Time is Almost Up in the Philippines!

If This Were a Game, We'd Be in the Fourth Quarter!

As sure as the rooster crows at 0347 here in the Philippines, our time at home here in Samar is coming to a close. It's time we get organized and packed for our return to Guam. We've been here on the island of Samar for just over 3 weeks and except for that one 6-hour brown out, the time just flew by.

We managed to get through the Christmas season here with little fanfare on the home front. We had a holiday dinner with the family, handed out candy to the kids on Christmas day, did some shopping and made some repairs around the house. We picked up a new microwave and toaster as the old ones were retired after lasting nearly 13 years. I did some caulking on the house, replaced a water heater switch, re-organized my tools, and eliminated some junk that's been taking up space in the storage room. I mounted a solar light, re-hung a CR (comfort room) door, laid some anti-fatigue foam mats in the dirty kitchen, consumed copious amounts of Pandesal and I would be remiss if I failed to mention drinking my share of San Miguel beer. I also got in on a group motorcycle ride with some other expats along the roads north of Calbayog City.

And our biggest accomplishment was refurbishing the old barangay pool table that we acquired for a song. Now when all the projects and honey-dos are complete, I have something to while away the time and keep me occupied. Teri picked up with her old Zumba crowd and got her workouts in. Me, I mostly remained on the homefront and tackled some workouts on my bench. I did manage to get Teri out for a scooter ride, but for the most part, I didn't get much riding in because of the unpredictable weather.

Returning to Calbayog City is always a welcome event for us. Getting settled in on the homefront only requires some food shopping to get the ref and pantry stocked, and we simply pick up where we left off during our last visit. Some days I wish we could stay longer, but we have animals back in Guam that need us (as much as we need them). We also have a couple felines here that appreciate us being home, but they are well taken care of by family members who live just a few doors down. As the old saying goes, you can't be in two places at once, and we have learned to deal with that.

My biggest challenge has always been getting re-acquainted with the technological side of things... getting my laptop set up, managing new files, installing a VPN as needed, and just marching to a different drum when here. It can be challenging without the VPN as some of the software subscription services I use tend to get grouchy and cumbersome when using them from an unknown location. It's much easier for me to blog from here vs. doing videos because of the internet unreliability here, but somehow, I managed to get some videos processed this trip. When the power goes out, I can still write for some time on laptop battery power versus running resource intensive editing software which can drain my computer battery in no time. But I must admit, in the 3 plus weeks that we've been here, brownouts occurrences have been minimal. And that in itself is surprising.

So next week at this time we will be back to our Guam routine. We hope that if you are a first-time visitor to this site that you will continue to come back and visit. There is much to talk about and write about when it comes to living the island life in the Western Pacific. But,if you are more of the video watching type, that's okay too... just make sure to Subscribe to the Tropic Shade on YouTube to be notified of newly published videos.

And until my next update, I have a few games of pool I need to play before we leave.