27 September 2008

House Painting

New Paint! ... I can finally show you what I've been up to for the past month! I got up early this morning (before dawn) to take a new photo of the house, showing the new yellow & green color scheme. I the lights with the new sconces on the walls to be visible in the photo. We still have a second coat to do on the piece partially hiding behind the palm trees, and a little more trim work to do. Then that will leave only one wall to do yet... the one not seen on the right side of the house. Scott helped to finish this side because we needed to use his 40' ladder.

We had planned to completely finish the front side today, but it turned out to be quite rainy today... painting between the raindrops proved to be nearly impossible, so we finally gave up for the day.

On the lower level (in the front) will be a 1-bedroom apartment. Right now we're just using the space for storing stuff like wood, paint, ladders, etc. We'll probably start looking for windows as soon as the exterior painting is finished. Scott's workshop is also on the lower level, just behind the apartment. And our living space is completely on the upper level.

At the end of the day, while we were sitting on the veranda (waiting for another shower to pass), we were treated to one of the biggest rainbows we've ever seen! Both ends were fully in view... just couldn't fit it all in my camera lens. I even got the binoculars out to see if I could spy the "pot-o-gold"!

The big news for this week is that we finally signed up for CABLE! No more negative black & white Fox News! We now get all the basic network stations (and were able to watch the presidential debate Friday night)... ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS, Fox, CNN, and a few others that I'm not real familiar with yet. Since I've never had cable before, I'll have to learn how to use it (with our VCR)!

19 September 2008 - Friday

Just Imagine... It's September, and it's a presidential election year. Imagine not getting any political phone calls or tons of junk mail... or passing by the clutter of all the yard signs along the roads wherever you go. Do you think you would miss all that? Nah... we don't! I'd say it's even worth a few mosquito bites to not have to endure all the political banter! Yes, we are both following the headlines and planning to cast our votes by absentee ballot this year. It will definitely be an election for the history books!

Speaking of mail... we still haven't received our electric bill yet. Haven't heard anything from them since they called to tell us our bill was so low! (Maybe they decided it wasn't worth sending us a bill this month? Ha!)

I'm hearing that the weather in PA has gotten cooler, especially at night. I can tell you I certainly don't miss that either! Although it's been a bit cooler here the past few days (because of rain)... temp outside was down to 76 yesterday afternoon... I expect it will warm up as soon as the sun returns. Then we'll see the temp back up in the mid-80's again.

Since Scott finished all the screen doors, we've been sleeping with the door open (the one going out to the veranda), and it's been very comfortable... even without the fan running. While I continue to paint the house, Scott is the "doorman"... he's painting/staining all the interior doors now. (Every now & then he has to take a break to help me with the ladder.)

The weather was really bad yesterday... it poured! Since I couldn't paint, we took that opportunity to go to the bank & open a checking account. That took about an hour! We already have a savings account, so this should have been a breeze... you would think. We filled out so much paperwork! The girl brought out a well-worn manila file folder with the words "Personalised Cheques" handwritten on the front of it. Then she kept typing on her keyboard. (It seemed like she was writing a novel!) She pulled out a pack of checks, which looked like a loan payment booklet... the kind with a stub to the side of the check. These would be our temporary checks until we get our "personalised" ones. But first, she has to get our new account number on them. Now she pulls out one of those gigantic rubber stamps and dials in our 10-digit account number. Then she runs through and stamps each one of the 25 checks in that booklet! So now I ask about ordering checks, thinking we'll have to make that difficult decision of which design & color we can both agree on. She gives me the order form to fill out and I tell her I don't know what to enter for the "style". (She still hasn't shown me the designs available.) She then says, "You can get them like these (pointing to the temporary checks), or you can get them with a duplicate copy." That's it! Those are my only choices! Guess it made the decision a whole lot easier! So now we have a checking account here, which will make it a little easier paying our bills.

Well, that's all for today... Come back often for more!

Photo Description: A view of our living space... you can see my computer set-up on the left side. (This is my Photoshop & Skype station!)

Sad News... We think Mr. Big has met his maker. Neither of us had seen him all day today, and late this afternoon Scott discovered a dead lizard in the grass behind the carport. I think it was Mr. Big. I don't know what went on here last night, but I haven't seen Tail-less Joe today either. Although there are still a number of other lizards hanging around, those two seemed the tamest. We've seen Mr. Big just about every day since we arrived here.

