Nuestra nueva lavadora

Our first Christmas in Costa Rica was wonderful, spending time with friends & Tico family.  Tamales, turkey, roast pork ... the works!  It was 2 days of pretty much non-stop party.  But then, boxing day brought back reality.

You all may, or may not, remember the trauma of last February where we paid way too much for a load of laundry so went out and bought a washer.  Well, it WAS old, and of course had its problems, like bladder control (at least it lived outside).  It finally gave up the proverbial ghost the beginning of this week, so it was either wear dirty clothes, pay for some exhorbitantly priced laundry service or go out and find a washer.  Having already experienced the joys of a used washer, I, in my (sometimes less than) infinite wisdom, started pricing washers.  Check Craigslist ... nope, Check Encuentra24 ... nope, Check MercadoLibre ... nope.  Hummm ... trip to Grecia is in the offing, I see.

So, yesterday, I hop in the car with my buddy, Brenda, and off we go.  Hit 5 or 6 appliance stores to check pricing and any other perks that might be germane.  Sheesh ... I have to buy a new washer?  So, went to the repair shop, where they thought it might be the solenoid (at $50 + a $40 housecall), but it might not be.  Hummm ... out of desperation, paid $165 (too much) 10 months ago for a machine with a bent shaft ... do I want to put another $100 in it?  Nope!  Do we have the $$ for a new machine?  Not so much.  Just paid Marchamo (registration & insurance for the car for the year), have Property Taxes and Insurance coming up, annual garbage bill, not to mention that we just had not one, but two new motherboards put in our TVs due to lightning issues with cable!

Then I remembered the stash of 500 colones coins that I'd been working on for months (Thanks to Brenda for the idea) for something fun.  These coins are HUGE and weigh a ton, so better to stash them than to carry around in one's purse or pocket.  There were enough to pay for over 2/3 of a new washer.  What is more fun than clean clothes, I rationalize?  So thanks to Dickie, our friend from Chinook, WA who lives just below Grecia, for the transportation:

Instead of this:

We now have this:  

It works very well, is quiet and sorta cute!  Now I need to go find an old sheet to use as a cover to keep it nice and pretty!  Merry Christmas to us!