Making Progress

What with moving, working remotely for J&B Graphics, and life in general, I’ve neglected updates here. Well, part of the process has been completed now, so I’m taking a breath!

I moved out of my house yesterday (on schedule), and am now staying in Tim’s studio apartment in downtown Boquete for a week or so. Our new house only has an air mattress, a 6-foot folding table, and an office chair in the way of furniture as yet, and I haven’t called the gas company to fill our tanks for hot water yet (that’s first on the list for Monday, though). Here are some photos of our new house:

Our landlord bought a brand-new side-by-side Samsung refrigerator, but I can’t get it out of “demo mode” for some reason. In demo mode, the lights come on, but it doesn’t cool, so customers in the store can get an idea of what it would be like to have it in their home, while not using much energy while at the store. He’s sending someone to check it out in person on Monday, but until that’s figured out, I have no refrigeration. Fortunately, I was able to transfer the contents of my refrigerator and freezer into Tim’s refrigerator in his apartment, so nothing was lost in the move.

On the plus side, the cable guys came to our new house last week and installed the internet, so that’s all squared away and I’m able to work from there now. I also bought a very comfortable leather chair and ottoman, nice office chair, and a small TV from some people who are moving away. However, I can’t pick them up until next Saturday, which will give me time to get the refrigerator and gas issues taken care of. At that point, I’ll have enough things at the new house to actually live there.

I’m kind of playing musical chairs right now with my housing situation, while Tim is still in Florida, getting ready to ship his (and my) things here. His sister has been helping him for the last week, and has been a God-send, keeping him motivated and working hard. He was pretty overwhelmed with the magnitude of the process. I can understand – I felt the same way when I moved here in August.

He’s planning to use a shipping service that’s door-to-door – the shipping people will deliver a 20-foot container to his house, he’ll have some guys to load it up, and then it’ll be trucked to Miami and put on a boat to the port in Panama City. From there, it will be trucked to our house in Boquete and their people will unload it. The company will also handle the customs and technicalities of international transport.

Sounds great (a bit on the expensive side – but well worth it, in my opinion). He’s hoping to get the shipping people to pick up his things by the end of this month, and then he can head back to Boquete while we wait for them to arrive at our house.

So, there’s been quite a bit of progress toward getting settled into our new house during the past month. We got off to a rather slow start, but it’s all guns blazing now!