We’ve kept up steadily with finishing all our digitizing projects, and have been reluctantly sucked into a few technology update projects during the last few months as well.

Our massive photo-scanning project is finally finished with thousands of pictures now in digital format and carefully filed in directories. The only remaining desire we have is to persuade Chelsea’s dad to send the slides he’s got from the early 1980s so she can scan them and finally complete the family history in photos. That will be so satisfying!

Since the photos were so current in our minds, I decided to do a slideshow retrospective of Paul’s life, and since his birthday was in late August it was perfect timing. We didn’t have as many photos available as we did for Alex, but we co-opted Denise into the project, getting her to secretly email us photos from Paul’s recent ten years.

Having already done the process with Alex’s slideshow, we were much better prepared this time. Finding the songs for Paul was much easier, and we already knew how to put the system together. Chelsea was delighted though, as she got to learn the software to piece the songs together into one seamless song file. Naturally she did an awesome job.

Our lives have been so busy though, as has Paul’s life, that he still hasn’t seen the slideshow, nor does he even know we’ve done it. Since his birthday is now three months past, maybe a surprise Christmas present is better…
(more…)

If we thought making the decision to sell our Czech Republic furniture was emotional, it didn’t hold a candle to the grief in finding new homes for our beloved cats. We’ve loved those cats ever since we carefully and thoughtfully picked them from a litter of kittens at our neighbor’s house back in May 2002. That’s a long time. That’s well over nine years. Though I’ve had animals since I was a very young child, I’ve never had a pet this long.

Our options were severely limited in finding new homes for them. Alex’s girlfriend Amanda is very allergic to cats so they couldn’t take Cassie and Sasha. Paul’s family already has a dog and a cat. We talked to neighbors, but ours is a very cat-heavy neighborhood, and no one had room.

Shelters are full to capacity these days with all the animals being left behind from foreclosures. Most shelters never even returned my calls. So we got our information together, chose some wonderful photos of each cat, and posted on Craigslist, amidst dozens of other postings.

Amazingly enough we got a response on each cat the very next morning. We wrote back, got the information, and looked up the addresses on Google street view. We cried. We just couldn’t see our cats going to a physical situation like that, especially since they have such a perfect situation here.
(more…)

One thing we can say unequivocally, dismantling our lives has been a process, and not a quick and easy one. At the beginning, some things were painful to sell or give away, but we quickly realized the necessity or wisdom of doing it. Some things we just didn’t care so much about. Some things we loved but we realized they were commodities, and could be easily replaced.

As time goes by though, the decisions get tougher and tougher, and certainly more emotional. We’ve left all our favorite things to the last, so now each decision is more acute, and often more painful.

What about that favorite coffee table we brought back from the castle when we lived in the Czech Republic? It faithfully held our television and DVD player for years, and it’s connected to one of the most wonderful times in our lives.

What about some of our favorite lamps? What about those gorgeous Mountain Hard Wear sweaters? The antique nightstands from the castle? The expensive juicer that made such a difference in our health? The huge desk I’ve had for seven years, the one that’s so efficient and useful? The kitchen table that’s so low profile and easy to clean, with its cheery pine top?

The memories are wonderful.
(more…)

One of the most emotional decisions of our entire downsizing project has been putting our Czech Republic furniture up for sale. Back in 1998 we bought eight or nine very old pieces of furniture when we lived in our castle down near the Austrian border.

We’d gone from five years of living in eight-hundred-square-foot apartments to suddenly living in a three-thousand-square-foot section of a thousand-year-old castle. We had plenty of room to spare. We happily visited the Brno antique/vintage shops, and over a few visits, picked out some favorite pieces.

Each piece filled a special need, and each piece was much appreciated and much used in our daily lives, from the mirror stand in the bathroom that held our towels and spare toilet paper, the oversized wood hutch that held all our collections, the dressing table and nightstands in Chelsea’s room, the hutch in the living room that held our newly acquired collection of very old Bohemia crystal, the beautiful European oak writing table in my room, to the capacious sideboard in our kitchen that held all our dishes, silverware, glassware, and pots and pans.

We loved them so much that we made arrangements to bring them back to the US when we relocated to Florida. Exporting furniture was not allowed – the only reason we were able to bring them over here to the US was because we had lived in the Czech Republic so long that the pieces of furniture were considered household goods.
(more…)

Once we’ve successfully sold our items and done our little high-five-happy-dance, there’s still the shipping with our eBay and CrazyGuy postings. We have to find the right box and packing materials. It’s got to be sturdy, but it has to be as light and small as possible, so we spend a fair amount of time in our “packing room”, searching through boxes.

We’ve learned that Priority Mail is the best bet, so Chelsea bicycled up one day and brought a collection of boxes home, to save aggravation and time.

Once we’ve packed the box we need to weigh it, then go online to the post office website and estimate the postage. Normally we’ve done all this before we ever post the ad so we can tell the buyer right away what postage costs will be. When the buyer has paid we still have to print out a shipping label and get to the post office.
(more…)

Though the last three months have felt interminable, our never-ending saga of downsizing is at long last coming to an end. Unlike the magician’s hat when he keeps pulling rabbits out, we are finally running out of things to sell or give away.

The house is so empty it looks like some of the hostels we’ve stayed in over the years – there’s enough to cover the basics, but there’s a feeling of emptiness and the rooms echo. There’s no life or personality left.

