The move

Wow that was stressful.
We found an apartment that was open and in our price range last week. We have been looking for something cheaper for some time now in order to reach a workable budget. Im not sure if its like this everywhere in Mexico but in this town the apartments go like crazy. People are constantly looking for something better or cheaper I suppose. When living at our last apartment we constantly had people stopping to ask if there was someone living in it or the one below. On top of this there is no apartment guide. This I know is true in most of Mexico except the biggest of cities like Mexico City. Here there isn’t even a community board with listings. You just have to drive around and look for “SE RENTA” signs in the windows. If you see one don’t get to excited someone may have already rented it and just didn’t take the sign down. So when this one came available and the guy said he would let us move in if we brought him the deposit the next day we did it. This was on last Tue. Mind you that was the last week of Jan and to make good on our contract on the other apartment we had to be out by Sunday the first day of Feb.
My husband cant just take days off work at last min and on top of that they work him extra hours right now because he is familiar with two departments at his work both of which need to hire more help and haven’t. So it took up three days to get all our belongings moved and he did it all in the few hours he was off work. I did all the packing but because Im almost 7 mo pregnant no one would let me lift anything and if my husband saw me scooting a couch across the floor he would get very upset. Im a working women and don’t know how to sit and watch others do what I feel I should be helping with. So this coupled with my husbands’ long hours and just the stress of everything being in boxes and bags for 4 or 5 days built up some stress and tension for me and him.
The new apartment is much smaller, but we like it and we fit. The kitchen, dinning room, living room is all one open room which is the size of my kitchen in the last apartment. But with some thinking and rearranging we got everything in and its actually quite cozy. And I keep looking at the floor thinking how much less time I will spend mopping. We did have to hang shelves in the kitchen because there is very little cabinet space and two bins for the stuff that we had on those shelves previously. The problem with the shelves is that the walls here are stucco (I think that’s the name of it.) and concrete. No wood studs to find and hang stuff on. So there are few places you can hang anything heavy. We had the same issue in the last place but because there was so much more room we just moved the shelves until we could find a good solid spot in the wall. We are once again on the third floor which is ok also I figure Ill keep nice looking legs.  Also there is a bar on the first floor that Im glad IM not directly over. There hours seem to be short and mainly during the weekends, it’s actually quiet after about 1030 even then.
Our kitchen sink didn’t work the first couple days which was kinda a pain and the outlets for the washer didn’t have the right attachments so I was washing my daughters pee cloths Mexican style. But hey that’s not to big a deal just a pain. (we just started potty training a couple weeks ago, we had nothing going on at the time and it seemed a good time, then the last min move, but she’s doing well with it) The Plummer was suppose to come the first day we moved in and true to Mexican style didn’t show, but I was being patient and trying to keep a good attitude about it. When he did make it a few days after the move he was very nice and it was obvious the land lord had mentioned my lack of Spanish. This was actually a relief. In our old apartment the roof was for us and it was guarded so my daughter could play and ride her bike up there and I had lots of space to do laundry. Although I don’t have much laundry room here, I don’t miss the upstairs because there are 2 parks within a block of our door. One of which has lots of dirt and rocks for Alana to dig in, she love it. The other park has a lot of open concrete for her to ride her bike, and all the necessary play equipment of course. She use to get board quickly with the roof and her toys, I couldn’t get her to stay out side for much more than 30-45min at a time. Since we have been here we have been spending hours at a time out side. There is also a large grass square right out front that she loves to go run jump and roll in. But we are not letting her at the time because she showed up with a rash that we are not sure if its from the elastic in the undies or the grass. There is also a tienda (store) down stairs which has a lot more stuff than the ones that were close to my old apartment. All of this lends to using less gas money for the truck. Also we are only about 6 blocks from my husbands work instead of across town. This means if we get to broke for gas he can walk to work. Our neighbor has already struck up a couple conversations and said to tell her if we needed anything. She seems really nice and I think is a grandma. She has a lot of young adults and children in and out of her place a lot. Also on the first floor is a taco place that makes boiled tacos, they are supper yummy, and a Bar. The bar is only open from like 5pm-1030pm so its not much of disturbance, but during those hours we are plagued with horrible music and sometimes even Karaoke.  But hey they have beer and a pool table so we may check it out one night after Alanas in bed. (and after Im not prego of course)
The one thing Im sad about is the store owners that were up the street from out old place. They were my saving grace when I first moved here. When I told her I was moving she made me promise like three times to visit. I told her it would be no problem. We use to have to drive that far all the time and Alana loves to play with her girls. So we plan to go there and hang out every couple weeks on Saturdays when the girls are not in school.
So Im thankful the move is over it was tense but we are done and I have made the new place our home. Oh and moving in Mexico is no different than in the states except that you never know when people will show up to help or not show up at all. Which Iv had to deal with in the states also. 