Cleaning Up and Getting Gone

In which, we make a Final Decision

So, I have a confession to make - I actually had the Visa post written in January, but I forgot about it and just 'found' it again when I came to write this post so...you get a couple posts in succession! Also, due to some recent changes on the Ecuadorian  side, we've changed our minds (again) on how we're going to be handling that situation, so I'll be writing another post on visas in the very near future.

Anyway, onto the more important and INFINITELY more exciting news - we bought our tickets to Ecuador!!

We will officially be leaving Wednesday, March 25 from Atlanta at 5:50pm. We are so excited, especially me. It feels real now, you know? Like, it's not as if we weren't going to go, but having the tickets in hand (or at least, in electronic format) just takes it to that next level of reality. It's really on the books. It's really happening. I really have to make a concerted effort to get my house cleaned up and cleared out. Oy vey.

As I'm sure some of you will be curious about, we also got Jethro booked on our flight! Needless to say, I am so completely relieved to have that worry off my back. We ended up taking him to Petsmart to do an absolute, final double check on the crate-sizing issue. Wonder of wonders, he ended up fitting appropriately into the 2nd largest crate, which made him eligible to be shipped as baggage, rather than cargo. I might have done a crazy-happy dance in the middle of the store that had both Jethro and my husband acting like they didn't know me...

Ahem.

Jethro 'enjoying' his new crate

Anyway. We will be flying with Delta again, on a direct flight from Atlanta to Quito. When I called to ask them about shipping Jethro, they allayed all of my fears. Yes, we can book him now and guarantee him a spot. Yes, the plane can accommodate his crate size as checked baggage. No, he will not get bumped if the plane gets too full; basically, if we fly, he flies. Yes, we can pay the $200 crate-based shipping fee rather than the $2500 cargo rate. That last one especially made me ecstatic.

Torn apart music room

In other news, we have started clearing out the house, but it's been in fits and bursts. Our bonus room is pretty much done and I've started tearing apart our music room as well. Mainly it's just a matter of organizing what's in there, then relegating everything to its appropriate pile - store, donate/sell, throw away.

As you can see, it's a bit of a mess right now, but it's nothing a couple of hours and a few trash bags can't fix. My  mom graciously (!!) left me a ginormous box full of odds and ends encompassing my entire life as well as portions of my sisters'. Some of it has been really fun to go through and see, while other stuff is headed straight for the donate/trash bin. Sorry, Mom! I'll keep the important stuff, like these.

Sweet baby Nikes. circa 1987

The plan is to have our house available to rent for the beginning of April. We'll be putting it on the market in just a few weeks, so if you know of a couple or small family looking for a low-maintenance house for a year, send them our way. I'll be sure to post a link to the listing once it gets put up.

That box was FULL o' baby stuff

So there you have it. March 25th is the drop-dead date. Several people have asked if we're having a going-away party. We are not officially planning anything, but we'd love to see all of you guys! If you want to hang out, hit us up! The last week before take-off is sure to be a cluster, but we'll be happy to squeeze any and all available fun out of the time before we leave.

That being said...the sooner the better, y'all. Hop to it!

Gone to the Dogs

Current Day

So now that everyone is up to speed on most of the happenings of our 2 week trip, here's what's happening now : I'm having to figure out the best and least stressful way to ship Jethro to Ecuador. I cannot stress the 'least stressful' part enough. 

Some of you may be asking, "Who's Jethro?" Allow me to introduce you to the most spoiled bit of obnoxiousness you will ever meet:

Hi guys...

Jethro came into our lives on New Years Day in 2012. He was 6 or 7 months old when he found us, and, after a tense couple of months in the beginning (a whole OTHER post all in itself), he's settled in and become part of the family...mostly.

As you may have noticed, Jethro is a bluetick coonhound. Smart dog, really, but very stubborn and, did I mention, loud? Oh yes, he's very loud. He loves to yell when he gets excited but he'll also let us know if he's unhappy or anxious. And Jethro has been known to be very, very anxious. You see where I'm going with this?!

