That's the sound of our new dehumidifier, dehumidifying. Thank effin' God.

I told a few people at work about the Mould Incident and they all asked why I didn't have my dehumidifier on, because obviously I wouldn't be having any mould issues if I did. When I told them that I didn't own one, there was a lot of finger wagging (whilst snapping) in my face and "Giiiiiiirl, why you don't have none? You out your mind!"

In other words, I got told.

I acted quickly and we just plugged in our new (to us) appliance. Which may send our electricity bill to the Moon but really...my Frye's are worth it.

For most of the year, the humidity on the Rock is very high (it hit 98% in the summer). For my skin and hair, this is fabulous. My hair has never grown faster and I hardly ever need to use moisturizer. But it's not all good news. With houses made out of coral and rock, that means that dealing with dampness in the home is just a regular part of life here - a fact which we have recently become acutely aware of.

Our previous apartment, which was in a 400 year-old building, was framed and drywalled, much like a house in Canada. There are probably 3 houses like that on the whole island...it is VERY rare. I'm guessing this is because moisture + drywall = eventual disaster. But, our apartment was dry as a bone, all year round. It was fabulous. Besides the lovely floors, it was pretty much the best thing about the place.

Our new apartment is less than a year old. However, it is a regular-style house, made out of coral, cinder blocks and cement. No moisture barrier. No drywall. Not dry.

I noticed it shortly after we moved in...a bit of a coldness in the sheets tipped me off one night and then the fact that it took 3 days for a pair of jeans to dry on a hanger sealed it for me. We are now officially living in a regular house and now we have to deal with what everyone else is dealing with: the War on Mould.

Mould...is gross. I'm not a fan. Up until now, my experiences with mould have been confined to the food variety - leaving an open juice box in my locker for weeks on end would normally sprout something pretty, and there has been more than one container of forgotten leftovers in my fridge that was "discovered" to be a greener shade than necessary. I'm not messy...it happens.

But when mould sprouts on my SHOES...everything changes.

This evening, Kurt and I were having a casual conversation in the closet (our closet is huge - larger than our bathroom) and I randomly pulled my beloved Frye sandals out of the shoe organizer to discover this:


Oh, hell no.

Yes, that is a crop of mould on my lovely sandal. A tiny green forest of gross.

Disgusted, I pulled out all of my shoes and discovered that The Mould had invaded another favorite pair, my Born sandals (you will probably note how similar they are to the Fryes...at least the Mould has good taste):


I said some words that I don't feel comfortable repeating on my blog, gathered up my beloved sandals and every bottle of shoe product that has ever been hawked (successfully, apparently) to me by shoe sales people, and got to work in the kitchen.


30 minutes later, my pulse had gone back to a regular pace and my sandals were looking as good as new. Some shampoo and conditioner were all it took to bring them back to life. However, I'm now freaking out about everything else in my closet. Like...my clothes. My luggage. My PURSES. My pashmina collection. What else is quietly becoming a home to The Mould? I don't really care to find out.

We got some closet heaters from a co-worker of mine and installed them immediately. They don't heat up much - just enough to zap the moisture from the air. Hopefully that's enough to prevent future invasions. Until then...daily inspections.

Ahh...life in the tropics. Always a pleasure.

The past week has been, in a word, EFFING CRAZY. OK, two words.

We have officially moved. And I am officially in love with the new apartment, despite the boxes and bags all over the place and the fact that many of my clothes are in suitcases awaiting the MALM dressers coming from IKEA on the weekend. The move itself was probably my best move yet. We weren't necessarily more organized, but we did have a lot of time to move so we were pretty relaxed. This means that we were not killing each other over little things. We even tried to enjoy the process, to the extent that moving can ever be enjoyable.

There were a few touch-and-go moments. The first was when I got caught trying to throw some items out that had not officially been designated as trash. By him. Busted. The second, and more serious, incident was when we finally arrived with our movers at the new place - a 40 minute drive from our old place - and I realized that I had brilliantly left the key to the new apartment in the old apartment. Idiotic. Luckily, our landlords were home and helped us out. More serious than that was when our "professional" movers announced that our 37", 7.5 foot long couches would not fit through the doorways or windows and that there was no way that they could get them into our apartment. I nearly barfed. Because the couches were WHY we hired movers. We could have moved most of our crap ourselves but the couches are huge and require a truck. So, we paid them to drop the couches off in our driveway and leave, leaving us standing there wondering what to do with two 7.5 foot long couches that won't fit in the house when our landlord comes over and wants to try fitting them through the back entrance. The entrance that the movers didn't try because they said that it was mathematically impossible to get the couches through the door and around the sharp corner they'd have to turn to get into the living room. They know this because they are "professionals".

