The wheels turn on, slowly

A week in and things are slowly progressing as far as I'm aware. Haven't heard any news from anyone lately.

Locally, our dog, who recently underwent surgery to remove a tumor, now likely has diabetes. Which will require us to give her expensive insulin injections twice a day. That news has taken the shine off of the Mérida purchase attempt. It's hard to be excited about one thing when another thing has us concerned. But we've been told it's not a huge deal. Happens to lots of dogs. Not ideal, but won't affect her greatly.

While I wait, in a sort of limbo, with regards to the property purchase I have flashes of buyer's remorse. That's nothing new to me. I have buyer's remorse over new shoes. It seems reasonable that I'd have it over such a large purchase.

This is a different remorse to my earlier remorse. I'm not wondering as much if I should have made this attempt to buy it as much as I'm wondering if I am doing all the smart and safe things to purchase it.

Have I studied the house buying process enough? Are there going to be hidden fees that I'm not aware of and are going to strain or sink me?

I have always liked Isaac and think I'm a good judge of character and that I can trust him. Is he as honest as I think or am I going to get a giant bill from him?

Oh, I'm just a bowl full of positive thoughts! To be fair, some of this down-in-the-dumps talk is because of the weather. It's still not spring here, and another snowstorm is on the horizon. Mérida is burning up with heat (and actual fires) and we're shivering in the cold.

When I relax a bit, I get excited about the possibilities of the future.

One thing I remembered. A few months back there was a house in the same neighborhood I was interested in. It was very, very run down and a smaller overall lot than the one we are attempting to purchase now. But it had some very interesting bones and a quite lovely facade. The nice tall wooden doors. Arches leading to the back.

Anyways, it was a little more than I was willing to spend, but it was tempting for a bit. It sold pretty quickly. I was curious how close it was. And it's only about two blocks away. I was kind of daydreaming like, "I wonder who the owners are? Maybe we could become best friend neighbors someday!"

Maybe that's a bit much, haha, but it's always interesting to have those thought experiments.

I've started following a few more local (to Mérida) Facebook pages. Trying to see what's happening in the neighborhoods.

Of course, now I have an even stronger rooting interest in La Plancha being successfully turned into a park. I'm definitely following that now.

I also started following a page about trees in Mérida. I know it's become somewhat in fashion for expats to plant trees in the sidewalks. When I was looking at houses with Isaac one time we saw a house with trees in front and he commented on how much he liked it. In front of that particular house he commented on I had to agree. They looked very nice.

But I've also seen them planted in very narrow sidewalks, and had to do a dance around them to keep going. These seemed... less nice. Apparently, they are fairly controversial locally, too. With some people actually cutting them off in the middle of the night, out of frustration.

While I certainly like the idea of them and trees always make things nicer and cooler and environmentally better, I am also certain that we won't be planting them in our sidewalk. Definitely too narrow.

And I have made an early vow that any tree that needs to be cut down to build a future house will need to be replaced with another tree in the yard. Then again, my luck is the trees are all historical and the house will need to be built around them. But, that might be an interesting challenge, too.

I guess we'll see.