Anyway. Shipping him is probably going to turn into more of a nightmare for me than for anyone else. I'm going to be terrified the entire time that he's going to make such a nuisance of himself that they won't put him on the plane. Or worse, he'll make it through one leg of the flight (if we don't get a direct flight) and they'll kick him off at the halfway point because he's being too disruptive!

Speaking of halfway points and legs. I'd love to get a direct flight. However, my darn dog is also dictating this minor detail. As you can imagine, airlines can be veeeeeery picky about shipping animals and they have LOTS of rules that vary slightly by airline. The main rule involves crate size. Some airlines aren't super specific about the size, they just have to visually confirm that the animal has plenty of room to stand, sit and turn around (ie, not squeezed into a too small crate). Other airlines literally have measurement guides that dictate the crate size your dog must have. 

Jethro, darn his coonie self, is considered a medium/large size dog per his weight. He's somewhere between 55-60 pounds, which isn't very big. However, he's lanky and long. According to his measurements via the airline requirements, he'll need a crate big enough for a Great Dane. 

Why the furor about his crate size? Again, it will determine HOW he gets flown down to Ecuador. If we can get him in the smaller (but still big enough) crate, we can ship him as checked baggage (so no dealing with Customs) AND we can get a direct flight. If he's only able to fit in the larger crate size, he'll have to go as cargo, and I'm unaware of any airline we would use to ship him as cargo that has a direct flight from Atlanta to Quito. Most seem to be routed through Houston or Miami. 

And this is all  just the beginning. Thankfully, Ecuador doesn't have a quarantine requirement, and there really aren't a lot of requirements for bringing in pet dogs other than a vet checkup and booster shots. The only seriously obnoxious requirement they have is that he has to go to a certified vet for a physical exam, then the certification form has to go to Columbia to be signed off by the state veterinarian, THEN it has to go down to the Ecuadorian consulate in Atlanta to be endorsed. The kicker? It has to all be done - from exam to every signature and apostille - WITHIN 10 DAYS OF DEPARTURE. 

Let's be honest...who can resist that FACE?!

Sigh. I complain now, and it's definitely a lot to get done in a short period of time, but I don't mind all that much. I mean, leaving him isn't really an option, so we'll just do whatever we've got to to make sure he gets to Ecuador in (mostly) one piece. The biggest question though, is this - will airlines have a maximum noise limit by the time they get through with him?!

In other news, we've commenced clearing out our house. We started with our guest bedroom, which was actually pretty easy. Most of the stuff went into the trash and the rest is going into boxes. I meant to take before and after pictures but, A - I totally forgot and, B - that room wasn't too bad to begin with.

We're tackling the guest bathroom and the music room this weekend. That WILL warrant pictures because that room is absolutely stuffed to the gills with...stuff. As you might guess, we have a lot of musical accoutrements in the music room in addition to several larger pieces of furniture. It's also become the catch-all for gifts-in-waiting, papers to be filed, over-sized baby boxes  and random bits and pieces that don't really go anywhere else in the house.

All this to say, if you have packing boxes, I would love to get them from you. I'd love to pack as we go in addition to throwing away as we go. This way, all that's left in the rooms are necessities, furniture to be sold/stored and boxes to be stored. Huzzah for organization!

Taking a little look-see...

Just as an FYI, don't get less than five hours of sleep when you have to work a 10-hour day. I fantasized about taking a nap yesterday but totally whiffed on it and then ended up missing my 10:30 bedtime later on. Needless to say, I'm running on fumes right now and there isn't enough coffee in my office to keep me running much past 3pm...

ANYWAY. On to more interesting things than the back of my eyelids. You may have noticed in the last post where I mentioned we are taking a two week trip to Ecuador in order to kind of scope out the area. Well, that's happening in three more days. We leave Atlanta this Thursday at 6:30pm and we'll arrive in Quito (the capital of Ecuador) around 11:30pm.

