• 29Jul

  Another step closer…

  packing the house, worries 4 Comments
  Maya (up) and Tiko (below)

  More changes have been happening around here…

  This weekend my brother in law came over for the furniture that he and my sister wanted. Several chairs and bookcases and assorted items like some of my grandmother’s coffee cups have now found a new home.

  But the biggest change for us is that we found a new home for our second parrot, Maya. Maya was our first bird, a quiet Maximillian Pionus. Her new home is with a family who has another Pionus, a male Bronze-wing. They have already called and said she is settling in nicely, thank goodness. Thanks to Puget Sound Parrot Rescue for their help in placing her in such a nice home.

  We are bringing our Yellow-Shouldered Amazon, Tiko, to Mexico with us. He’s upstairs right now, chattering away. I’m Tiko, Buenas Dias, Hola, What ‘cha doing, Hi Paul are in a continuous loop right now.

  Next weekend is our last garage sale, so this week will be spent preparing for that.

  And, in other news, Paul’s last day of work is Friday!
• 26Jul

  It warms my heart…

  packing the house No Comments

  
  Last weekend our oldest son and his family arrived with a rental truck to help us achieve our Mexico dream. And an important part of that dream is to empty our house out - but since so much of our furniture had come to me from my parents, it was essential to find the furniture a new home within the family.

  We had a really nice visit, and many pieces of our well loved family furniture now has a new home. As you can see (above) our kitchen table, four antique chairs, and my mother’s cherry chest all look wonderful in their dining room.

  He commented about the warmth they bring to the room - and I believe that part of that warmth is the many years of use all of the pieces have had in our family. I am happy that they will enjoy them - maybe even as much as I did.

  They even loaded up a few pieces that they’ll store for our younger son for the day he returns to the Northwest from Mexico City - which may be sometime in the next year or two.

  This coming weekend my sister’s family will arrive for some of the other cherished pieces. After those things are gone, I will be able to really start setting up for the garage sale we’ll be having the following weekend.

  Once the garage sale is over, Paul and I will be camping out in our own house until closing. Then we will truly feel like we are almost on our way.

• 23Jul

  Thank You!

  blogging 1 Comment

  I’ve been a bad blogger.

  Blogging protocol is that when people comment on a post the blogger comments afterwards….thanking people for their comments, and creating a conversational sort of comment thread.

  I have been remiss in going back in with my own thanks and comments lately - but I want all of you to know how much your comments, advice, and feedback means to us.

  The challenges we are negotiating right now have been faced by many of you in the past. Your insights and advice have helped us through a number of obstacles, and also helped us relax knowing that other folks have successfully managed the same kind of challenges.

  So, without beating myself up too much, I wanted to thank all of you for your comments and I promise to do a little better in the future!

• 17Jul

  Another project completed!

  random 5 Comments

  

  Our move to Mexico - and the fact that we’re only taking what our van will carry - finally got me off my duff to handle a project that should have been done long ago.

  At long last some old treasured family VHS tapes have been transferred to DVD. It will be fun to watch them again when we are settled in Mazatlan.

  My dad being interviewed about food on the radio on Thanksgiving in the 1970’s is a treasure I enjoy listening to every so often.

  But the thing I am really glad I did was have the tapes my grandmother recorded in the 1960’s transferred from cassette to CD. My aunt discovered the tapes long ago - old reel to reel ones - and had them transferred to cassette, which was the latest and greatest at the time.

  The reason these tapes (now CD) are so significant to me is that they are my grandmother reminiscing about her childhood in Armenia from about 1908. She would never talk to us about those times, and we were all surprised and happy that she had given us that gift.

  On the tapes she tells all kinds of charming memories of her parents and their large estate…but also of the terrible atrocities she and her family sufferred during the Armenian holocaust.

  The picture above is after it all…my grandmother had found her cousin in Istanbul and this picture was taken as he was getting ready to leave for America. The outfit she is wearing was bought for her by her grandfather, the only other family member she had reconnected with at that time. (The picture is a scan of a color copy of the original…)

  She ended up in France, and a set-up between her rooming-house owner and the owner of my future grandfather’s in New York resulted in marriage - and made her the dynamic, strong, matriarch of my family.
• 16Jul

  A Landmark Day

  our new life, random No Comments
  Photo Steve Ringman/The Seattle Times

  Today marks a couple of milestones….Paul has only three more weeks of work, and it was the opening of the new Tacoma Narrows bridge.

  Sunday was a festive day where more than 60,000 people walked and ran across the bridge to mark the occasion. Today when Paul crossed the new bridge he had his easiest commute in almost seven years. Too bad it didn’t open sooner so he could reap the benefit for more than three weeks.

  The new bridge is for eastbound traffic - from the West side of Puget Sound, where we live - to Tacoma. The old bridge (which replaced a suspension bridge nicknamed Galloping Gertie for the dramatic way it broke apart shortly after being built in 1940) is for westbound traffic now.

  I haven’t crossed the new bridge yet - but I think the most exciting crossing for us will be when the car is packed and we are on our way to Mexico!

  If you’d like to see video clips of the collapse of Galloping Gertie, here is the link: www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/bridge/meetsusp.html)

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