It has been a while

Five weeks exactly since I last posted on this blog.  I started this to record the countdown to the move to our new home in Costa Rica and had another blog to record the things that occurred that really weren’t part of the countdown.  Since we are now here, this blog doesn’t get much attention.  I keep thinking I will stop writing in it and move completely to the other blog ( www.costaricadoglover.com ) but not too many people read this and it is nice to record the passing of time.  So – I’ll keep it for now – if only for me.
Since I last wrote, we have celebrated Thanksgiving (not a holiday here in Costa Rica) and have moved into the rainy season here on the Caribbean.  The last couple of weeks particularly, have brought a lot of rain – pretty much every day.  It is good, the rain forest needs rain.  It has been interesting for us as we have had to figure out how many times we can wear the same clothes without smelling too bad so that we don’t have to use the dryer too often.  We almost always hang our clothes out to dry since the dryer is a huge energy drain and the electricity here is tiered to get more and more expensive the more you use.  Using the dryer can add as much as $50 a month in the electricity bill if we used it all the time.  At any rate, if there is a hint of sun when we wake up in the morning, we rush to wash a load of clothes and then hope they dry before it rains again.
We have seen a few new birds since I last wrote but the deluge of new birds has stopped.  Right now we are seeing birds that are primarily wintering here from either South or North America and it is still fun to try to identify them all.  The other day we hear the loudest call of any bird we had heard so far.  After several days of hearing it we finally saw it perched up in one of our tall trees in the yard.  It was a laughing falcon and it was amazing!!  Beautiful bird and such a unique voice.  We are still hearing owls every night and that is a nice sound to fall asleep to.  It is not so nice to wake up the the noisy roosters at 3:00 a.m. but we are getting more used to it.  The rain actually helps since we don’t here the roosters nearly so much when the rain is coming down.
Our wonderful neighbors are back in Portland for a couple of months and we miss them.  We have really become good friends and it will be nice when they are down here for longer periods.  They have house sitters who are here for a year from England and they are very nice.  We will be having dinner with them tonight and so will get to know them better.  So far they have had a pretty quiet stay.
I am beginning to really see the benefit in my yoga classes.  My balance is so much better and I am becoming more flexible.  My teacher is so patient with me and makes sure I don’t push myself too hard.  She also is a wonderful resource for other healthful ideas.  She gave me the name of a man who is a therapeutic masseuse here and I have had two session with him.  While I feel much better here in Puerto Viejo, my body still hurts quite a bit from the fibromyalgia I have had for years.  However, the masseuse has had wonderful success with helping people with fibromyalgia and I can already feel the benefits of his work.  He works on the trigger points that cause the pain and the results are amazing!!  Yesterday was my second session and I was so exhausted after it that I slept most of the afternoon – VERY unusual for me.  It hurts while he is releasing the trigger points – sometimes quite badly – but it is worth it in the end.  I will probably see him about six or eight times weekly and then will start reducing the number of visits ending up at one a month or so.
I guess that is it for now.  It has been seventeen weeks since we moved and I have not one regret.  Even the dogs have adapted and are loving it here!!!