My Mom Said I Was A Fish

This is the pool I’ve started swimming in. I LOVE this pool. It’s warm and beautiful. Seriously, it’s such a pretty pool to swim laps in. I’ve gone 4 times so far and have swam a half mile twice and a full mile twice. I alternate breast stroke and freestyle (using hand paddles half the time) and throwing in some freestyle kick board work too. I must say though, it’s takes a while to swim a mile when you’ve got friends around that you want to talk to. Nice to have the company though and so nice that my friend Michelle lets me use her incredible pool. Have I said how much I love this pool?! Swimming is one of the two best types of exercise I can do for my scoliosis (yoga being the other). It helps strengthen me symmetrically without it being high impact on my bones. Plus it’s so meditative and sometimes I even have the energy to walk the beach after! LOVE IT!

The Ever-Evolving Life List

On our trip to Nicaragua week before last I wrote a new life list in my handy, flexible, blank paged Moleskine. (I’m really into this kind of stuff and have a dream board as the wallpaper on my laptop. What can I say? I dig visuals.) Here’s my beauty of a list:

Learn to sail and sail the Aegean. Write a collection of life stories about love and things appearing to be love and get that book published. Research my and Jim’s family histories and find a sick way to store the information online. Stay in a hotel on stilts over the ocean. Learn to surf. Get 100 subscribers to SamAhern.com. Write a cookbook and have it published. Finish the family favorite’s cookbook and give is as an Xmas gift. Sell my baked goods again. Become as confident in my vegan/gluten free/refined sugar free baking as I am in my “conventional” baking. Volunteer at the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. Buy a house in Boulder, greenify it when needed, and have it be a gathering place for friends and family. Throw an Alice in Wonderland themed tea party in my garden. Cultivate a flower and vegetable garden with a fruit bearing tree. Host my family for Xmas and Thanksgiving, but not in the same year. Become the best partner I can be to Jim. Travel internationally at least once a year for the rest of my life. Continue to cultivate patience and self-kindness. Have/adopt children and teach them the importance of kindness and responsibility. Own a cafe with my sisters and name it The Bedouin Sisters’ Bakery and Cafe (don’t steal that OK?!). Sit every day. Make a quilt for each of my god children. Have one photo of mine in a magazine. Keep traveling. Get my scuba certification. Get back to receiving a monthly massage. Get my yoga certification to strengthen my practice and maybe teach every once in a while. Take my whole family on a trip. Pay off my school loan in my name. Pay off my school loan in my dad’s name. Love up on Sasha and Lita as long and I’m blessed to have their crazy hairy bodies in my life. Buy my dad a house on a body of water, or at least get him the jet-ski to go with the house. Own my home and car outright. Live close enough to the grocery store and other places I like to frequent so I can walk and bike easily. Have a herd of goats and let children come over to play with them. Have five rental properties, with renters in them, paying rent (and then give them to my god children and children). Express my love and appreciation for people and their efforts, often. Read over twelve novels a year and a bunch of other non-novely books. Know that nothing outside of me is going to make me happy. Have a TV (or a good monitor) only for movies (preferably foreign flicks, con films, or musicals…and maybe some Fraggle Rock) and not as the focal point of the living room, if at all in that room and most definitely never in the bedroom. Finish my ngondro. Keep my math/science mind buff and develop my writing muscles. Become an early riser. Travel back to Saudi at least one more time before my dad retires, but hopefully more so I can bring my kids there if possible. Find a fulfilling way to earn a living that contributes to my family. Split my years between Boulder and somewhere by the ocean (with lots of other added trips). Plant a tree when my children are born, on my own property. Do the November Course at Kopan. Be She-Ra for Halloween (gold cuffs and all). Drive along the west coast dipping into Mexico and Canada. Take a train trip across the US. Become a certified vegan chef. Pose nude for an art class. See Coldplay again live (preferably multiple times). Enjoy a chocolate croissant in Paris (that I ordered in French). Travel to: Thailand, India, Nepal, Tibet, Vancouver, San Francisco, Halifax…the list goes on and there are many more specifics. Revisit: Turkey, Italy, Spain. Drive to Alaska with Jim and the girls in a truck. Have grey hair and rock it. Be a swimming yogaing machine at age 60.

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Best Project

I had some of my photography printed by my good friend Paul and  Lafayette’s art market pARTiculars liked my work so much they chose it to join their collection. I also opened my own etsy shop.

I picked my meditation practice back up.

Jim and I sold our house, simplified our belongings, packed up our dogs, and moved to Costa Rica.

I participated (and won) NaNoWriMo by writing 50,000 words in the month of November. I now have the beginnings of a collection of short stories based on my life.

