23 June 2011

Countdown to Moving Day: 19 days and have I 20/20 vision again.

The cataract surgery yesterday was a complete success!  I went for a follow-up with the doctor this morning and I now have 20/20 vision in both eyes.  I will probably just need some reading glasses now.  I have needed glasses to see at a distance since I was 18 yrs old.  It will be so nice to be able to drive with just a pair of non-subscription sun glasses.

As usual, John is  taking excellent care of me.  He cooked dinner last night and then packed more boxes.  Today he spent  the day boxing up more stuff while I kept track of the inventory.  I swear stuff must be multiplying in the closets and cabinets when we're not looking.  I not supposed to lift anything more than 30 lbs for another week, so all the heavy lifting has been left up to John.  Maybe I'll get lucky and he will have everything packed before I go back for the final check-up with the eye doc.

Yesterday, we went ahead and booked our airline tickets on Continental for July 12th.  Tomorrow we are off to the vet to get the APHIS7001 health certificate for Randy, our dog.  The document has to state he is healthy and he has had all the required vaccinations.  Once the vet signs the document, we have to send it to Austin to have the certificate authenticated by the State.

Friends are planning a farewell party for us on July 9th and then we are off the Costa Rica 3 days later.

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18 June 2011

Sedona and my "Man in the Maze"

On our recent road trip to the Grand Canyon we spent a day in Sedona, Arizona, taking in the amazing rock formations and visiting some of the shops. In one shop, The Humiovi, a "Man in the Maze" pendant caught John's eye. We went in and talked to the shopkeeper about it and found this piece was created by the Native American artist from the Hopi Tribe, Calvin Peterson.


The legend of the "Man in the Maze" helps us understand the meaning of life. The maze depicts experiences and choices we make in our journey through life. It illustrates the search for balance - physical, social, mental and spiritual. In the middle of the maze are found a person's dreams and goals. Legend says when we reach the center, the sun god is there to greet us, bless us and pass us into the next world.

We didn't buy the piece at first. We just continued to stroll on down the street, taking in more of the sights. For some reason, we were pulled back to the pendant in the window. We finally decided we had to buy it and I'm so glad we did. I know this will quickly become one of my favorite pieces of jewelry.
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Grand Canyon Road Trip - June, 2011

We scheduled a quick road trip to the Grand Canyon to scratch one more item off our bucket list before the move to Costa Rica. We drove out west from Houston and visited a number of places in New Mexico and Arizona. I sure am glad we live in a humid climate now and we are moving to a humid climate next month. We both suffered with sinus and nasal problems the entire trip. We got so tired of hearing, "But, it's a dry heat." I'll tell you what they can do with that "dry heat."

Here'a a slide show of some of the photos we took. (Hint: You can click on the slideshow to enlarge to full screen.)

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09 June 2011

Countdown to Retirement: 6 Days to go and I just found out I'm NOT going blind!

Back in December, 2007, I had cataract surgery in my right eye and the difference was amazing. I actually had 20/25 vision and required no correction in the right eye. Three years have flown by and in the past 6 months I've starting to think I was going to be legally blind before too much longer. The vision in my right eye has become very blurry and my left eye sees double images. It has gotten so bad I won't drive at night, nor will I drive in an unfamiliar area regardless of the time of day.

Now for the good news. It took 6 week for me to get an appointment to see my ophthalmologist. I finally got to see him yesterday. They ran a battery of test and discovered I'm one of the 30-40% of post cataract surgery patients that develope a cloudy posterior capsule and it makes it look like I'm trying to see through a piece of wax paper. As far as the left eye is concerned, the doctor wanted to know if I'd been using Miracle Grow since I now have a fully developed cataract in that eye.

Tomorrow, I'm going in for a capsulotomy procedure to restore the vision in the right eye. It's about a 10 minute office procedure and the results are immediate. Then, in two week, he'll remove the cataract in the left eye. It sure would be wonderful to have my vision restored to that of a teenager without glasses. Glad we can get this fixed, just in time for our move to Costa Rica.

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02 June 2011

Countdown to Retirement: 12 Days to go and we just sold the house!

Woo Hoo!!! The plan is quickly coming together.  We listed the house for sale on May 2nd, and here we are, 30 days later, with a signed agreement and a closing date on July 8th.  Costa Rica, here we come!

We just booked a 40' sea container for all the stuff we are shipping from the Port of Houston to Costa Rica.  We will have a few hours to load up on the morning of July 6th.  Then, we have another day to clean up the house for the buyer's walk-through and closing on the 8th.  I guess we're going to have to call a cleaning service to help us, since all the cleaning tools (vacuum, mops, brooms, etc.) will be long gone in the container.  It's just as well, since we will probably both be too exhausted from packing to actually clean the house too.

We are so ready to start our next adventure together in Costa Rica.

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