17 September 2008 - Wednesday

22 inches...

That's what Scott announced to me today... "22 inches". Of course, I had no idea what that could possibly mean, but at the time I was busy painting so I didn't bother responding. He then said it again later in the day... "22 inches". Finally I had to ask... "Which means what?" He then says, "22 inches is how wide the bathroom door is." By now I'm pretty curious because I still have no idea what he's talking about. Well, we've been planning to put the washer & dryer (which are still packed in the boxes) in the master bathroom... there's plenty of space in there. But here's the problem... they're 23-1/2 inches wide. Oh well, I've been hand washing my own laundry but using an old washer that was left here for cleaning old work clothes. (It doesn't do a very good job of cleaning.) So I'll continue hand-washing for a while longer. He still hasn't figured out how we're going to get them working on this electric system anyway. Gotta come up with a Plan B!

Critters...

I made a mistake the other night... about the mongoose in the photo on my previous entry. We discovered that it was NOT a mongoose, but something they call a "manicou"... which is simply their version of a possum! (We're still having trouble understanding the Caribbean lingo!) Click here to see a description: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opossum

The lizards here are just so cute! There are 2 distinctive ones that have been hanging around... we see them every day. One is fairly large... about a foot long including his tail. I've named him Mr. Big. He's much bigger than all the other ones we've seen. Then there's another one missing his tail. I call him "Tail-less Joe" (like Shoeless Joe Jackson?). He's only about 4-5 inches long. I was so close to Tail-less Joe today that my paintbrush could have poked out his eye! He was lounging on a bush while I was painting the steps to the veranda. Seriously, he was all stretched out on the branch like he was taking an afternoon nap! If I made too much noise, he'd open his eye to peer at me... but didn't move any part of the rest of his body! They seem to be very curious and interested in us... I think we could easily make them our pets! Joe is beginning to grow a new tail... don't know how I'll tell him apart from the others then!

I painted between the raindrops today... trying to time it so the stuff I painted had a little chance to dry before getting wet. I'm hoping to get a call that our terra cotta sconces are ready tomorrow. We ordered them to be glazed dark green to match our trim & roof color. Once we get them installed, I'll take another photo for you.

This evening (before dark) we took a quick drive over toward LaSagesse, which is a beach area on the Atlantic (east) side of the island... not far from us. We stopped at a roadside bar called Runaway Bar. Beer was cheap here ($4 EC per bottle), and it was a nice little place... with a pool table. We'll have to stop in there again sometime. They were very nice there. Other than that... we haven't been out & about for some time!

Till next time...

8 September 2008 - Monday

Had a little excitement here this evening! We heard a bit of noise outside this evening and finally Scott went to investigate. Then he came back inside, telling me to grab my camera & come out! There was a mongoose on the electric wires out in front of our property and the neighbor boys were trying to knock it off. These animals are not native to Grenada, but they were brought here years ago to manage the snake population. Now I'm told there are no snakes on the island, so I'm not sure what they're eating now! When this one was finally knocked off the wires, one of the boys grabbed it by the tail and we could get a better look at it. (Looks like a possum!) I think they were planning to eat it... so I left as soon as I got my photos! By the way, the tree behind him in the photo is a bay leaf tree! (Yea, the one used for seasoning!)

So here's another story for you: I've included a photo of the local Ace Hardware store. Many of you have asked what the shopping is like here. Well, it depends. This is a new location for this store, and it's probably the one most like our hardware stores back home. We've been buying all our paint here, so we've really gotten to know the paint manager! We're in here at least once a week!

