Slow Going

I know, long time since our last post.  Well to catch you up, Ed-doh-gar has announced his retirement date, put in all his paperwork, wrote his farewell letter and been notified that he has a retirement ceremony upcoming at work.  I have to admit the letter he wrote was a tear jerker, very to the point and humbling.  His co-workers responses were just as touching and wonderful.
When we were filling out the pile of paperwork for retirement and struggling through the legalese we had a lot of  numbers and passwords and logins and notary places.  Ed had a moment of brain fart when filling out where to deposit our monies and instead of putting just our bank act number in the blocks, he added our check number to the end, this has been a nightmare to sort out as we are now more than two weeks waiting to see where the retirement funding is, it shows as dispersed.  I am hoping that just means taken out not sent to oblivion or to someone else's account.  I am worried sick over this and Ed-doh-gar is just like, "I'll call them today and see where we are on this."  He mentioned that he might have done the same thing on his Social Security deposit request...he will check.  I am dying a thousand deaths in this transition.  I am the scheduler and we are like way behind on the schedule and soon to be retired with money, but not where we can use any of it... Ed-doh-gar is checking on it.
We have had friends that Ed-doh-gar works with come with their daughter who is starting out on her first live alone adventure come and take things that she needed for her apartment.  We had other friends of this friend come and take more furniture, you would think we would be well on our way to an empty house, but we still have a lot sitting there staring me in the face saying, "Hello, could you find me a home too please?"
My routine is box and load the car one day and donate and do lighter work the next day, slow going but I am seeing more open space day by day.  The pups are loving the room, they tussle and run more now in the living room, they are very happy with  the more open living arrangement.

We have had a lot happen since I started this post.  My father was diagnosed with lung cancer and I flew back home to be with him and my family.  Richard Robert Czaplinski passed away on St. Patrick's day.  I will miss him very much.

I got to be with my younger sister Valerie McFarland and Brenda Niederberger and her fun family.  It was very bitter sweet to see them all.  I was glad of the opportunity but wished it was under happier circumstances.

I also got to see a very good friend that I had lost touch with when we moved to Japan for 10 years.  Claire Rominger was my matron of honor at my wedding some forty years earlier.  I drove to Bethlehem, PA to do some catching up and it was like we had never been apart.  We promised that we would stay in touch through Facebook and to this day we have stayed true to our promise.

The digging out of our house was a long and arduous process,  the memories were dispersed, the junk was trashed and the rest was donated to friends and neighbors.  The rest we packed and took along.

We have been pleased so far with our decisions, Ed though wished he had brought more tee shirts and not so many polo shirts with long sleeves.  We have only been through one small portion of the rainy season, I think he will be glad he brought them, but time will tell.

We landed in Quito on May 15, 2013.  We thought we had been abandoned but 45 minutes after coming out of customs with 10 bags, 4 dogs, two in kennels, and our computer, we were picked up by a van from our hotel.  It was a surprise that it was another $40.00 to be transported, as the hotel advertised that it was included.  Needless to say, we paid and got in.  One hour later we arrived at the Hotel Bonanza.

We were expecting an apartment, we got a room and a window and a bathroom.  We were too tired to argue the morning was arriving quickly and we were exhausted.  We slept like a rock until the dogs wanted to go out.

The hotel had three dogs, the other family there had two dogs and our four made a zoo.  Not everyone had their dogs on a leash and it was touch and go until we figured out when we could take our dogs out without having a ruckus on our hands.

We paid 825.00 dollars for a month and $1500.00 for our retirement visa paperwork to be completed by Nora Minga the owners wife.  We stayed one day past our date because it was the only day we were allowed to move into our rental and it was 75.00 for the room for 4 hours.  I almost died.

We were stuck because we had the dogs and they accepted them without question, but the experience was less than wonderful.

We had breakfast and lunch and dinner provided, the food was great but the flies were not.  The kitchen was full of them and it required us to swat and wave them away as we were eating breakfast and lunch.  I have no idea where they all went for dinner but they were not there for that meal thank god for small favors.

Patrick the owner of this hotel was away in North America our whole stay and his wife joined him for a week.  The staff was left to fend for themselves with a friend helping the Mingas' operate the hotel.

We were glad to move into our house, it was quiet, fly free and our dogs were not attacked everytime they went outside.  I realize that this is a venting, but I needed it.

We have been here for 90 days and love Quito and LaPampa where we are living.  The house has it's problems, but we have painted and cleaned and fixed vertical blinds, repaired the electric and learned how to operate the pool filter all on our own.  We are estatic.

Join us on our journey, our next adventure.

Love til the next time,,

Denise and Ed