Hurricane Richard is announcing his impending arrival!

Hello there loved ones!  We have battened hatches and are busy sitting on the couch simultaneously surfing the internet and catching up on LOST.  Egan and Jesse are napping.  The wind is blowing pretty hard (around 50mph) and the occasional gust sends rainwater under our doorway.  Not a lot, but enough to notice.  We went for a pre-hurricane stroll about an hour and a half ago and the following pictures were taken then.  Have some video on our Picasa Web Album if you are curious.

 

For about the last 24 hours, I have been obsessing on the internet.  Nope, not about hurricanes at all but about unschooling, natural parenting, animal rights, human rights, and on and on and on.  I added links here to some of the blogs I was reading  (left side of this page).....one blog always leads to another.  I think it all started because our friend Paul is coming to next month and he agreed to bring us some things.  I started adding books to my Amazon cart and of course I had to research which books I needed most right NOW.....it is out of control and I should probably stop soon.  More on that whole Unschooling thing and Belize next time...

Composting and Gardening Project

Kathy and David, a couple visiting from Ohio, started a composting and gardening project at the local high school, Ocean Academy.  Go Kathy!  Go David!  Not exactly sure how this came about, but Tommy volunteered to take over when they leave.  The teachers here are overwhelmed and there really wasn't anyone to keep it up and monitor it, so Tommy stepped in.  Go Tommy!  He is also looking at this as an opportunity to learn about composting, something we had been hoping to do on a grander scale than our previous backyard pilings (eaten by the land crabs every night).  The other day he took Egan with him to the school; here are a couple of pics...

I needed a haircut...

So I cut my hair.  All by myself with the assistance of The Internet.  Turns out that putting my super long hair in a ponytail at my forehead, then pulling the band out about 6 inches and hacking away ends up looking uncannily like my hair does after the $60 cuts I had regularly received.

I had less success with Egan's cut.  It ended up somewhat bowlish and haphazard and unfortunate.  But he can carry it off, so we aren't worried.  Anyhow, this is yet another example of how things are different here.  One finds that one can be so much more self-sufficient. 

Now for a random photo of Egan-ness, taken yesterday on our walk....with balloons!

More House: Before and After

Here is the bedroom BEFORE.  Note the interesting paint job and the linoleum floor over the gray painted wood flooring. 

Here is the bedroom AFTER.  This is the king-size bed that Tommy built with his OWN HANDS! A beautiful headboard was added a few days later.  See that groovy wood?  That is the Belizean hardwood with which much of the furniture and cabinetry is built in Belize.

This is our "front" door before we had the trim repainted "Teenage Pink"

I think the pink makes it much happier and tropical.  And now Tommy can sing that Little Pink Houses song with greater fervor, so right there you've got at least two big benefits to the addition of THE PINK.  We have a much larger porch on the back of the house with almost-sea views. We are still working on it, so I'll post before and after shots when we have a more complete After.

Living Room: Before and After

Our House: Before and After

This is what our kitchen looked like when we first saw it in February 2010.  We asked the property manager/contractor if the owner would be willing to make some changes (and split the costs with us) and she agreed.  We drew him a picture of what we wanted, picked out paint colors, etc, and by mid-July (about 3 weeks after our return to the caye), our house looked very different!  Most of this was done by the contractor but Tommy added shelves throughout the house and we found furniture in various places. Belizeans aren't big on pantries or closets, so it is tough to find storage for anything, even things like dishes, dry goods, clothing...

Our dining table and chairs came from some ex-pats on Ambergris Caye who had closed a restaurant to move on to bigger and better things in San Pedro. There are two more out on the porch....this pic was taken before a party when we had pushed the table to the wall.  Note our lovely blue painted floors.  Love them!

Random Recipe

Whoa!  I just made the coolest, weirdest, yummiest watermelon salad.  I found the recipe when I was cruising around Allrecipes.com looking for a watermelon salsa recipe.  I had recently been in The Greenhouse, a wonderful natural-foods-ish/ specialty grocery store in San Pedro on Ambergris Caye, and had noticed they carried fresh mint.  Since I had already purchased feta from there, I knew I had the ingredients to make this curious blend.  Anyhow, you must try this!  Sweet, salty, odd, wonderful.  I read all the reviews and made some changes, which I have already adjusted below.

Watermelon Summer Salad

Rated: Submitted By: Jessica Mayo Photo By: Allrecipes Prep Time: 30 Minutes Ready In: 30 Minutes Servings: 6

"Watermelon is tossed with onion, feta cheese and olives in this intriguing summer dish. Don't be scared by the ingredients, they work together to make a very tasty and refreshing salad. Go ahead and try it - be prepared for a pleasant surprise!"

Ingredients:

3/4 cup halved, thinly sliced red onion 1 tablespoon fresh lime juice 1 1/2 quarts seeded, cubed watermelon 3/4 cup crumbled feta cheese

1/2 cup pitted kalamata olive halves 1/2 to 3/4 cup chopped fresh mint 1 tablespoon olive oil

Directions:

1.	Place the onion slices in a small bowl with the lime juice. The acid of the lime will mellow the flavor of the raw onion. Let stand for 20 minutes.
2.	In a large bowl, combine the watermelon cubes, feta cheese, olives, onions with the lime juice, and mint. Drizzle olive oil over it all, and toss to blend. Dig in and be prepared for a pleasant surprise!

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2010 Allrecipes.com

Printed from Allrecipes.com 10/5/2010

A rare moment during the party in which Tommy and I are in the same space.

This morning the weather was uncharacteristically cool.  There were huge sparkly dragonflies flitting around the yard, their wings glittering in the sun.....very "Legend" (with Tom Cruise and Mia Sara in the forest meadow).  Or not.  But it was kind of dreamy.  Then this evening at dusk there were tons of them flying up high in the treetops.  I've never seen them this size before and definitely not so many at once.  Semi-swarms of insects have been the theme of the week though.  Several days ago we had a big freak out when hundreds of large flying ants were swarming into the house. They were easily smooshed and the swarming was over in a couple of hours.  Weird.  Then 2 days later some other flying insect, smaller and mosquito-like, swarmed around all of our lights.  These too offered no resistance to our eager smashing of their delicate little bodies.  And goopy.  Oh the smears on the ceiling!  Anyhow, I guess all this bug stuff is related to the weather.  And our drafty, rickety beloved abode.

Preparing for the party:  Random photo of Egan with coconuts and fly swatter. 

Browser/ Blogger issues and party time!

So apparently if you use Mozilla Firefox to view this blog, the text that is supposed to be beside each picture is unpleasantly lumped all together by the first picture. I just discovered this today. Ugh! So if you want to read this blog all pretty-like, then use Internet Explorer. I'm trying to figure out a way to remedy this.

We had Tommy's belated birthday party last night. It was supposed to be last Friday but the Tropical Storm That Wasn't made us postpone. We had a blast---every person we invited attended and everyone brought amazing food! What a novel idea: you invite someone to a party, they say they will come and they actually come. So cool.