Post Crossings

Wow!! This is pretty awesome! I just read that Postcrossings has just registered its 10,000,000th post card.  What an accomplishment! What a happy thought... 10,000,000 post cards hand addressed, stamped, and mailed all over the world; bringing to each recipient a smile and a memory to cherish. Congratulations Postcrossings!

Life Keeps Happening....

  I have been waiting to write an entry until I had my act together at home... Well, "life" keeps happening so I don't think I am going to get my act together. Most recently my husband and I had the pleasure of ripping the floor out of the main bathroom. The gasket under the toilet had been secretly leaking and the sub floor abruptly began to sag. Sigh...

  The yucky part of the task is now behind us, a new sub-floor is in place and we will set the porcelain throne once we acquire the hardware to bolt it to the floor. My husband and I are no strangers to construction projects. We built our house back after Hurricane Hugo threw the majority of the house into the woods. Since those days we have had the opportunity to do many other construction projects under our roof...

New tile next to tub

This one was particularly repugnant due to the fact we had to tear up a perfectly good tile floor to make the repair. One good thing to come out of it is that I now am going to fulfill a long time desire to have a black and white mosaic floor in the bathroom. I have always wanted to have that kind of tile in there because we have this wonderful 1920's porcelain over cast iron corner tub in that bath and I think the tile will really set it off. So looking on the bright side, Yipee! I am going to get my mosaic floor!
  For the present I am going to have to live with the plywood sub-floor. Construction projects have a tendency to get what my computer programer sons would call "scope creep".  The john leaks so we have to rip out the floor, then h-m-m... this would be a good time to take out the 20 year old sink cabinet and replace it with one of those really nice shallow profile sink bases with the porcelain , round fronted sink top. So while we are at it we should open the wall behind the sink and re-plumb the sink plumbing, since it is old and could leak and ruin our new tile floor... and gee.. a pressed tin ceiling would really give this room an authentic period look, (another detail I have always wanted but could not afford when we were rebuilding the house). Of course we will want to give the walls and wainscoting a new coat of paint before we lay down the floor. So, once again my house will be a construction zone and God only knows how long this will take, since my husband will be very busy supporting electronic poll book implementation in preparation for the May primary... it is after all a presidential election year. At least I won't be trying to do construction with little kids under foot, like we did when we were building the house back after Hugo. At that time we had a 7 year old and a six moth old to keep up with as well as put our house back together. Actually, the thought of not having them around to "help" is kind of depressing... Enough of that. My goal for 2012 is to get over my "empty-nest" syndrome and enjoy the new life stage I am in. This is a lofty goal since I was drowning in "emptiness" before we went to Costa Rica.
  I am sorry. I am babbling. I am still working on the transition to Stateside life, I feel fragmented and scattered, but it is time for me to pull it all together. The seeds just arrived for my spring garden, so I need to get them in flats and under lights. The plans need to be laid out for a bathroom renovation and I have still got a pile of letters to answer and delinquent blog entries to write. So... I think I will grab a stack of letters, make a Cafe con Leche with smooth Costa Rican coffee, and give some of my pen friends something in their mailboxes! See you in the mail!

Getting back to Life American-Style

Hi all!
  I know that it has been awhile since I posted... Wow... life comes at you fast here in the States! I am struggling to reset my inner clock from "Tico Time" to "Rat Race", my head is spinning. It almost seems like I am going in slow motion and the rest of the world is a whirling blur around me. I know in time that the sensation will subside and that I will recalibrate, but it seems such a shame to lose the beautiful calm that came over me while we were gone.

 One real consolation is that now I am able to send and receive letters again! When I returned to the states and checked my P.O. Box, (not the very first thing I did, but it was one of the top 3), I found that it was stuffed full of mail goodness from my pen family...Sigh! It feels so good to be thought about... it made tears well up in my eyes. I have missed you guys! I am afraid that I have not had a chance yet to sit down and write any letters. I have been working on a set of postcards to mail out to everyone, so soon I will have something out to all the people on my mailing list. Then I will begin to work my way through the stack of lovely mail I have received. I want each of you to know how much you mean to me and how appreciative I am of your friendship. You are the best! Very soon I will see you in the mail!
 

We are Home!

Hi everyone! After six lovely weeks of travel, hiking, & visiting, we are finally home. We were delivered safely to our door by our son a few minutes ago and now I am going to go to bed...I am beat. I will post again soon with some final stories from Costa Rica and then I will be trying to get mail out to my pen friends in a day or two. It is good to be home! See you in the mail very soon!!

I will be posting about our time at Casitas Tenorio when we return home... We have done some video and have to wait until we can get to our video editing software before I can post. I will say though, that we had a great time. Pip and Donald the owners and hosts of Casitas Tenorio, are delightful people. They made our time in the area very special and I can happily say we have made some new friends. I also am going to wait to post about our return trip to Rio Celeste until we get back to the States so I can include some video. I will say that my knee was well enough to go down the stone stairs this time... unfortunately for me the rains washed away a large section of the path down to the waterfall so... I got to go down a different way... but I'll tell all about that when I post my pics and video. See you soon!