For some reason, this blog site will not let me create a title for this post.  I want to call it "The best laid plans..."  Oh well, I shall post this anyway.

I had every intention of getting us out of the US and down to Ecuador before the end of the year.  There is no way that is going to happen now.

You see, I had a 401K and a pension from my job that I retired from.  I have rolled the 401K $ into an IRA, where it now sits.  I opted for the cash payout of my pension, minus the taxes and sat back to wait for the check to come in.  And waited, and waited.  We wanted to use this money to make some minor repairs to the house prior to listing it, and to also finance our move to Ecuador.

After waiting about a month after I submitted the paperwork, I finally broke down and called corporate headquarters.  Turns out that when you opt for the cash payout, it takes time for them to process that request... to the tune of 90 days!  I will not be receiving those funds until the beginning of November and they could not be more specific than that!

So here we sit, waiting, unable to do much of anything as I don't want to spend what little savings we have, not knowing exactly when I will get the pension money.

The other issue is that I had thought we had found a home for the dog and it doesn't appear that it is going to happen after all.  I was told that they would take the dog this month, after a trip back east was taken.  Trip over and done with a couple of weeks ago and I have heard nothing further from them.  We have got to decide what to do with the dog and cats prior to listing the house for sale.  It will be impossible to sell the house with an out of control dog running rampant throughout the house and jumping all over people.

So, facing obstacle after obstacle and wondering if we will be able to resolve anything and get the hell out of Dodge.

And I still have all those photos to scan!

Two Days Later...

So here I am...  Realizing that apparently the older we get, the longer it takes to recover!

I again felt that I was feeling much better by the end of day yesterday (didn't sit on the sofa at all, but rather in my straight back chair at the dinette off the family room all day).  Went to bed thinking that, at last, I was going to feel more normal when I got up this morning!

Wrong!!

First of all, I woke up several times during the night, when my body felt the need to reposition itself, in extreme discomfort...  WTF?  I felt better at the end of the day yesterday, why was this happening to me??  Due to the numerous times that I woke up, I slept (off and on) until 8:15 this morning.  Those that know me (and know that for several years I have been getting up at 3 A.M. due to my work schedule), know that, in all probability, the latest that I am now sleeping is 6 A.M.!

I should also add that I have a sister that thinks I should exercise to get my back back to normal!  Are you effin kidding me??  I can't move as it is!!  If I could get down to the floor, how the hell would I get back up??  I can only sit in my chair and hope that nothing happens that would require that I get up and move quickly!

I have a back brace (the kind that movers use around their waist, that fastens with Velcro) and wore it all day yesterday AND used a heating pad besides.  I have followed the same routine today only, this time, I will also sleep with the brace on since I feel I can, somewhat, function with it on while I am awake.  Oh, and I should also add that I have one of those "Icy Hot Patches" on as well.  The only recourse I see if the above plan doesn't work, is to stay upright in my chair 24/7 - not something that I really want to try.

Not that I mind sitting in my straight backed chair at the eating area off the kitchen, while watching TV in the family room, but I am certainly ready to be able to get up from the chair easily, without having to brace myself while I straighten out oh-so-very-slowly.

I am so ready to feel more 'normal' and not hurt every time I go to move.  Is that too much to ask?

There Comes A Time...

There comes a time when one realizes a lot of different things, one of them being that getting older is no fun!

Previous to my retirement, I kept my laptop on the eating area table adjacent to the family room so that I could be in same general area as my husband and to also be able to watch TV on the 'big screen' that is in the family room. 

Being that I was going to be on the computer here at home more frequently now that I was retired, and wanting to concentrate more deeply on what I was researching online with fewer interruptions, I moved my laptop to the desk in the den.

There I spent my days in my 'woman cave', researching and chatting with friends online, both old an new, practicing my Spanish, with the smaller TV providing background noise to keep me company.  It was a happy arrangement for quite awhile.

That is until I woke up one morning last week with pain in my lower back.  My husband thought that it had something to do with sitting at the desk that I wasn't used to.  I poo poo'd his opinion stating that I didn't see how that could be it as hadn't I just retired from a desk job that I had held for over 11 years, never once having had the same problem??

As my back pain wasn't getting any better, and in fact, seemed worse, I began to think that he could be right.  I moved the computer back to the little dining area off the kitchen and placed a heating pad on the back of the chair to help with easing the pain.

Yesterday I actually felt that it was getting better and that I would just have to keep the computer here where it didn't seem to bother my back.  My husband had adjusted the chair in the den to a higher level, thinking that it would help, but I am not ready to test his theory out yet.

So, I decided to take a break from computing and we rented a few movies to watch for a break.  I spent the whole day sitting on the sofa, watching movies and thinking that I would wake up painless this morning...  Wrong!  I woke up this morning in even worse shape than previously!  It appears that I am going to have to continue sitting at my makeshift desk with my heating pad until I am completely pain free.

Fortunately, I am close enough to the kitchen where I can easily get to the ibuprofen and get something to drink to wash them down with - it's only a short crawl...