In case you were curious, flights to Ecuador aren't as expensive as you might think. Depending on time of year and where you leave from, they can run from about $1000 to $1400 total round-trip for two tickets. Ours ended up being a little more pricey than normal because we had specific criteria. I have to work Thursday morning, so we had to have a flight leaving in the afternoon/early evening. John gets nervous about flight connections, ESPECIALLY international connections, so we wanted a direct flight. We wanted to be home early on Thanksgiving so that we could spend at least a little time with our families, so we needed a flight returning before 8am.

All of this added up to about $500 more than what we would have paid had we bought plane tickets like we normally do -"What's cheapest?"

The plan is to fly into Quito and acclimatize for a few days. Quito sits at over 9000 ft above sea level, making it the highest national capital city in the world. So, acclimatizing is a necessity, especially since Simpsonville, SC sits around 860 ft above sea level. Holy popping-ears Batman! Note to self: bring gum.

Quito has over 2.2 million people living in it and is, as I mentioned earlier, the capital of Ecuador. It's actually quite a modern city and has many of the first-world amenities that we're used to, so we're anticipating that it will be a great jumping-off point for us. One interesting little factoid about Quito is that it's one of the longest continually occupied cities in the Americas, and I think it's the longest continually occupied capital. Talk about history.

We plan to be in Quito for a few days getting to know the city as well as visiting the surrounding areas to the north. A few cities we hope to visit include Cotacachi, Otavalo and Ibarra. At roughly 90 miles away, Ibarra is the furthest of those cities from Quito. These cities are known for their local markets, where they specialize in leather and woolen goods as well as a variety of local produce.

After a few days in the north, we plan to take the main highway south towards a city called Cuenca. On the way we hope to check out Ambato and Banos. For the enquiring amongst you, we plan on using public transportation to get around. Buses and taxis are ubiquitous all over Ecuador and they are cheap, which is the song of my people.

Cuenca is considered the cultural capital of Ecuador, and it is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site. With a lively arts scene and markets galore, 'El Centro' is kind of the heartbeat of the city. Think Downtown Greenville, but bigger. It has a population of about 330,000, which puts Greenville City to shame with its 60,000.

We plan on staying in what are called 'hostals.' It's not a hostel, although those are available. This is more like a smaller version of a bed and breakfast. Many Ecuadorians open their homes and rent out extra rooms to travelers, creating an extra source of income for themselves and allowing people like John and myself to see the country from a local POV. Currently, we've book two hostals - one in Quito for when we arrive, and one in Cuenca. Everything in between will be an adventure, which is sort of panic-inducing as well as exhilarating. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about this aspect of it, so I'll let you know as we go along how well it works out (or doesn't).

So that's where we're at for now. We plan on updating the blog with LOTS of pictures while we're gone, and John might even get on here before we leave to tell you how excited he is to be taking pictures with a GoPro Hero3+ and the whole saga about getting one that actually, you know, WORKS.

If you have any other burning questions about WHY we're doing this, take a look at the first post. If you still have a plethora of questions after that, feel free to ask in the comments or hit me up on Facebook. We're more than happy to talk your ear off about all the thoughts that have gone through our little brains as we came to this decision about changing our life.

Have a Happy Monday!

V

Inaugural post and keeping everyone up-to-date

Well, this is it. I've been keeping this under wraps for a while now, but it's come out in bits and pieces over the past few weeks, so I figured it was time to go ahead and flesh things out.

John and I are planning to move to Ecuador in February of 2015. To that end, we're taking a 2-week trip in November to hopefully find an area we like and a home to settle into.

Now, to the most important part : WHY?

The easy answer: BECAUSE WE CAN.

The longer answer: As time goes on, we find it harder and harder to balance our work/life situation. Neither of us enjoy spending 8-10 hours of our day at jobs that, while enjoyable, do very little to enrich our lives. At the end of the day, it boils down to the fact that we're working to make money so we can live a certain lifestyle in our little corner of the world. There's nothing wrong with that, but we've decided that we want more.