Well, EFF YOU "professionals"! Because not 15 minutes later, K and I were arranging our couches into our preferred formation in the living room. It does make absolutely no mathematical sense that they made it into this room but they did and we are ecstatic, because they are a part of the family.

And because selling things sucks.

So, we're here. We have a lot of unpacking to do, but it's a work in progress. It's so quiet that it's almost eerie at night. Just frogs and wind.

I love me some frogs and wind.

That was a LONG week. The kind of week that takes three weeks to finish and, by the time it's actually over, you're so wiped out that you can't think of anything better to do on Friday night than watch a movie and use as few brain cells as possible. Mission accomplished.

After a solid 8 hours (thank you, sleep mask and earplugs), I'm ready to face the weekend. Today, we're taking our first load of "stuff" to the house. A random assortment, indeed. Bikes, golf clubs, yoga mat, bedding. You know, the basics. Actually, while it is fantastic to have a month to move, it's also difficult to figure out what you're not going to need to continue to function daily. Sadly, I can live without my yoga mat because it hasn't been used in months.

We're also going to check out scooters today because I need one, STAT. I had one, which I never used, but I sold it back in February. The location of our new place means that we're scooting to work, so unless I want to be up with the roosters to go with Kurt, I'm going to have to suck it up and learn how to drive one...on the left.

Another errand for today is to select/purchase some necessary occasional furniture. Bookcases and dressers, namely, from the one place on the Rock that offers IKEA furniture, at a mere 175% mark-up over US retail. Awesome! Eff.

This morning, we went over to see our new place and take some photos. It is just as adorable and gorgeous as we remembered and now I'm even more excited to move in. It's hard to imagine what it will be like because it's totally empty now besides our bedroom set, but once our furniture is moved in and set up, I think it's going to be a very happy little home.

I just spoke with our new landlords and they told us that the previous tenants moved back to the U.K. at the beginning of the month and that we can start moving our stuff in anytime. But our lease doesn't start until November 1st. So, we pretty much have a month to move. I'm so happy about this because the week that we were supposed to move, I'm starting my new position and doing a handover of my current job, so it's going to be a stressful week at work. Now, we can start taking car-loads of stuff over a few times a week and hopefully that last week, we'll just have to arrange to have the bigger furniture moved and have it cleaned.

SO. Excited.

I love the new apartment. We're going over to see it tomorrow and take measurements, so I'll get some photos.

Today we had a bit of a late start. I kept waking up last night...at 2:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m., and then at 7:00 a.m. because some CRAZY rain was beating down on the roof so hard that it actually woke me up. I took a peek outside and couldn't even see across the street. And then when we headed out this morning, at around 10:00, there was not a cloud in the sky and everything was dry, dry, dry. I love weather like that. Things get watered...but I don't have to get wet. Plus, I love the sound of rain when I'm all cozy in bed. The best.

We saw another apartment this morning and I, for one, fell in love. Head over heels. It had absolutely everything on our "wishlist", minus a pool, but it had so many extras and bonuses that we never thought we'd be able to find in our price range, that I think we're going to go for it. I'm more of an impulse shopper, while Kurt likes to mull things over, so in fairness to him...I'm waiting out the mulling. I hope he's done mulling soon though, because I can't wait to call and say YES. I WOULD like the apartment with the gorgeous views, private backyard, granite and stainless kitchen and biggest closet ever. I would like that. And I would even like the pet it comes with - a 30 year old tortoise named George who lives behind the house in a little igloo. He reminded me a bit of Harley...about the same activity level. Anyways, it was amazing.

After we drooled all over the apartment, we headed to Melrose Place for an afternoon swim and BBQ. Melrose Place is what we call the complex that Sarah lives in, where we looked at the apartment last week. We spent the day floating around, evening out tan lines (where appropriate), and sipping on cold drinks. Not a terrible way to spend a Sunday, I have to say.

Tomorrow kicks off a three day work week for us, which is awesome. So, tonight is more like a Tuesday night than a Sunday night. I love that.

I hope everyone had an awesome weekend. Hopefully I'll have some big news this week...job or house related...or both!

We went to see the first apartment of our apartment search yesterday evening. Our lease is up at the end of October, so we're looking for something for either October or November 1st...which means that there's not actually a lot for us to look at just yet.

The apartment we went to see was in the same complex that a good friend of ours lives in, and has a pool and little outdoor area that is not only really cute, but really private and hardly used by the tenants, which is kind of nice. So, it would be kind of like having our OWN POOL. Kind of. The apartment itself was smaller than what we have now, but it's much closer to town and would force us to get rid of some of the excess furniture we have accumulated over the past two years...like the mini bar fridge that we've never even opened, much less used. It came free with our bed.

