Home is where the heart is

I wonder how many days have gone by since we started packing until today. It all happened in less than a month, but it seems like it has taken forever to get settled in our new home.

The truth is that the house where we were staying needs some serious maintenance. It already needed some work before last year's flooding during the monsoon. Then the next door neighbour decided to renovate his house and the common wall that we share was broken, so more humidity settled in.

It was easier to vacate the house completely, so that the proper work of repairing, painting and cleaning can take place. I don't understand why, but here in Mumbai it's very common for houses to be plastered in the inside ('for a nice smooth effect'), but with the level of humidity in this city?... Anyway, now I won't have to stop Fabi from playing with pieces of plaster that he takes of the walls! The kid was literally 'bringing down the house'!

We were suppossed to move so that the repairing of our house could be finished before this year's monsoon, however it's already started to rain, so I'm not sure what's going to happen with the schedule of work.

Here's a set of pictures that I took during the whole process. You can see what our living conditions are as of now. I'm actually enjoying the change, eventhough our 'new' house is *A LOT* smaller!

Viva Maria!

May 24th...It's HER day!!

Oh, María, Virgen Poderosa, grande e ilustre defensora de la Iglesia, singular auxilio de los cristianos, terrible como un ejército ordenado en batalla; tu sola has triunfado sobre las herejías del mundo.

Oh, Madre, en nuestras angustias, en nuestras luchas, en nuestros apuros, líbranos del enemigo y en la hora de la muerte llévanos al paraíso. Amen.

So much to tell...so little time

The lack of posts in the past couple of weeks was not only due to my computer's health problems, but also because I've been busy packing. (Moving to another house while this one gets repaired/painted, is still happening...)

What did I miss in the past few days?

May 8th: Costa Rica has a new president
For the second time in 20 years, 1986 Nobel Peace Award Dr. Oscar Arias was inaugurated as President of Costa Rica. Arias, 64, was first President between 1986 and 1990. He already has requested the USA to eliminate Costa Rica from the coalition list of countries who support the invasion to Irak.

May 14th: Mother's Day
More than 46 countries honor mothers with a special day, but not all nations celebrate on the same day. If you visit the previous link, you will see that Costa Rica (and Belgium) celebrate it on August 15th, which also happens to be Indian Independence Day.

What's going to happen in the next few days?

OMG! So many new and exciting things are in the very near future for Masalamom! Moving to another house is just keeping me busy right now but that's only part of everything that's going on. I just don't want to mention anything else for now...because I want to keep it a surprise. I will just try to post as much as I can ... or as much as Fabi allows me to!

Fits like an old shoe

I have a confession to make: The previous four posts were not written from my laptop. "Why?", you ask....well, because my good ol' Gericom laptop got infected with a virus (2nd time this year!) and had its new hard disk formatted again. However, this time I didn't lose any data because I learned my lesson from last time and had an updated backup.

My computer is back home now. Its CD drive doesn't work, a couple of keys are taped to the keyboard and the letter 'y' and the number six don't work (I have to copy/paste them every time I need to use them). Voice chatting is no longer fun because the speakers are also dying.

I realize that it's high time to replace my laptop. Too bad because I'm quite fond of it, eventhough I never gave it a proper name. I still remember when I bought it from ALDI in Erlangen. At that time, I thought it was very strange to buy a laptop in a 'supermarket'. My laptop got me through my thesis, kept me in touch with the rest of the world and helped me start this blog. I'm so used to the German version of Windows XP and its German keyboard. The way my laptop has aged makes it very difficult (almost impossible) for anyone else to use it. I'm the only one who knows its tricks. It's like driving a very old car that only the owner can manage...or like wearing an old pair of shoes that looks ugly but fits sooo comfortably.

As of now...I will start saving for my next notebook...that would explain why I'm trying out the sponsorship of Google Ads that I've placed on the header.

Coral Anniversary

Fabi's paternal grandparents celebrate 35 years of matrimony. Many happy wishes to them and may they celebrate many more years together!

Moving....

We now know where we're going to stay while our house gets painted. We're not going far at all....we're staying in the same neighborhood - the same sector in Vashi. I think we will be shifting next week. I'm still packing!

Daydreaming....

The FIFA World Soccer Cup is a month away. History will be made on June 9th, 2006 - when Costa Rica beats Germany in the opening game in Munich.

After that....whenever someone asks me: "Where are you from?" -- I will never have to explain where Costa Rica is!

I just want to eat him!

Update: Go here to make your own biscuits!

I found the link through Boing Boing.

A penny for your thoughts....

Ok...so the real reason I haven't had time to blog lately is that the 'Spring Cleaning' I was doing turned into packing. That's right! We're packing to temporarily move to another house so that the one we're currently living in, can be water-proofed, painted and throughly cleaned before the next monsoon season.

My belongings fit in three suitcases and I still have to pack my books in boxes. It hasn't been easy trying to pack with Fabi around, but MasalaDad manages to put him to sleep better than I can, so I'm able to get to work.

Lots of stuff still needs to be packed. I haven't even started with the kitchen...

In the meantime, the summer heat is at its best and Fabi always enjoys splashing in the water.

I wonder what he was thinking in this picture: