Sunday Afternoon 7/01/2018

July is here! This is going to be a busy month for us, although after this coming week things should calm down and it will be all about the cleaning. But, we’ll be out of the house on the 28th and into our condo at the beautiful Waipouli Beach Resort for a final “Kaua’i vacation” before we go. Right now though it feels like Crazyland around here. The house has been something of a mess as we had things organized and staged for the movers last Friday and now we’re now getting things ready to go to Alan and Cheryl this week and for our garage sale on Friday. We were able to sell a few more pieces of furniture through our local Buy & Sell group this past week – those things thankfully went very quickly. The only furniture that’s left to sell now are our sofa and living room chair, and the two wicker chair that were out on the lanai, but we’ll put them out at the garage sale and hopefully they will go. Whatever is left over from the garage sale though will go to the thrift store.

I scored an amazing deal this past week for the car rental for our last 24 days on the island. We are going to have our car detailed and listed for sale on the 20th of this month, and want to have a rental we can use on the chance the car sells quickly. I started checking the deals Costco had (we have always found the lowest price through their site) and the best I found there was $57/day through Budget. Brett had also checked with two local car rental businesses, where you can get a “less than new” car for supposedly less than regular car rentals, but their prices, once we added in fees and taxes, weren’t any better. When I showed Brett the Costco price he thought it was OK, but suggested I call the local Budget office and see if they would give us a kamaaina discount. However, the price I was quoted was more than the Costco price (!) so I said “thanks but no thanks, I’ll go ahead and rent from Costco.” I was asked to wait for a moment and then the agent I was speaking came back and offered me the same car for $38/day, all taxes and fees included! So, one more thing taken care of – I just hope though we can fit all of our luggage in the car when it’s time to head to the airport.

The repairman came as scheduled this past week to replace the oven door glass, but he could not finish the repair because the landlord had failed to order an additional part needed. Sigh. So, the repair guy ordered the part but no one has any idea how long it will take for it to show up or when the repair guy can come back. It also turns out that the landlord would have been better off ordering a whole new door versus just the glass – the door costs $146 and Brett could have put it on. By ordering just the glass but paying the repairman’s service fees for installing it the landlord is paying twice that. In the meantime, without a door the oven light was staying on all the time which was super annoying, but Brett jury-rigged the light switch with his level. I also figured the lack of a door on the oven, and the fact we probably won’t be using it again before we go (and can’t anyway until the door is repaired), made it a good time to clean it for our move out, so I got that job done.

This afternoon I am:

• Reading: I’m almost done with the Donna Leon mystery and have been enjoying it, but the new Inspector Lynley mystery, The Punishment She Deserves, also came off of hold this week so I’m reading that too (Inspector Lynley during the day, Donna Leon at night). Elizabeth George’s Lynley mysteries are always great to read, but always require just a bit more concentration to catch everything (which has sort of been hard to do this week).
• Listening to: It’s overcast and cool-ish today (but still a bit humid) so everybody and their brother is out working on their lawn – lots and lots of weed trimmers and lawnmowers are in operation outside and it’s noisy. Inside it’s quiet though – YaYu is at work (double shift today), and Brett is reading. I’m getting ready to start the laundry though so the inner quiet will stop for a while. With YaYu wearing a uniform to work the amount of laundry we have to do has been cut in half versus what we washed while she was in school (three changes a day: school, sports, and evening).
• Watching: Brett and I have watched a few more episodes of Bailey & Scott, another episode of The Great British Baking Show, and we’re going to watch another episode of Endeavour tonight. We’re taking a break from Parts Unknown – it’s just too much to try to binge watch. The TV will come down off the wall tomorrow to be boxed up for its move. Anything we’re watching from here on out, until we get to the condo, will be done on our computers or tablets.

  

• Cooking/baking: The cookware went into our shipment on Friday so all we have to cook with now is our wok and a frying pan. Add this to YaYu’s crazy schedule and her decision to give up meat and it’s difficult to know what to have. Brett and I are going to have Stouffer’s stuffed peppers for dinner tonight, and all I know that we’ll be having next week are Italian sausages and marina fixed in the slow cooker, and kalua pork in the slow cooker. I’m putting the slow cooker out at the garage sale though so this may be the last week we’ll have it. If it doesn’t sell though we’ll take it along to the condo and use it there before taking it to the thrift store. Brett is going to clean up the grill this week and we’ll see if we can get someone to take it off our hands.
• Happy I accomplished this past week: Getting everything organized for the movers was a chore – we kept going through the house and finding things we’d missed before on each round (and still found a couple of things we missed after they left). To us it still looks like we have way too much stuff, but it’s less than a quarter of what we shipped over here. I finished painting the pantry closet, and have started on the other closets. It was difficult to find time to walk this week – it rained quite a bit, and was very humid in between – but we managed to get four walks in. It was cool and windy enough on a couple of days that we were able to walk out to the Pineapple Dump.

  

• Looking forward to next week: We’ll be getting everything staged to go over to Alan and Cheryl’s house this week, and then setting up for the garage sale. It’s going to take some work, but it means we will be that much closer to getting ready to go. I’m not sure though what we’ll be displaying things on – we have one 6-foot table (that will be for sale) but that’s it. I’m looking forward though to getting rid of more stuff – that’s the important thing. 
• Thinking of good things that happened: YaYu took Brett and I out on Thursday to see Incredibles 2 – very fun! It was especially nice to get out of the house for a while – we didn’t realize how much we needed a break until we had one.
• Thinking of frugal things we did: We’re still pinching ourselves over huge savings on the car rental because the best we thought we might save with the kamaaina discount was around $150, tops. We also took the last of our change/$1 bill savings to the bank this past week. It was an easy way to put away a little extra every month, and it added up more quickly than we imagined. Brett and I plan to set up a new jar once the Big Adventure is over, to save for our next adventure.
• Grateful for: I’m feeling thankful right now for the time we’ve had and will have to pull all the parts of our move together. Although this coming week is going to be hectic and busy, after this we’ll have lots of time to wrap up things up here and get ourselves relaxed and ready to travel.
• Bonus question: Do you like any weird or strange food combinations? This question came from YaYu, who puts sriracha, other hot sauces, red chili flakes or chili powder on everything. She also likes marinara sauce on salad instead of salad dressing. No thanks! I don’t think I eat any weird combinations now, but when I was young I liked sour cream with ketchup sandwiches because they were so tangy. I can’t imagine eating that now – ugh! Also, I went through a thankfully short phase where I liked peanut butter and mustard sandwiches. I have no idea where that combination came from but I’m sure glad it didn’t last long. I never had any weird cravings when I was pregnant either – just tasty Memphis barbecue.

That’s all for this week from the shrinking Casa Aloha – I hope you all had a good and productive week as well. What good things happened for you? Did you or do you eat any “strange” food combinations? Do you have special plans for the Fourth of July?