I’ve started my exploration of vegan, gluten free, and refined sugar free baking.

I began a regular habit of exercising, often walking four miles a day on our wonderful beach here in Bejuco.

I started SamAhern.com and even when I take a break (like in the month of November) I just keep coming back. I love this medium for keeping track of and sharing what I’m up to. I am so grateful for the response it has had.

Notice how I don’t really choose one thing to be THE BEST? Yeah, I’m just not willing to do it. I’m already forgetting or omitting many things due to my not wanting to blog so much that I don’t have a life. There is no such thing as “the best” anyway. (Even though I have a habit of being overly dramatic and proclaiming that something is indeed “the best” at times.) My fact is that my life is overflowing full of good stuff (which I might add is awesome to be reminded of when the earlier part of this year was a whole pile of suck).

Also, I haven’t been doing the prompts for this challenge in order or on the days suggested. I may keep this thing going into 2010. (Woah. Is that allowed?! Hahaha.) As I often say: “I do what I want!” So be it.

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Best Place

Bejuco Beach.

It’s a five minute walk down a dirt road from our house.

It’s unspoiled, (clean and has few people on it), expansive, and perfect for surfing, splashing in the waves, and yes, <said in deep soothing voice> long walks on the beach (which Sasha and Lita love almost as much as me).

Best of 2009 Blog Challenge: Best Change I Made To The Place I Live

Jim and I sold our first ever home we ever owned and moved to Costa Rica.
I wish the process was as easy as that sentence sounds, but it wasn’t. We put it up on the market with a friend (who’s incredible at finding houses, but wasn’t so great at selling them we found) and when our contract with him ended after 3 months (and maybe 5 showings), we interview three agents, picked one and then put our place back on the market. This second time was much different in so far as our agent Chasen Chess (Yes, that’s his real name. He said he was named after a restaurant or something.) was very diligent. He made sure our place had great photos, that we staged it correctly, that we priced it fairly, he put up special feature cards, had us write a letter to the potential buyer that was attached to the fliers, and he marketed it beautifully. We had more people coming to see our house than we wanted at times (it’s a pain to tidy up the house and vacuum up dog hair so many times). Things that helped that we did: pots of flowers out front and back, fresh flowers in many rooms, and closets that looked like someone with OCD had organized them. We turned down a couple offers and then finally went with one, having a round of counter offers before coming to an agreement.

After the inspection we had a list of new things we had to agree upon.

Here’s what we had fixed by professionals: Labeling of Electrical Panel (which we could have done) and new outlet installed, new water heater installed, linoleum fixed in kitchen (when I had torn it by moving the fridge once to clean behind it), and locks fixed (one that was sticking, another that broke, and one wasn’t aligned correctly).

Here’s what I fixed: Sliding door that would only open half way(I sanded down the metal track and it fixed the problem), tore off some drooping ceiling plaster and patched it up with the same texture as the rest of the ceiling so that it was seamless, patched up many a hole in the wall, sanded down a door frame (as the door has swelled during the summer and was sticking) and painted it. Also I tried to caulk the bathroom tiles with wall putty before realizing it (which is strange because I had properly caulked our tiles before). Thankfully I was able to wash all the stuff away and then do it again with all the right stuff.

Here’s what Jim and I did together: Built a screen for the window in the basement and stained the deck.

Here’s what Jim did: Soon after we moved in Jim installed all our window shades (beautiful white double cell shades at that),  replaced many light fixtures, built and installed a ceiling fan with light, took our guest bathroom’s toilet apart and repaired it, fixed many a leaky faucet, fixed the disposal, fixed garage door opener, and a door flap to keep the outside from coming in. In preparation for selling the house Jim worked (a lot), set up many of the appointments for professionals to come fix things, and he was also the vacuum master.

I must say that I wish we had done those things when we moved in, as our house was so lovely (flowers and smooth sliding doors and all) when we left. We did learn that the single mother who moved in have the walls painted and the carpets replaced when we left. She also got a radon mitigation system installed, which we paid for half of.

So we sold the place and moved into a house a few minutes away for a month. Unfortunately the padding and carpet had to be replaced, a washer/dryer combo installed, and a leaky faucet repaired improperly twice, while we were there (and not on my time schedule I might add). Ah well.

We sold, donated, and gave away much of our belongings, put some stuff and storage, and then packed up a few bags and the dogs and moved to Costa Rica. We are renters again, but it’s fun to be a five minute walk away from the beach for half of what we were paying for our mortgage. We have much less space and stuff, which is kind of freeing (when I’m not missing my food processor intensely). I like this more simplified living space and I actually have plans of eliminating even more of my belongings. (How many racer-back tank tops does one really need?)

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