We do have furniture, but what’s left is the junk stuff that’s going to the curb on closing day, or it’s the ‘higher end’ antique furniture we have for sale. The only things remaining in the closets and cabinets are items that will be packed at the last minute and put into storage.

In late August I reached my limit with seeing the FreeCycle items stacked up near the front door (yes, I admit, I got downright cranky) so I spent a long morning writing the ads to post the items. Much to our amazement and delight, every item was picked up in six hours.

That seemed to renew the energy around getting things out the door. We finished corralling and cleaning all our yard and shed items and posted ads for them; we combed through all our remaining furniture and cabinets, cataloguing items and postings ads; we looked at smaller pieces of furniture we thought we’d be willing to sell and posted ads; we took another look at clothing and posted a few more items.
(more…)

Chelsea and I are always looking for foods that suit our high-activity lives. Over the years we’ve come across some doozies, but along the way we’ve discovered some solid additions to our repertoire of food ideas. Recently we’ve added a few more to our line-up and we like them well enough that I promised my sister and older brother that I’d share them on the website.

As you probably know by now, Chelsea and I infinitely prefer all natural foods with as few additives and preservatives and as little processing as possible. These entries qualify.

Mrs. May’s Trio Bars

We found these gems in Costco one day on our never-ending hunt for the perfect energy bar for our rides. Along with Cascadian Farms granola bars, these made the short list. We do confess to a preference for these, though. They are one of the least expensive bars we’ve run across, and we love the taste.

Made up of nuts, seeds, and dried fruit, they’ve got cane juice and sea salt added. We get the variety pack, which means we get cranberry, tropical, strawberry, and blueberry (tropical is our least favorite – we don’t like the mango/papaya in it – but it’s not bad at all).

While those folks who have nut allergies will have to be careful, these bars are vegan, kosher, wheat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, non GMO, and have no trans fats, no additives, no preservatives, and no cholesterol.

It’s like eating our favorite trail mix in a bar. They go down easily, digest easily, and don’t come back up unpleasantly after hard riding in high heat.
(more…)

Accessories

If you’re going to have an e-reader, you’ll need a case for sure, unless you rarely read and then only at home. I had quite an education doing the research on cases. The same holds true with having a light to read at night.

M-edge Latitude cases

What a find these were! I searched high and low for the right cover for us, since I know we need something really durable that will protect the Kindle from dirt, grit, dust, and shocks from living on the road.

The M-Edge Latitude fills the need.

It’s a got a two-way zipper with very nice pull-tabs, which makes it easy to charge the Kindle without having to remove it from the case. The Kindle fits inside easily, held in place by four corner straps; none of the functioning is compromised. The inside cover is a nice, smooth, soft, flannel-felt-fleece type of fabric – very easy on the Kindle.

The outside cover is made of easy-clean ballistic nylon, is very stiff and very sturdy, and comes in a variety of bright colors. For us the bright colors are a big advantage, as we want to find the Kindles quickly in our packs, and we want to easily differentiate Chelsea’s from mine.

We have the cases on our Kindles all the time – we never take them off. It’s very easy to read with them on, and we never have worries about fingerprints, dirt and so on getting on the device. We just fold the cover back on itself and read. It’s quite comfortable and we can get several positions to hold our hands.
(more…)

Finding books and other resources

Once you’ve got your e-reader, how do you find books for it? At first we simply logged onto Amazon and looked for books. I could see in a heartbeat that we definitely did not have the budget for buying books, not at the rate we read, so I checked out the free books on Amazon. It became obvious immediately that it wasn’t going to be easy to get a good list.

I went searching and somehow found the blog Kindle Nation, which was quite a find for us. They have a site called Kindle Nation Daily, where they post free books on an almost daily basis. It takes a bit to stay on top of the new offerings – you’d be wise to check the list every day.

Kindle Nation is Kindle only (surprise…), but if you have another reader (Kindles are included), www.Smashwords.com is a great site. You’ve also got www.getfreebooks.com, www.manybooks.net, and www.free-ebooks.net. I suggest you Google “free e-books” and see what you come up with.

Another location is Calibre, a website that has a management system for your entire library, can convert books, and more. They’ve recently started a DRM free site which is acquiring new books all the time. These are not necessarily free, but many are low cost and all are DRM free. http://drmfree.calibre-ebook.com/about. You can then use Calibre to convert any book you choose into the appropriate format for your particular reader.
(more…)

Using the Kindles

We’ve been using the Kindles extensively for the last five months, and we’ve come to realize that we would prefer the newest version of the Barnes and Noble e-ink reader. We wish we had waited.

Our biggest irritation is how truly awful the navigation is on the Kindle. Granted it’s a bit tough in the touch-screen world to get used to an older style of technology, but that aside, their system is truly unfriendly. I did figure out how to use it, but it’s not intuitive – I still have to remind myself which steps to take every time I want to add a book to a collection, or look up a dictionary definition, or move from my current location. I finally remember how to highlight and how to turn off wi-fi easily.

Finding where you are in the book is a challenge. There’s no page system in most books, there’s a location system instead, and you’d better know how to use it if you want to “flip through the book”. I didn’t understand the system the first time I wanted to flip through, and ended up clicking through at least eighty or ninety clicks to find where I was. Massively frustrating.

Now I know I have to find and note my current location number before going anywhere else in the book, but you better either have a good memory or write it down before you can get back to it! And having to type in the location using the keyboard is slow and painful.
(more…)