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party like you just got home from Costa Rica… (which happens to be a part of the “real world”)

By on April 15, 2012 in Costa Rica, fyi, IRLOMashup, Lifestyle, stuff we do, work, ★ dreams, ♬ music & art ✎

yeah, we got home late Thursday night, but we left again on Friday afternoon for a marriage retreat. so tonight I consider us to be home for real.

I can’t say it feels like much of a party, though.
(especially since it feels like I’m getting a cold?!)

that’s why I’m linking us up to the Ultimate Blog Party 2012!

there, now it feels a bit more festive in here.

seriously, though, we were just waiting for all the “welcome back to the real world” comments. (which thankfully we haven’t gotten too much yet at least) the thing is, last I checked, Costa Rica is not part of another planet – it’s right here on our world, Earth. additionally, it was Mr. D’s “real world” in every sense, all sarcasm aside, for the first 20 years of his life, which is still well over half of it :)

Costa Rica is a part of our real world, whether or not we live there all of the time. our kids have now joined Mr. D in dual citizenship status, which was obviously not without its quirks, but we’re really happy for them to have that, and I’m looking forward to becoming naturalized sometime in the future as well. we found out on this trip that we should apparently be able to count the 6 months that I’ve lived there so far towards the 2 years I need to have under my belt, so I think that is pretty cool!

anyway, if you’re here for the first time, or maybe have been here before but not made it to our “about” page, here’s a bit of a summary of why we blog:

we’re a passionately creative, multi-cultural family who is currently self-employed and location independent. we’re just sharing our crazy journey, and hope it encourages others along the way.

we really do believe that we are all made for adventure, and while that looks different in different lives, we know that God’s dreams and plans for us are often, if not always, much bigger than what we dream for ourselves. we are continuously amazed by his work in our lives.

part of our journey thus far includes our small business identity & graphic design business, which happens to currently be undergoing a bit of restructuring. our heart for Kaleidoscope International has always been to become a well-rounded resource and source of encouragement for small businesses and those looking to self-employment as a way to enable them to spend more time with their families, so we are working on developing that aspect of it more.

another business that we have just begun developing, though it has been in our hearts for many years, is called the Beauty of One. we believe that what we surround ourselves by has a big impact on us, and so we want to make it easy for people to surround themselves by what inspires and encourages them. we create custom inspirational art, as well as sell ready-made art, (all still in the beginning stages) and are building several fun sidelines such as BlankCanvas™ Cards. we cart around a blank canvas with us and use it in pictures when we come across interesting locations on our adventures. this adventure in Costa Rica is by far the most memorable so far!

the blank canvas has become to us a symbol of life, and we want to paint an adventure on it. this summer we hope to involve some of you in that adventure! we anticipate starting to roll out some of the details about that in the coming month, so stay tuned :)

meanwhile, if you’d like to be part of a fun get-to-know-you activity we’re doing that involves the BlankCanvas™ cards, check it out over here, I haven’t had much time to explain it in detail because of all our recent craziness, so there are still a few spots open!

we’d love to know more about your dreams/adventure, go ahead and introduce yourself!

Comments { 15 }

please shut up about working out, I’m trying to stuff my face here

By on March 30, 2012 in (something clever), fyi, HA! ☺, Lifestyle, Musings, Tico Says

the title really kind of says it all.

Comments { 4 }

Mr. D’s Mouse-vana

By on March 12, 2012 in fyi, Reviews, Tico Says

I was gonna call it  Mouse-gasm but naaah, do you need to put ratings on blogs? I mean … Christina already wrote a post on condoms so I think we might be pushing a PG-13. Oh well! In contrast to the “juvenile” beginning to this post  the content is a little bit of “randomy-serious” everything, God’s provision, life lessons, a bit of tin foil, excellent customer service, and yes, I am a mouse snob.

This little anecdote starts a couple of weeks into our “workation”. Almost 3 years into our blissful relationship my mouse decided to start acting up. Random double clicks and no clicks started happening, and to someone whose work is clicking and double clicking, this got annoying very fast. So I did what I learned in Iowa working with my wife’s family. I tried to fix it!
<!—– Insert life lesson here—–>

I was a city-boy, little learned in the ways of start-up business when I started working at my former job. I had a “toy -robot” mentality, “If something doesn’t work, stop, you can’t do anything about it, get a new one or get a hold of someone who can help you “. I had a bit of an “epiphany” about a month or so into my time there, “learn how to fix things!, learn how to find ways around obstacles, don’t stop moving!”. It was life changing. I learned the ways of the business and began to relish problem solving opportunities, eventually putting that same mentality to use in my own business ventures.

I used that life lesson and examined the entrails of my mouse and it seemed to respond but a couple days into the “responding” the erratic behavior came back with no signs of abating. I came to the decision that it was time for a replacement.

