(post 176 of 263 — I have been back dating posts, so scroll down to make sure you didn’t miss any!)

This past weekend, my friend D came down from Ottawa with her husband. D and I had worked together at the Patent Office many lifetimes ago and had not seen each other since 2008! But since we speak nearly daily through Facebook, it was like no time had gone by at all. I’m still very close with many colleagues dating back to my first “real” job post-college, but the Patent Office group was particularly tight.

This was a super fast visit. They arrived in time for lunch on Friday and were off after breakfast on Sunday. They were staying at a hotel on the Mayan Riviera and rented a car to come visit me for the weekend, exactly like my mothers did when they visited in 2019.

First thing we did was head into centro for lunch at the Chaya Maya so they could try local food. I’ll never understand why this restaurant is so maligned by expats as being too touristy. It’s always full of Mexicans and the food is delicious and of the highest standard. I ordered an assortment of local delicacies including turkey salbutes to start and then four dishes that we forgot to photograph before we started! From top left going clockwise, we had turkey in pumpkin seed sauce (not a hit all around), relleno negro (my favourite but not a hit), cochinita pibil (a hit), and queso relleno (a hit), along with plenty of handmade tortillas to make tacos. D and A are not a fan of the local food so that’s all of it that we had over the weekend.

After lunch, we walked to Plaza Grande and had an ice cream, then headed to the Mercado Lucas de Galvez. I looked forward to seeing it all cleaned up, but D and A hit their limit with the heat and asked to go home so I just got a peek (and was not impressed).

Saturday, we drove up to Progreso, my first time at the beach post-pandemic! There’s lots of construction going on on the Malecón. It was a shame that they were working on a Saturday, but the beach wasn’t super busy anyway.

We had lunch at Crabster. Since I was technically vacation and I wasn’t driving, I treated myself to a Paloma (tequila with grapefruit juice, Mexico’s national cocktail). I’m not really supposed to have grapefruit juice now that I’m on thyroid meds, but my doctor said having some later in the day on a rare occasion wouldn’t do any harm.

D and I both had the coconut shrimp and didn’t find it coconutty enough, but I found the pineapple habanero salsa and the plantain purée wonderful, and I don’t normally like plantains! Barely pictured are the dregs of our starter, guacamole with shrimp.

D introduced me to coffee with Bailey’s.

We headed home midafternoon and got caught up. I ordered a pizza for dinner.

Sunday, we went out for breakfast on the Paseo de Montejo as you haven’t been to Mérida if you have not visited this avenue lined with beautiful historic mansions! Café Impala had choices D and A liked. and I had chilaquiles. I have yet to encounter a reasonable portion of chilaquiles that I can finish!

That was it for our visit! They dropped me off at home and headed out. It rather sounds crazy that I did all that work on the guest room for two nights, but it was worth it — I got my new AC upstairs and now I have a proper guest room at the ready for future guests.

I spent the rest of Sunday attempting to assemble the new cabinet for my upstairs bathroom, a rather frustrating endeavour. But it was worth it, and you’ll see it in a few posts. 🙂

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Ooh, it’s been a long road with this room from an inadequate office to a junk room to a pretty space I can keep ready for guests. It still needs more and will continue to evolve, but Casa Rae is officially up and running again!

This was my first office setup in this room.

Then I had a few different setups with this desk.

Then I moved my office and this became the junk room. I had these two beds stacked and taking up space for ages until I was ready to let them go. My cleaning fairy took them, the bedding, old nightstands, lamps, and more and made herself a beautiful masterbedroom.

The bed, floor, and built-in bookcase were all covered with stuff and a thick layer of dust for months.

How’s that for an honest picture?

Once I completely emptied the room (with some of the stuff finding a home, the rest creating a new junk room in the former guest room!), these are the improvements that were made:

– Install a minisplit (the one that was formerly in the bedroom upstairs)
– Replace the ceiling fan
– Remove vertical blinds and install curtains
– Add outlets for nightstands
– Paint
– Add a wardrobe, nightstands, lamps, and new bedding

I’m thrilled with how the room turned out. It definitely needs some artwork, books on the shelves (I’m going to start collecting Yucatán-related material), a mini fridge, a desk or small table with a chair, etc., but it already looks so good! My cleaning fairy is now able to keep the room clean. We’ve covered the bed with a sheet to keep the dust off, but it’s otherwise ready to go. I like to leave the door of that room open so I get the natural light and I love looking into such a pretty space,

Nightstands and pineapple lamps by Coppel, bedding by Amazon Basics

I cannot remember where I bought those curtains, maybe Costco.

Wardrobe and water dispenser from FB Marketplace, chair came with the house.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much that could be done with the guest bathroom, but my cleaning fairy worked some magic with muriatic acid and I added new navy towels and bath mats.

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My yard guy was here today. He enjoys painting, so I asked him if he could use the free Comex paint to paint the rear patio planter, to finish up the space. Of course, he was happy to do so, and he touched up a bunch of other spots as well to finish off the litre. I was surprised by how much he was able to do with a litre and that I still have two litres of the paint left!

What a difference this project made. Sure improved my view from the office!

This video shows the other painting he did and gives an update on the curtain rod situation in the guest room.

OF COURSE my contractor did not show up on Saturday as promised to put it up. He did the same thing last time, promising to come for a final pass and tidy and simply being a no show. This time, I thought this was particularly unkind of him since he doesn’t know that I now have a drill and so can complete the task myself.

I still think I will use him to do the final bedroom, but I’m definitely going to keep a tighter rein on him as he’s very good at showing up early, getting started all gung-ho, and then leaving me in chaos for a few weeks. I’m always happy with the end result because he knows his weaknesses and so uses very good subcontractors, so I think I’d be spiting myself to try to find someone else to do the last room. I also take into account the favours he pulled to get the office doors at cost and, of course, my amazing stone desk. He’s not a bad guy at all. But I do think he lost the rooftop terrace project I was going to do next year, as well as the roof recoating that we were talking about him doing this year. The exterior painters do that, so I’ll contact them instead.

My friends have landed in Mexico and will be here in five days! Tomorrow is going to be the big push with my cleaning fairy to get the guest suite ready for them so I can focus on putting in a solid three days of work this week so I can take some much deserved time off!

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Been a long day, the most notable part of it being that I finally got all my reports from the fiscalía!!! I don’t know if I mentioned this, but the insurance paid me already (!) so motivation to close up this wild goose chase was very low this week. I was pretty much decided to just give up if they didn’t have the paperwork today. They had the paperwork and I still thought I was going home empty-handed…

(Post 172 of 263)

Nearly aaaaaalll done. Curtain rod is left, long story, but otherwise we got through my list! I’m very happy with how low-drama this project and that it was delivered on time and on budget.

The new AC alone was worth going through this exercise, but, of course, I’m thrilled to have another room go from boring white and beige to lovely blues, as well as to gain a beautiful fresh master bathroom without all the headaches of a full gut reno! And I don’t have to stare at the mess that I made of my bedroom doors. Really, this whole thing was worth every centavo!

I’ll be back with before and after posts once the rooms are cleaned and put together. 🙂