Karen's Hawaiian Cottage

This is a picture of the little cottage we are 'sitting.' Notice how there is an area that is brown grass instead of green? Karen said the people who rented this place before her had a nursery here and she thinks they must have plastic under the grass because it never will stay green.

If you click on the picture and make it huge, you'll see the little dogs on the left end of the lanai (porch) watching us as we walk around the property. This only shows one level of the property; I guess it's about an acre. It's in three levels and we only have to keep the top level. There are property managers (Karen rents this place from an estate) who take care of the bottom two levels. From the bottom level you can't even see this little cottage. We took this picture the day I washed after we'd gotten that bag of shirts at the thrift store. The laundry has to hang out most of the day to dry and if it rains, then it has to hang out for two days. It works. Notice Nob Hill is behind the cottage. There are some really fine houses behind here, too; it's a very nice area. One of the houses behind us is for rent right now for $3700 a month. We're very content to be here and thank God for this opportunity!

Today we went to Hapuna Beach, but it was VERY windy, again. We couldn't even lay on the beach because the sand was blasting us so badly. We walked the beach twice to get some exercise and then we went up in the grassy part for a while to get some vitamin D. We didn't stay too long, though. The wind was just too brutal. I came home and washed all the sand out of my hair. So, I got an extra shampoo; my hair is happy and curly. I look like little orphan Annie, only my hair isn't red. I had sand even in my ears. I'm not crazy about the beach when it's that windy, but it was so, so beautiful!

We're on our last two weeks, so we're working hard to make our food come out even. We don't want to leave a bunch of food that Karen won't eat, so I think we'll be eating some odd combinations for a couple of weeks. Ha! Karen eats all organic foods, so I don't think she'll want anything we leave for her. Man, we do well to eat, let alone eat organic food; everything is so expensive! Most things are 30-50% more than they are at home. We think it's high at home, but this convinces us that we should be grateful for better prices than this at home.