We are back in Antigua as of Sept 1, 2011

Greetings All

Some of the folks who keep track of us through our blog have sent messages saying they did not know our current location so I shall remedy that. We are in Antigua Guatemala as of Sept 1, 2011. We left Antigua because a) our passport needing to be stamped at the end of 90 days, and b) we needed to clean out the house in Iowa and put it on the market.

Then Life Happened -- Don's step-father passed away at age 87 from complications of pneumonia. Don was the executor of his will which has been an added complication. Nothing in-surmountable but adding new edges everywhere for all of the family to contend with. Many of you know that Don's mom is paralyzed on one side and now is having issues with either dementia, early Alzheimers, or memory loss due to closed head trauma from the first and second falls. Now she 'forgets' that she cannot stand or walk on her own resulting in falls and trips to the ER. Mary, Don's mom, is in an assisted living facility. We had to clean and empty her condo and put it on the market THEN we were able to go to Iowa and do that with our stuff.

 WORD OF ADVISE -- start getting rid of stuff that you just have stuffed in drawers or closets. If you don't use it and don't love it get rid of it now.  It nearly did us in to do just that with our accumulation of 'stuff'. If you think a child or grandchild would love to have something you have then give it to them now and enjoy watching their little faces. You will all be happy.

Our next step is to find a facility here in Antigua for Don's mom. We would like to improve her quality of life and care. She could live a long time as the doctor says she is in good shape for the shape she is in. Life is a bit slower, easier and cheaper here in Guatemala.

Don says it is time for our afternoon adventure. We are going to check out an Ex-Pat library which has recently been re-located very near us. I will try to keep you posted on our shaningins.

Linda

Don's Mom had successful surgery

Thought you would want to know that Mary made it through the surgery just fine. It was a stinker of a long day. They made us arrive by 7 am but she did not actually have the surgery before 11 am. I hope they had a good time with a lady who is crazy as a loon from 9 to 11. She was listed as a fall risk so she had to have someone with her the whole time. Before we left for the day I came back up to the room with her wheelchair and found her with her yellow booties off and her leg sticking out between the rails of the bed! She gets herself in trouble when she is left alone too long. She really begins to sundown into depression by 3 pm. It is almost like someone flips a switch. Today, however, she did not have any of her meds so it was more understandable. She did not want us to leave at 5:30pm but our 12 hour day was beginning to catch up with us. 

Don is searching for good plane tickets for our return to GUA. We need to make arrangements face to face in GUA for Mary. Meanwhile, Mary has to heal and wait for her passport to arrive. It should be a nightmare for the girls until we can have her brought (or come to get her) to GUA. Don and I need to get back to GUA.

New development with me -- I have 'trigger thumb' from all the packing/boxing and carrying of stuff. The final straw was nearly loosing my corner of the china hutch. Robyn got me into the rehab lab at the hospital and one of the occupational therapist made a thumb splint which I have to wear for 4 to 6 weeks, and I have to stop doing what I was doing so it can heal. They also suggest a cortisone shot to reduce the inflammation. Not having an opposing thumb is not really to much fun. There are things I cannot do. Life is interesting.

Linda

3 Bedroom, 2 car garage split level home for sale in Iowa.

3 Bedroom, 2 car garage, split level home for sale in Iowa. Contact Century 21 for details.

Most - if not all of you who read this blog know by now that we are no longer in Iowa. With the help of a good friend or two we were able to get the house empty and some of our possessions packed for the move to Guatemala. We have a furnished apartment in Antigua so we did have to move furniture. Don hooked a small Uhaul trailer to the van with all seats but two removed and we started out for Texas. It was a very long couple of days as we had to travel at 50 mph because of the load but the trip was uneventful otherwise. We arrived at our halfway point in the daylight and did the same at our final destination in Texas. The unloading took a great deal less time than the packing did because Don is an artist when it comes to using all available space to pack. Since our arrival we have spent the time recovering from sore joints and muscles and multiple bruises and getting some much needed rest.

Thanks to all of you who helped us get through all we have had to do recently.

All of the Staff at Wendy's in Burlington gave us moral support as we ate most, if not all, of our meals with them. This is a very good staff, hardworking and friendly and we appreciated them this past month. Thanks!

Thanks Burlington for the Memories. Feel free to keep in touch (but no forwarded stories or poems please -- I can find those myself). Tell us what the happenings are in Burlington because we are interested.

Bye Burlington

Update on the packing

Greetings,

We are still in the USA. We returned to pack out our house in Iowa and got partway through that job when Don's step-father passed away. We dashed off to Texas to be with his mom and the rest of the family and help with the funeral. Turned out that Don is the executor of the will so we had to stick around to get stuff done and begin the process of dealing with the will. We spent 8 days emptying the condo of his parents and I can tell you for a fact that it is a hard job to do. Now we are in Iowa and it is OUR house that we are packing out and reading to sell. Life is tough sometimes. We hope to be back in Antigua in August.

Currently in the USA if you were wondering

Greetings, you may have noticed that we have not posted anything here recently. There is a reason for that -- we are currently in the USA. When Don started with the NGO Transitions we left before we had the house in Iowa up for sale so he could get things moving on fund development. The understanding was that when our 90 days were up (time to renew passports) we would return to the USA to remove our belongings from the house, store those things that I (personally) cannot part with and put the house up for sale. We returned at noon on a Monday and at 4 am on Tuesday Don's step father passed away changing our plans and timeline. We did a 10 day marathon then drove to Texas for the funeral and burial. We postponed the funeral to a time when our daughter, Donna from CA, would arrive on plane tickets previously purchased. Shell Silverstein described our situation nicely with this poem for kids,

Too Many Kids in this Tub

Author: Shel Silverstein

There's too many kids in this tub
There's too many elbows to scrub
I just washed a behind that I'm sure wasn't mine
There's too many kids in this tub.

