Almost

So much for relaxing…you didn’t believe me anyway, right?

It seems like it never ends. We did a lot of re-organizing, threw away a bunch of old magazines, cleaned over and over and now we’re almost finished. Packing is done and we feel good about it. We have one bag each well under 50 pounds, one carry-on and a laptop bag on wheels, which will be great for carrying documents.

Last weekend we met up with our friends and had a nice lunch, and chatted and laughed for a few hours. Then we met our new friends and spent about an hour and a half talking about their experiences, hearing Karina explain what she liked about her country and other interesting tidbits. It was amazing seeing how quickly she’s picked up the English language, and after a few brief moments of shyness, she was conversing and interacting with us naturally.

This week the exterior painting was finally finished. The paint shop mixed the wrong paint and they had already sprayed the field color by the time I got home and noticed the snafu! Unfortunately the color was just too light and had to be repainted. But they did a great job and we’re very happy with the new color scheme. No more fighting mildew for a while!

Yesterday and today, a few friends and neighbors dropped by to discuss what needs to be done during our absence. Our good neighbors are going to take care of mostly everything, but our other friends will fill in when needed. We’re very blessed to have their support and help. I typed up some instructions to make sure we covered everything, shared their contacts with each other and that was it. Oh, and then when we gave the key to our neighbor, it wouldn’t turn in the new door hardware we just installed. The guys at Lowes told me to use a wrench on the copied keys if they’re hard to turn. They said “stop if they start bending”. I really felt uneasy with those instructions! So I decided to give it a shot and finally it started turning, but after a few twists, the key sheared off…dough! I was dreading having to take off the hardware and run to the store in the morning. Luckily we were able to fish the broken key out, so we’re good to go.

We’ll get up early in the morning to wrap everything up before heading to the airport. We plan on leaving at 1pm and should get there within an hour. Then we’ll meet J. and she’ll hand us their completed dossier. We’re going to be acting as couriers tomorrow! This will save them a few days and might be able to get an appointment faster. Our flight will leave at 4:30pm and once we get in Kiev, we’ll try to hand over the dossier to their facilitator on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning.