So What Do You Do With All Your Junk?

Ya have a garage sale, that's what! I spent a couple of hours today rooting through all the stuff we had stored in the garage and hadn't looked at in lo these many years....and judging from the scurrying spiders, the garage had not been cleaned either. It's actually a load off the shoulders to get rid of "things" - no more dragging them around, packing them up for another move, putting them in yet another storage spot and then never using or looking at them again.

We have a pile to take to the dump in Delta, a big pile for a garage sale, a small stack to go into storage and  some gardening items set aside for a friend. We are being ruthless this time. The only new things I will be buying between now and when we leave are a set of good bed linens to take with us, as apparently quality linens are hard to find in CR or so I've read. They won't take up much luggage space if I don't open the packages.

clases de espanol

Yes! I'm signing us up for Spanish Level 1 starting early October ....one session a week for 8 weeks, an hour and a half each lesson. We'll learn basic conversational Spanish to help us communicate and find our way on our travels.

Not A Lot is New .....

It's been so hot here recently that I've been in brain relax mode so didn't get much done in the way of moving ourselves closer to Latin America ....yes, I know, it's not really that hot compared to other areas of Canada in the summer and we don't get the humidity so what am I complaining about. Today, however, the weather is normal again so I'm much more alert. I have sent an email off to ARCR (Assn. of Residents of Costa Rica - we're members) to request a list of attorneys that they recommend as we need a representative in San Jose to deal with Immigration for us.

Here is another good site to have a look at: www.therealcostarica.com. I've learned so much about CR from this site - the good and the not so good....just like any other place on this planet.

A Big Step Forward

Things are moving along! We met with the Costa Rican Consul in N. Vancouver this morning. He reviewed all our paperwork, said I had done a good job, and sent us away with just a couple of changes/additions to make. I should be able to have those finished and ready to go back to him within a couple of weeks, if not less.

I think by this time next year, we will be sitting on our patio cubierto in the Central Valley, enjoying a beber con sabor a fruta, wondering whether to take another dip in the pool and practicing our Spanish. Getting this paperwork done and out of our hands is a big step forward.

August 7, 2010

Still waiting for that last piece of paperwork ..... hurry up, c'mon, get here ...

For those of you contemplating a move to Costa Rica, I strongly urge you to join the Association of Residents of Costa Rica (ARCR) http://www.arcr.net. They also have a forum site http://forums.arcr.net that is free to join. Membership in ARCR is a mere U.S. $100 per year for a couple. They are a non-profit association serving foreign residents in Costa Rica and people abroad who want to become residents of CR. They can help with legal, moving, language and cultural issues. As an ARCR member, you can take advantage of a large range of bilingual services and benefits.

I have lots of useful links and will post them as this blog moves along.

August 2, 2010

Okay - I think April or May, 2011, will be the realistic dates of our move to Costa Rica! So ignore January, 2011.

August 1, 2010

We made an executive decision today - January, 2011, will be the month we go to Costa Rica. So now I'm writing a large do-to list: look into Etsy to see if that is a viable place to sell some paintings because that would be better than putting them in storage; hold a garage sale in September; try to find out who owns the little tabby cat that moved in with us uninvited about a year ago (she has a tattoo); list some more stuff on Craigslist; etc., etc., etc.

Well, I'm tired thinking of it all.