We ended up with 5 kids under the age of 7 and 5 adults under the same roof. We all landed at our daughter Susan's house because she has the most space. Susan and Scott were gracious hosts to such a crew. We never actually snarled at each other but by the end of a week with that many in one house everyone was having trouble controlling tempers. It did not help that the temperature here has been a 100 degrees in the shade and young ones could not play outside in that kind of heat. I forgot that Texas could feel like a desert when it wants to. 

We have plans to return to GUA and our nifty little apartment in July. We hope to have most of what we have to deal with here in motion and plans in place. Yeah, I know -- that is really optimistic. Wish us luck.

Linda

We have moved to a New Apartment!

We have moved to a New Apartment! And I can tell you that this is Bliss!
Apartado Postal #169   Apartamento Huespedes  Alameda Santa Lucia Norte #12, Antigua 3001, Guatemala       


OUR LAND LINE PHONE NUMBER  502-7832-9966 remember this is an international call!!!
It has an answering machine. The best way to contact us is still email.    guatebuzz@gmail.com

Before I show you the apartment let me give just a little background. Last year if you followed our blog you heard about Kristin with whom we did some volunteer work in schools, mostly re-habbing computers. Well since Don knows a lot about computers Kristin wanted Don to spiff up her computer and to add more memory to it which he did -- in this apartment.  We really loved the whole complex and while we did not look really hard at her apartment (this was her home) we really liked the kitchen, dining and living areas and the gardens visible through the windows. When she finished with her project here in Antigua she went home but we were not in a position to rent her apartment. Just recently the tenent who was here broke his lease early and per the contract has to pay 90 days rent until the apartment is rented again.

We met Barbara and Tomas Cernikovsky last year and this year during Don's intensive search for a suitable apartment to rent he contacted them about any openings here at the "JARDINES DE LA ALAMEDA "   so last week we received an email from Barbara about this apartment and to make a long story short we rented it on the spot.  We had orginally planned to move in when we return in July but Friday we did not have water at the cassita and life is miserable without water. Barbara was kind enough to let us move in before she had the apartment ready for presentation to the public. We now live in Apartamento Huespedes (which means 'Guest Apartment).  If you click on the link you will see the apartment before the recent upgrades.  This is a gated five apartment complex and Barbara and Tomas live here as well. To enter you first must open the wooden outside door, next you open the inside gate door, walk to your apartment and open the iron gate (if you locked it) then the door to your apartment.


This is the front of the Apartment Complex. This was taken during last years Easter season. The front door is to the right of the tree.

This was taken with my back to the inside iron gate. Our apartment is at the far end on the right.

One of the fountains between all of the apartments.

This is our front door on the right with the iron gate partly open. At the end you can see the gate/door entrance to Barbara and Tomas's home. The gates open to another garden and tiled hall.

Stepping through the door you can see into the kitchen. Above the dishwasher is a new window (one of the upgrades) which adds light and air. Don's antique desk is on the wall beside the bedroom. To the left is the bedroom door and the shut door is the bathroom (closed for obvious reasons.)

This is a better view of the desk and the alcove (for want of a better word) that has my Mother's Day carving sitting there.(There is a matching space on the other side of the arch.) It is the face of Jesus carved from a tree with his eyes closed.

I took this photo standing behind the table to show you the size of the space for dinning room and kitchen.

This is the bedroom. The bath is to the right. At the foot of the bed the room was opened up (upgrade) and the old indoor garden was removed and tiled and patio was added and a small garden at the end of the patio. The patio area also houses the new laundry room for this apartment. The gardener will take care of the garden since I have such a brown thumb. 

A view of the patio and gardens from the foot of the bed.

Standing at the edge of the kitchen this is the living room. Front door to the left and the window opens to  Barbara and Tomas's garden. 

The dinning room table with my computer on one end and the view I have as I write. I can hear the fountain and listen to music from the flat screen cable TV. All the elevator music I want. It makes for a very pleasant space to be while slaving away at this blog. 

The gentleman below took care of more than 200 such small gardens  the Cernikovsky's planted on the Alameda (street) which the city now maintains. The gentleman in the red shirt still works part time inside the complex and for a small fee with take your trash out for pickup.

The patio and laundry room. This laundry room is a fantastic addition because hauling laundry on foot is hard to do and in the end expensive.

Life is a lot easier now. I had not realized how hard it was to 'campout' at the cassita. We were two feet from a major street with a lot of traffic both car (speeding) and foot and with all the dust that generated. I now have some choices of sitting areas, access to the outdoors with beautiful gardens, we are close to the markets, stores and other conveniences. Church will still be a good 30 minute walk (or we can take a tuk tuk) because we like San Fransico and will continue to go there. Don says his office is a little closer but still nearly a mile away but he likes our new living space as much as I do.

Finally...

It's 3:00 a.m. on Saturday and the last procession for Santo Viernes (Holy Friday, what we call Good Friday) has just passed our front door. They began their route from Escuela de Christo Church, about two blocks away from us at 4:00 p.m. yesterday. We actually saw them pass by twice today. The first time was as we were leaving the two-hour Santo Viernes service at San Francisco El Grande Church. They were passing the front gate of the courtyard and no one could get out. We had to wait until they had passed (about 30 minutes) to exit the church yard (it's surrounded by a high wall). While waiting or as we were leaving, my shoulder bag was cut by a thief. I imagine they were surprised. It only held a Spanish hymnal (we sang with the choir again) and two paperback missals (Spanish and English). I'll get the pictures posted as soon as possible. I'm only about two weeks behind, if I remember correctly. Fortunately, there is only one procession on Santo Sabado (Holy Saturday).