A year ago today, I got the keys to my house. So it’s been a full year of having keys to the house and I’ve made a full year of payments. My rent goes down next month. How cool is that?!

The location hasn’t been as perfect as I hoped. As I suspected from the start, the location of my office facing two busy streets and right next to a successful mechanic is less than ideal. I’m still struggling with a rooster who is damaging my calm and ruining my nights. I still haven’t found a non-chain café close enough to pop into when I need to get out of the house (but I do have coffee Tuesdays most weeks at a convenient location). I also have yet to find a cantina anywhere around my house to pop into and have a cold beer at the end of a long day. North-south public transportation is as fantastic as I’d expected, but east-west is too inconvenient and I’ve used Uber and my truck more than expected when it’s been too hot to walk. All told, I thought my location would be a 9/10 and it’s proven to be an 8/10. It’s still more than good enough that I’m not feeling anxious to move, but there are enough annoyances and deficiencies that I casually evaluate other neighbourhoods I visit.

The house was and remains a 9/10. Except for the office noise issues (and that’s not even anywhere near the majority of the time), this house has been an absolute dream and I’m so in love with it. There isn’t a day that goes by that I am not grateful that this is my home. No, I haven’t done anywhere near with it what I’d planned, but I still have a whole other year here to continue to cosify it. And from the last discussion with my landlady, I think the odds are very good that I’ll be able to renew my lease, hopefully for another two years.

Yup, the house and the location are that good. I know I could improve both by moving, but the improvements I’m seeking are not worth the hassle of spending all that time hunting for another house that will work so well for both myself and Bonita. I also cower at how hard I’ll have to work to make four months’ of rent to pay in advance. And then, I’d have to possibly learn a new neighbourhood and say goodbye to favourite haunts. So as long as I’m renting, where I am is just fine and I’m very happy making a stand right here. I have promised myself that if I can renew for a further two years, I will paint a couple of rooms and seriously investigate sound-proofing options for the bedroom.

As for the office, when I got Bonita six months ago, I started working with my office door open all day so she could run in and out. That has greatly increased the noise level in the office as I’ve lost the barrier with the street. I think I am going to see how she does now with the door closed, especially as we get into the cooler season and I won’t need that extra breeze.

I had a chat with my landlady the other day about maintenance. She’s happy with reports she’s getting from my maintenance guy about the upkeep I’m doing on the house, but there’s bigger projects that need to be done than she and I feel I should be paying for as a tenant. So there’s going to be some work done in the yard when I get back from Canada that I won’t be responsible for, yay. She’s been an awesome landlady, another reason I really don’t want to move!

There have been a lot of things in my life that I’ve hopped into with such enthusiasm and optimism, only to fall flat on my face. It’s gratifying that so far, this whole move to another country thing hasn’t been like that at all and that I face each day with a bone-deep gratitude about my new-found lot in life where there isn’t just tortillas, but also calla lilies.

I will leave you with these words of wisdom to go enjoy some tacos (yes, I really do eat tacos many times a week!) and then play with my dog:

“If you want to change your life you have to raise your standards.”