(Post 170 of 263)

This is the magic squeegee, Videlia brand, purchased at Walmart.

(Post 169 of 263)

The worst of the painting is done (just have touch-ups and cleanup to do)! All that’s left are the bathroom floor, vanity, and medicine cabinet installation, then punch list items like repairing exterior walls and some warranty work on the downstairs bathroom. I think they could get it all done if they put in a full day, but who knows how the floor is going to go. I really am looking forward to having a sink upstairs again. You’d think I wouldn’t miss it that much, but Bonita has caught me every morning cleaning my face and teeth downstairs before greeting her and I always feel bad!

I’m hoping to have a bathroom reveal tomorrow, but the bedroom is going to need some time to clean and put together as I still have a few bits missing. But it’s amazing to me that I’m already starting to think about final touches when it feels like the work only just started!

I feel that I’ve had essentially three junk rooms downstairs for five years so it’s fantastic to finally have two of the rooms clean and maintainable. Even if I don’t have any use of my own for the room and it basically just sits in wait of guests, I need to have its hallway door open for the natural light, so it’ll be a treat to have a view in that direction instead of eyeballing a mess!

I’ve been asked if I plan to Airbnb the room since travel is opening up. Yes and no. No to officially listing it, at least at this time, because I don’t intend to make an actual business that would make it worth having to register a business, pay the high hospitality taxes, etc. I’d like to have it to offer through word of mouth more for in exchange for house and dog sitting or just to help someone out who’d be willing to cover one of my monthly bills. So I will probably put it up on a house minding site. I had thought I wasn’t going to want to go away overnight again because of Bonita, but she’s come out of her shell so much that I suspect she could tolerate a short absence.

(Post 168 of 263)

I finally reached the moment in my chase of the police reports for the insurance matter that I was given a phone number to call so I don’t have to keep going to the precinct for nothing. I do not mind using the phone in Spanish now, at least no more than I do in French or English (meaning augh, but if I must), except that you never know if you’re going to get a good connection. It’s like when I’m in an open area with a lot of background noise, I suddenly don’t understand anything. So it’s definitely an issue more with my hearing (which I’m actually not concerned about) than my language skills.

Still, I was a bit surprised when I picked up the phone yesterday afternoon without spending all day talking myself into it. I got transferred a few times but everyone seemed to understand what I needed (and understand me, period), just not who I needed to speak with. The line was crystal clear, so that helped a ton. I finally landed on a wonderful gentleman who was appalled about how I’ve been led on a wild goose chase all this time — he actually said that, calling the process a “búsqueda inútil.” He ultimately could not help me about my documents, but gave me another number to try instead and told me exactly what to say when the person picked up to cut down on a few transfers.

I decided to try again this morning. I still got a few transfers, but it was way more efficient, and I finally got someone who asked for my case number. He was then able to pull up my file and confirm, that, nope, the docs aren’t ready yet. It’s a long weekend, so try again Tuesday. Try again, not they’ll be ready on Tuesday. 🙁

Having a phone number now is going to make the process so much less stressful and frustrating, no more two-hour trips to the precinct for nothing. At least, I hope!

Also, today is my anniversary of becoming a permanent resident! I am now technically able to start my citizenship application! I was told by my lawyers to wait because the process is more stringent for a youngster like me (ha!), plus citizenship applications are backed up anyway. So I should spend time studying for the citizenship test and continuing to strengthen my Spanish skills. So, really, this whole burglary exercise has just been linguistic preparation for that!

(Post 167 of 263)

Let’s get the insurance update done first. This was my Monday:

-Wake up to an email that I have been paid and will have the money in 72 hours.

-Go to the police station for my appointment to get my documents.

-Wait over an hour at the police station to be told my documents are not ready. Maybe they will be Wednesday, but plan for next week.

-Come out of the police station to a message from my broker forwarding a “Oops, our bad, we didn’t actually pay you and won’t do so until we get the police reports!” from the insurance company. So, yeah, insurance companies really do suck the world over. At this point, I’m at such low confidence that I will get the reports that I’ve started the process of making a claim for just the headphones from my credit card insurance company. They know I’m working with homeowners insurance, no, I won’t get a double payout, etc., but I’m keeping my options open.

Otherwise, it was a good weekend! I got a ton of work done and was raring to go when the painter showed up this morning! Tons of painting happened today and, once again, I was spot on with my paint choices! Somehow, in the last year and a bit, I’ve managed to have the entire house painted except for half the kitchen and one bedroom! It’s true that the best way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time! The half of the kitchen just doesn’t have enough visible wall space for me to have felt it was worth doing last year and matches quite well with the half that was painted, so it doesn’t bother me at all. The final bedroom is going to be what I’ll now call the “flex room” … once I figure out exactly how I want to put it together! I really do think it’s going to be a combo gym and play room, but I need to figure out how to make those two things compatible.

(Post 166 of 263)

Just bla bla bla today because I’m not happy with the video.

It was decided to continue work next week because phase I is done and it made no sense to bring out a crew for two half days as there would have been a late start today because of my early Pilates class. I was happy with that because it’s a lot of people time in a week now since I have the Pilates. I also have a bottleneck to get through at work, so two solid days to just scope will be a gift. All the big stuff is in — fans, ACs, and, yay, the upstairs toilet (my contractor finalised that today) so I don’t have to keep using the one downstairs, which is very far away in the middle of the night! I’m going to do a good clean so we can start fresh Monday with painting!

We settled our accounts for Phase I. I had a budget range of $8,000 to $12,000 as the expected total for both labour and contractor-provided materials for Phase I, depending on how many surprises we got. By last night, I was thinking the $12,000 because the AC had to go to the repair shop. Labour and his costs came to $9,600, and then I paid a further $2,300 for contractor-provided materials, for a total of $11,900. That includes getting the AC compressor repaired! So we were spot on. I’m definitely not going to be nervous going forward doing projects with him that don’t have a fixed budget, especially if he keeps using that electrician and plumber.

In other good news today, the insurance company has come up with a number to reimburse me and it is several thousand pesos higher than I’d dared hoped for! I’m still out money, but not enough to cry over. I still have to go to the police station on Monday to get the reports to finalise the file, but I think this might actually resolve in my favour!