Back in Honduras

I was very ready to be back where my stuff has it's own place, and where things stay where I put them. Not as ready to head back to Honduras, but I have been pleasantly surprised. The country seems cleaner, brighter, less poverty-stricken. I know it is just a change in perspective, as well as the rainy season washing things off. But, I'm still more or less in my happy place, and I worked all day. Last vacation I lost my happy place about an hour in to my first day of work when I got back.

I am finally finishing The Hammock. I finished the weaving tonight. I need to neaten up the long ends where I joined the lengths of yarn and tie on the ends temporarily. Then it can come off the support poles where it has lived for (sigh) 15 months. I have had some strange reluctance to finishing it. I am pushing through while I still have all the energy from being back in the States.

Which brings up the fact that while up in the States I didn't have the half sleep-walking lack of energy I am constantly plagued with down here. I also didn't have the fluctuations in being too hot to being chilled to back to too hot that I do here. Then again, the temperature here hovers right around 'comfortable' so it doesn't take a lot to swing things either way. At least for me. I brought back a trunk load of vitamins and supplements. We'll see if they help.

I still need to unpack the luggage. I've caught up with my sleep. I need to see how much damage I did to myself financially (a lot...) and make a new plan. Seems that I have run off the end of the last plan which was to just maintain status quo until I get back from vacation. I'm back.

Better get started...

I am as decompressed as I can get, and a lot poorer. I will slow down on the casino time, and start on the projects. Actually, I got the two major things done already. I showed Mom how to print off an entire email in Gmail, and I feel badly that all I had to do was check help and it is a button right where it should be. She could have been printing a long time ago. Bad technical support daughter. I also replaced my watch. Couldn't find any kind of digital watch in the mall in Teguc, and not a lot here even. I did find one, though, on sale for $10. I'm on the lookout for stashes of small digital (cheap) watches since they seem to becoming extinct.

I stopped by the storage unit yesterday afternoon, but it was too hot to do much. I've let this morning get away from me as well. I am meeting my Uncle at one of the casinos for lunch in a few hours, then I may go for a walk and then go to the storage unit (hopefully as it is getting cooler) and start putting the shelving units together. I got a couple of items out of the unit yesterday, but it was raining hard when I got back home so they are still out in the Jeep. One of them is my older laptop that stays here, and I want to do a health check on it and may take it back and put Ubuntu on it to play with.

I really need to get rid of most of this stuff, as I'm tired of dealing with all of it. However, when I go into the storage unit I don't see 'anything' that I 'want' to get rid of. sigh.

Made It

Went to the casino, which wasn't paying, and rolled in to Mom's around 7am local. It was only 6am by my internal clock. I was up at 9:30 local and going through mail and drinking coffee and talking with Mom. I'm now showered and dressed, Mom is doing same right now, and we will be off somewhere. I want to take a longish walk to work out some of the kinks in my body. The casinos are on the Missouri river, and a couple have nice walking paths along the levees. That is most likely where we will head first. Then to my storage units to see just what I have to deal with. I'm taking it slow and easy.

On My Way

I'm at the Teguc airport. The plane should land in about an hour, and then we will board, and the process repeats a few times and I eventually get to my Jeep and head out and try to remember how to drive on an interstate and follow my GPS to the casino. That is how I decompress when I get back to the States, sit in the casino, blend in, and just breathe for awhile while pushing buttons and sipping coffee. I can almost feel it, just a few more hours. Tomorrow the responsible parts, taking care of business, sorting items in my storage units, visiting family. Tonight is just for me, though, to remember what life is like back in the States. Note to self: the toilet paper goes in the toilet, not in a wastebacket like down here. That is an amazingly difficult habit to switch...

Almost ready

Just tonight and a wake-up. I am as packed as I'll get. There were several minutes of panic as I couldn't find my US cell phone to charge it. It was found in a place where it would have made the trip, but been useless on the way. I am now sweaty and relieved.

It is funny, as I heading out I'm thinking how much I like it down here. I always do that. I didn't like Washington State until less than 48 hours before I left. This time I will be back in 2 weeks, and I'm sure I will be back to feeling sorry for myself that I'm not back in the States.

Unless I post during the trip, my next post will be from someplace in the US.

Edited to add: Just for fun I took one of my pictures from the park above Tegucigalpa and made it a header picture. Hopefully I'll get some more of my pictures off the camera and into some editing software. The one above is 'as is' from the camera.

Time Shrinks

I don't have time to get ready to leave for 2 weeks. I also can't wait for it to get here. No energy. Probably not everything will get done before I go. Then again, it will all be here when I get back. I hope it is cooler when I get up North. I don't do well in the heat, especially when it goes on for 10 months. I just go slower and slower. I am almost stopped now, and I think reverse isn't far away.