If it were up to me, and only me, we would have signed a lease last night and been done with our search. But Kurt is more methodical than I am and wants to "look around" to see other places before making a decision. We don't have a lot of time to think about this one, since I know she's eager to rent it.

I hate moving.

Before our move, one of my biggest concerns was the inevitable downsizing of our living space. Our house, while no mansion by any stretch of the imagination, was still large for two people. Of the 1700 square feet of available space, we used only the kitchen, the bedroom, and the family room in the basement. Occasionally, we would eat dinner or watch TV in the brown room. Other than that, the other rooms remained pretty much untouched. I remember worrying about the possibility of not having a yard, which is funny when I think that the number of times that I actually made use of that yard totalled less than 20, tops, in the 2.5 years we lived in the house. Still, the point was that the space was available. If Kurt was watching something that I wasn't interested in, I had two other tv-equipped rooms that I could choose to remove myself to, or I could go into the living room and read on my much-missed "chair.5". We could be together when we wanted to be together, and when we wanted time alone, it was an option. Generally, we enjoy each other's company and end up doing stuff together, but there are always those times when it's nice to be alone. The size of the house was one of the main selling features. And with all of the stuff we had (neatly) crammed into it, we technically needed that space, even if we didn't use it.

We knew before moving here that we could realistically afford a certain amount for rent each month, and that the certain amount would probably not land us anything larger than a one-bedroom, or a small two-bedroom apartment in a shoddy area. We know that we lucked out in both neighborhood and quality, and I realize that our apartment is fairly large compared to other one-bedroom apartments on the island, if not most other places. This does not void the fact that it still is, just like every other one-bedroom apartment, essentially two rooms in total. There is the bedroom...and then there's the rest of the apartment. I don't count the laundry room or the bathrooms because I don't feel as though they contribute to a high enough percentage to the "rooms we spend a lot of time in" quotient. Except maybe in the morning, when the bathroom is obviously THE place to be to get ready for work. When we're home, and awake, we're in the main room, and pretty much only in one half of it until we find ourselves a proper dining room set. Counting the kitchen floor space, I would guess that we now spend most of this time in a space that totals about 200 square feet, tops. Yikes.

Or not.

Living in smaller quarters, even if it's only been 3 months, has won me over. We are forced to downsize our lives in a lot of different ways, which ultimately makes everything just that much more manageable.

For instance, there's no point to purchasing a vaccuum for the apartment, so we have a Swiffer. Total amount of time spent to clean the floors in our old house was approximately an hour. Total amount of time here is approximately 10 minutes.

I can't escape the laundry because our laundry room is right next to the kitchen, which, in turn, is right next to everything else. When I start it, it gets finished within hours...as opposed to the days I could ignore it or complete it on an as-needed basis at home.

When I'm trying to tell Kurt something, I don't need to yell it down the stairwell. There is no stairwell. He's usually within 10 feet of me, so I can speak like a normal person.

Limited floor space encourages a tidy house. When I am finished with my exercise ball or yoga mat, they go right back into the closet. Furniture stays where it should because that is where it fits. Stuff strewn about the coffee table is immediately noticeable, so it gets immediately picked up.

We now share one bathroom, since our second bathroom consists of only a toilet and (literally) the tiniest sink ever. It's cute, but I don't even think that you could fit both hands into it. My bathroom real estate has downsized from one full counter (the house has two full bathrooms - one was mine, and one was his), to just a tiny bit more than half of a counter. I'm a girl, after all. I have more stuff. And all of this stuff now HAS to stay neatly put away in the cabinet or drawers, or it will have the unfortunate experience of mixing with all of his boy things.

Of course, there are downsides to sharing a small space with someone. First of all, it's imperative that you like each other. Luckily, we do, so this is mostly not a problem. We end up spending the vast majority of our time together, even if we're on separate couches, doing separate things on our separate laptops. But, sometimes, "me" time is important, and it is a little harder to come by in close quarters. However, not impossible. Just remember that the other person is probably feeling the same way and may welcome the chance to get the hell away from you for awhile. Obviously, feelings like that would be totally foreign to Kurt, but I do grant him respite occasionally. Not everyone enjoys a 5 hour BBC Pride & Prejudice marathon. Sad, but true.

All in all, it's working very well. The more I get used to it, the more I think that it suits us. I'm not thinking that we'll be putting a downpayment on a ridiculously overpriced 450 square foot Victoria condo anytime soon, but I can see us living smaller long-term. It would obviously be different if we had kids, but since that's not the plan anytime in the near future, I'm enjoying my Swiffer.

However, if someone offered me a 3000 square-foot beach-front home on Gonzales Bay, I would probably take it.