/*God provides*/

It’s cool and subtly LOUD! I was looking for a replacement and asked my friend, Eddy the computer nerd, about mice: “look for the Anywhere Mouse” he said. so I did, and found 2 of them. Being the good man that I am, I gravitated towards the best one that I could find. The price tag was not out of the question but was still going to be a nuisance to buy, specially on the budget we are on right now. I did the due diligence on the mouse (read the reviews on amazon, like my bro-in-law, Jeffrey, taught me) and found this gem:

Fortunately or unfortunately, Logitech’s reliability isn’t what it used to be, so my MX Revolution failed just before its warranty expired (the latest in a long string of Logitech devices that have failed right around their warranty expiration for my family), and Logitech’s wonderful customer service replaced it with a new Performance MX. I’ve always found Logitech’s customer support to be absolutely top notch (which is why I keep buying Logitech hardware even though it keeps failing)…

I don’t know why I didn’t think about it, but  It turns out I was one week away from the expiration of my warranty and due to the fact that Logitech has amazing customer support, ended up with a new Anywhere Mouse replacement! The catch was that it was on its way to Iowa!

Eddy lent me his former mouse and I was making do, but asking a number of questions regarding what kind of pot the Microsoft engineers were smoking when they designed this mouse. The receiver, the battery placement, the royally annoying buttons to push to get the mouse and computer to communicate… but I was still grateful that I didn’t have to battle the randomness anymore. This little veteran was a battery eater though, which would end up being its demise. On the second battery change in 2 weeks I managed (with a little help from the engineers) to break it.

 

 The little tab that connected the battery to the mouse board broke off. With no replacement in sight I put my life lesson to work and came up with a solution!

Yes, that’s tin foil and yes, it worked! It managed to “hold the fort ” until my parents handed me my awesome new mouse on Thursday evening. Praise God, and welcome to the family Mr A.W. Mouse !

(btw, this mouse is the “schizz” – perfect weight and size and it works on everything, including glass!!!)

Comments { 1 }

monthaversary Costa Rica style

By on March 10, 2012 in "monthaversary", Costa Rica, fyi, traveling

rumor has it we’re actually going out tonight! grandparents here means more freedom,
like somehow abuelo got stuck feeding Maverick last night :)

our first monthaversary on this trip to Costa Rica was the day after we got here, so we had a nice, quiet night in after the kids went to bed. it looked kinda like this:

that reminds me that we are behind on Mike & Molly. the take down of MegaVideo has greatly affected our online watching abilities. we’ve still managed to mostly keep up with American Idol (it’s only the second season we’ve actually watched) because we find HeeJun rather humorous.

otherwise we have been limited to Hulu and Netflix, the latter of which we just let charge us again for another month while we’re here. still feel like it’s a bit of a racket. if nothing else there is something completely whacked about finding stuff on there – it seems like half of the stuff you wouldn’t know was there unless you happen to see it recommended below another show or if you know exactly what you want and search specifically. I maintain that it is lame. even with Hulu and Netflix we’ve been having to use a virtual private network to trick them into letting us watch stuff, not being in the states and all. Netflix will let you in, but just severely limit what you can see. thank goodness for Hotspot Shield.

so anyway, we’ll see what fun things are on the horizon for tonight.

you can check out the back story on our monthaversary practices here.

Comments { 0 }

why I watch “the Bachelor”

By on February 15, 2012 in fyi, us

I realize that the Bachelor family of shows can be a little controversial. certainly it doesn’t have the best track record for the couples it spits out a few times each year, however, there are obviously those who have survived the relationship gauntlet and lived to tell about it.

I would never sit around just watching these shows, nor any other show really – I always work or exercise with the shows in the background, but I do watch them and here is why:

if you’ve watched our love story you would probably be able to guess that I don’t really agree with the concept of the show, but I didn’t always feel completely unlike a contestant trying to win Mr. D’s heart :) (my mode of action was a lot more like sitting back waiting for God to finish writing the story than to actually compete, but hey, Mr. D needed a challenge for a change)

being fascinated by relationships and interactions in general, I find the Bachelor/ette to be an interesting study in human nature and relationship dynamics.

I enjoy trying to guess which parts of the show are real and which parts are set up, what kinds of leading questions they ask in the interviews to get the participants to say what they want them to say, which people are being their true selves, which ones have another agenda, what kinds of emotional problems and hangups they have, which things are edited unfairly, etc.

basically I’m analyzing the psychological states of everyone while I’m watching.

the dates, locations, and experiences from the Bachelor are obviously a lot more fairytale and a lot less real life, but the emotions and the way the contestants handle their emotions are real.

love can often feel like a bit of a war zone and I don’t feel like the way that it plays out on the Bachelor stage is completely untrue to what is often found in real life.

I’m pretty thankful, however, that it was God, not a team of reality show writers, who wrote our love story :)

had I started writing this earlier I would have waxed more wordy with my thoughts on all of it, but my deadline for myself is midnight, so this is all she wrote.

do you watch the Bachelor? why or why not? you can answer even if your name is Ileen :)

Comments { 3 }