I am still alive, believe it or not. My husband and I moved from the little big city to the jungle, and we had to wait two whole weeks for the internet to get hooked up. It was hell, I tell you.
One of the things we said good-bye to when we moved from city to jungle was county water. We now have what's called a water catchment system. Basically, when it rains, the water runs from our gutters into what looks like a big, tarp covered, above-ground pool to the side of our house. From there, it flows through a water pump, through a filter that gets out the sediment and other large things, and into our pipes. If you think that sounds scary and undrinkable, you're right! We are living off of bottled water, for fear of getting rat lungworm disease.
We moved away from our apartment for two reasons: 1) it is a studio apartment, and while I adore my husband, we need more than one little room to ramble around in and 2) they wouldn't let us have Akira there. We picked this... lovely... home in the jungle because it fit our budget.
However, on the second day of our move, I received a phone call from one of the places I had sent my resume. She wanted an interview and wondered how quickly I could show up. A week and a half and a second interview later, I was offered the job. I still haven't started yet, because the office is a part of the hospital here and so I have to get a round of vaccinations, they have to check me for fun diseases like Hepatitis B and TB, and they have to do a drug and background check. Since the hospital is a government owned hospital, all of this takes a little longer than it should. But I'm pleased to announce that I no longer file other people's taxes for less than minimum wage two days a week.
Of course, since I was offered and accepted this job, I received no less than four calls and/or emails regarding other resumes I sent out. Ah, well. What can you do.
Hopefully either mid-April or early May, I will send my husband back to Tennessee to visit friends and bring my puppy home to me. This has been quite an ordeal. While her quarantine period is over, she still needs to have a topical flea/tick medicine applied, and I have to get a health statement along with two rabies certificates sent to me from the vet in Tennessee, which have to be sent along with the application that I have to fill out and get notarized to the Dept. of Agriculture in Honolulu no less than ten days before she arrives along with a fee of $163 just to get her in the state. I don't even want to think about how much it's going to cost just to fly her out here... I'll just be grateful that I have a full-time semi-well paying job now and let it go at that.
Another fun thing that happened in the two weeks that we had no internet and were learning to take care of a water catchment system is that we sold our house in Tennessee. (
) No more house payment AND rent payment for us. Which makes us happy. It's amazing how much fat you can trim from your life by making a move like this. I look around our small, one room house at the furniture here, and realize that we own less than half of it. My husband's salary has doubled, mine has shrunk to a third of it's former size, and our bills are smaller, but all in all, it's pretty exciting. It's nice to be able to go to a beach and pet a sea turtle on his head as part of our normal activities. I wouldn't say that I'm in love with Hawaii and I want to live here for the rest of my life, but I do think I've made an improvement to my life moving out here. If nothing else, I can say that I did it. I miss my mom, but that's part of growing up, I suppose. And with Skype and phone calls, it's not as bad as it could be.
So, that happened. What've you guys been up to?
