figured it out, even though it took extra steps and extra time, but he was able to resolve the problem, and that house now has hot water again.
Pura Vida!
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