We want more than nine to five, we want more than what our culture says we should want. We want to spend more time together without having to worry about bills. We want to labor together at any time of the day for the kingdom of God. We want to learn to work with our hands, to create something and see the fruit of our labor that isn't necessarily money.

Can we do all of this in our cozy little corner? Well sure. Do we sound a little bit like spoiled brats who want to have fun without any hard work? Well I hope not.

We want something different, like a lot of people. We just happen to be picking up and moving south of the Equator to make it happen.

On to the next important question : WHAT WILL WE DO THERE? WHAT KIND OF JOBS WILL WE HAVE?

See the previous answer.

I kid, I kid. That is actually the case, but I'll go ahead an fill you in on a little bit more. John left his job in September due to a lot of factors, but mainly due to the whole work/life balance I mentioned. It was impacting us in not-a-very-good way. He was the main bread-winner and bill-payer so it was a bit scary, but we have been saving HARD for the past two years for a longer term trip so money wasn't an immediate concern.

Since leaving his job, the Lord has been incredibly faithful to provide for all our needs. I'm still working and my job covers most of our bills. John does work for friends and family and makes enough to cover the rest of the bills and our living expenses. It's different, but it's also fun! Yes, we've had to tighten a few belts and we'll probably tighten a few more, but it has truly been a blessing to see how the Lord provides for us in this time.

Which brings me to the actual answer of the question I posed - what kind of jobs will we have? Well, the cost of living is much lower in Ecuador, so we're anticipating being able to live off what we've saved for a good period of time. We're also anticipating renting our home out while we're gone, so that would supplement our living expenses as well.

I have picked up a little side job doing legal proofreading, which is basically paying for my groceries right now (score!). It's strictly a remote job, so I anticipate being able to bring that along with me to Ecuador, thus further supplementing our savings and rental income. John plans to make himself available much as he is now - for handy-man services and just generally helping people out. We're going to Ecuador for two weeks in November and we anticipate getting a better idea of specific jobs he could be on the lookout for when we get there full-time.

We do also hope to partner with a local ministry there and volunteer our time. This is probably one of the biggest things we're looking forward to - being able to minister to people around us without having the huge pressure of having to take care of our own lives.

Lastly : WHY ECUADOR?

Honestly, there's not one huge reason why. We had talked about travelling in Europe for a while, so when the idea of actually moving came up, that was the first place we looked. We realized very quickly that Europe is extremely expensive and we actually shelved the idea for a while. John had mentioned South America before, but I was adamant that I never wanted to go there, much less LIVE there. Thankfully, I've changed my mind.

Neither of us could quit thinking about moving abroad, so South America necessarily came up again. When we looked further into it, we realized that neither of us knew anything at all about Ecuador. Commence my favorite thing : research.

Basically, Ecuador is a developing third-world country. They're still very much an agrarian and traditional society, although business in the three largest cities (Quito, Cuenca, Guayaquil) is very quickly growing.

There are four predominant regions in Ecuador : the Andean Highlands, the Coastal region, the Amazonian Basin and the Galapagos Islands (who remembered their geography and knew that the Galapagos' were in Ecuador?!). We will primarily be considering the Andean Highland area to live.

Best of all, Ecuador still has a very low cost of living. Their currency is the US dollar, and it still goes a significant way there. So at the end of the day, we get to experience a beautiful place with a very laid back culture for a fraction of what it would cost elsewhere.

This is the longest post in the world. Seriously. If you have any burning questions there are a myriad of ways you can contact me - email, comments, FB, phone...whatever works for you. I wanted to put it all out there at once so everyone has the same information.

We do plan on keeping up with this blog during our two-week trip and while we live over there, so this will be the best way to keep up with our goings-on once we leave the US. Hopefully we'll figure out this technology thing and there will be pictures!

Finally finished,
V