There is another store in the city that sells hardware & household supplies... Hubbard's. Well, we needed a small piece of plexiglass cut for our back door. So we went to a shop in the city that we've had cut glass for us in the past. But they don't cut plexiglass. When we asked where we could get it, they sent us to Hubbard's. (And we were just there prior to this stop!) So we drove back through the windy city streets to get to Hubbard's... meandering along on all the one-way streets leading us back there. We went inside looking for the glass counter. Finally someone asked to help us and led Scott out into the parking "garage" to a space with a locked door in the corner. The worker unlocked the door to where they stored and cut the glass. He pulled out a 4'x8' piece and Scott told him "No... don't you have something smaller than that? I only need a piece less than 8 inches by 15 inches." So they found a smaller piece, but they wouldn't cut it before it was paid for. So now Scott goes back inside (& the worker locks the door), then he leads Scott over to the cash register to pay for the plexiglass. Once he pays for it, he has to go to the Information Desk... where she records it in a big book! Now this has taken at least 15 minutes for him to pay for this glass. Then he takes his receipt back out to the parking garage so the guy can cut it. The worker unlocks the door (again), and proceeds to pull out the 4'x8' sheet. Scott again tells him not to cut it from that large piece... first of all, that piece is too thick. So the guy pulls out ANOTHER 4'x8' piece. Scott says, "No... just cut it from this small piece here. We already picked this one out earlier." The worker tells him he can't cut it from that piece because it's not what his receipt says he paid for. He says we need to go back inside and get the receipt "exchanged". By this time, Scott doesn't care if he paid too much for it... he just doesn't want to go through the obstacle course of getting the paperwork changed! But the guy won't cut it without the proper receipt. So back inside we go... first to the cash register. Then we take the receipt to the Information Desk so this girl can write it correctly in her "book"! (There's a computer right in front of her, but she doesn't seem to use it.) The worker that's going to cut the glass was trying to get us through, so he asked her the dimensions for the piece (which were 7-1/4" x 14-3/4"... can you see how this could get messed up?). He didn't write it down, but he disappeared while we were still waiting for her to finish the receipt. I had a feeling that he went to cut it so it would be done by the time we got back to him... but that worried me! Anyway, finally we finished getting the proper papers and went to find the guy... who was back inside that locked room. He came out & handed us our piece of plexiglass... which was NOT cut to the correct size! So he had to cut it again for us anyway. For one little piece of glass, we spent nearly an hour to get it... and had to go through about 4 different people for this one item! This is the kind of customer service that seems to be typical here on the islands.

Our next stop was to Ace Hardware for more paint. The first thing I noticed near the paint counter was a display of glass & plexiglass... which could be cut to size! The people at Ace are much easier to deal with... more like home.

Well, after 2 days of rainy/cloudy weather, I'm looking forward to getting a good jump on more house painting tomorrow. By the way, I think I've found a new vocation... as a house painter!

4 September 2008 - Thursday

If you take a look at the photo, you can see what I've been up to! We decided to work on the carport area first... because it was a small area that we could actually complete to get an idea of what the whole house will look like. The top photo shows the mess around the eaves that is part of the reason why we need to paint. This is all the result of replacing the roof. (And the inside of the house is the same way!) We still need to finish the screen door on this entrance... and we plan to paint (or re-stain) the bench near the steps. Scott added the shelves above the sink... they were originally in the bedroom I just painted. And he built a new base for the propane tanks. The tanks, by the way are for our gas stove.

Re-using the shelves is typical of how things are done down here... anything can be "re-cycled"! Because things are so expensive, you don't just throw things away. Instead of buying plastic trash bags for the small wastebaskets, we use the shopping bags from groceries. We wash out the frozen food baggies & use them again. If something gets broken, you try to have it repaired... instead of running out to buy new. That's just the way it is here! We are even so happy to have empty gallon paint buckets that we can use for other things! And of course, we re-use our water bottles.

A funny thing happened today, but first I have to tell you about a gift we received a few years ago. One time we were talking with friends about how we thought those motion-detector frogs (& similar items) were silly... and who would want one? So one of them gave us a fake rooster (with real feathers). The bird has batteries (in the rear) and crows when loud sounds startle it. Well, Joey figured out how to get the thing to crow all the time so we moved it to an area where it was on display but wouldn't be disturbed. We brought the rooster with us (but took the batteries out... or so we thought). This afternoon we were sitting outside & heard a rooster crowing. This is not an unusual sound around here since there are chickens roaming everywhere. But the crowing continued... until we realized we changed the ringer on our cellphone to "Rooster"! Of course, by that time we missed the call.

So the other part of the story is that I returned the call & it turned out to be the local electric company looking for Scott. They were concerned that our electric bill was so LOW and wanted to know why! Scott was shocked at how low it was (and I'm now dancing about it, thinking I don't have to turn everything off all the time), and they're trying to figure out the reasons for it. Well, our tenant had a lot of computer equipment that was on all the time, and there were 4 in the family... plus the fact that the house was empty for a month. Anyway, the way things get messed up down here, we're not exactly dancing for joy just yet! We'll wait & see what the bill looks like NEXT month!

Well... guess that's all for now! Tonight's Quiz Night at the Gem! Hopefully Hanna won't mess up any weekend plans at home!