Steps happening to get my resume out there. I need to compose a nice generic cover letter. I don't have the energy. It will work out.

Life Continues

Not a lot going on, and I decided years ago that my journals would not descend into the litany of 'laundry done, dishes done, still working on getting rid of stuff'. That is why the updates are fewer and further between. The above pretty much is what is going on. I am packing 'gorilla boxes' of things to send back, timing it to arrive when I'm there to handle it at the other end. Amazing the amount of thought and energy I'm putting into a 2 week trip back, but that's the way it is. A few things I keep looking at wondering why I'm shlepping them around various countries when I don't use them. Novel thought, huh? So, some things are getting unpacked and given away. The spare room is getting a bit emptier.

I've had a bit of a idealistic setback. I was attempting to lower my meat and dairy consumption. As well as my wheat and sugar consumption. Trouble is, I don't eat much in the way of veggies or fruits. If you are following that, it means that my food intake wasn't much, and cheating was fig newtons and coffee. Amazingly, despite my good intentions in limiting all of the above I was feeling less and less well. So, I'm back to eating meat, still limiting wheat and sugar, eating a lot of nuts and feeling a bit better. Also I'm still losing a bit of weight, which is good. I don't care how much I say 'well, I guess I really do look and feel better at 130' the truth is I would prefer to be below 120. So far the closest I've come is 124 while clothed. I'm not eating to lose weight primarily, but I am enjoying that I'm losing. It keeps me away from the worst sugar. Except fig newtons.

Taking a break

I may as well admit that I am just not on the computer as much lately. Well, I'm on the computer as much, but at work we are locked down and I can't get to blogs, including this one to post updates. I am getting loose ends tied up in other areas. If feels like a time to gather energy to get ready to move on. I hope so, anyway.

One of my issues is that I don't really post much about work, and I don't want to post a lot about the area where I live. This is a small country, and it wouldn't be difficult for someone to figure out who I am in real life. Is that a problem? I don't know. So, I keep very quiet about a lot of the details of life down here. Maybe once I leave I'll post some of the pictures.

Also, it is just not safe to wander around down here with a camera out. The vast majority of the time it would be fine. I don't want that one time someone would decide they needed my camera/cell phone/money and id's to make me feel even more afraid. This isn't a vacation, I'm living here and out and about every day. This fear of getting out and doing things is one reason I'm so bored now. It is good in that it is making me do the necessary things to move on.

If I don't post much, and if I am even more boring than usual when I do, that's why.

Good Intentions

I now have lots of ideas on things to post, along with pictures. However, the execution is lacking, and so I haven't been posting at all. I guess I'll just ramble for awhile until I get the pictures taken and a proper post crafted.

I have new neighbors in one of the upstairs apartments. A family, with 2 kids. Until now, this place was kid-free, and I'm not so much a kid friendly person. I do ok in small doses when I can hand the kids back. The energy level around here has stepped up, as has the foot traffic in and out to the street. These are not good things for me. I am looking to move, after I give them a few more days to settle in. I may have already lost the neighbor upstairs who was a single man who speaks English. I haven't seen him since the family moved in. That makes 2 steps backwards as far as I'm concerned.

One reason that posts have dropped off from me is that blogs are now blocked at work. I used to be able to take a few minutes and blather away here when things were slow. I may try posting via email again to see how it works.

Is it Friday yet?

No? sigh. Yes, I had yesterday off work. I hope everyone had a good Independence Day. I stayed home and got a lot more caught up. I am to the point now that I'm starting to see blank spaces occasionally. I know that a 2 bedroom apartment full of stuff is more than I like to keep up with. Slowly more things are heading to the 'donate' pile.

Nothing special going on to write about. I'm working late shift today to cover a co-worker's vacation day. Paying bills - I get paid once a month on the 1st, or the 2nd this month - and budgeting so that I make it the rest of the way to the end of the pay period. It really is a lot easier to do that now that the vast majority of the debt is going away. I do need to contact the Realtor to see if the eviction letter went out to my tenant. I'll be glad when that house and it's debt are gone. I am blessed, though, I know, to be able to carry the low payment while this is all going down. A lot of folks ended up in much worse places financially than I with houses that wouldn't sell.

Think I'll spend the evening part of my shift looking for more places to send my resume. I'm out of touch with what is going on in the States as far as the job situation. Others say it is difficult to get a job even in Military contracting right now in the States. May need to widen my search. I want some place that I have more options in things to do, or at least a lot more money so I can save to not need a job. :)