We took very few furnishings to the new house. A few things we exchanged: our night stands were better, our Tempurpedic bed was better, but most of our furnishings we left in the old house.

Mostly we brought S*T*U*F*F* to the new house. The moving company didn't believe me when I told them that their off-the-cuff guess of the moving cost for an 800 square foot condominium was way too low. How hard could it be to move a kitchen/dining room, a bedroom, and a bathroom a total distance of 2.04 kilometers, right? It took a four-man crew a day and a half and two full loads of a pretty big truck filled with nearly 100 moving boxes to complete the move, which was about double what they anticipated but exactly in line with my prediction and budget.

The total cost of the move was just under $18,000 pesos, or around $1,000 USD. That's four men and a big truck working about 15 hours at a pace that would have killed me in 15 minutes. Don't you ever believe the stereotype of the lazy Mexican. My part in the move was to dismantle my computer system (more than 30 separate cables by the time it was done) and then sit back and watch my wife supervise the movers. Now we're in the "fun" stage, unpacking boxes one at a time and putting our S*T*U*F*F* away.

I had to apologize to my wife. I had accused her for years of having too much S*T*U*F*F* and thought we could use this move to get rid of at least half of it. Well, after going through my stuff to thin it out, there wasn't even a full waste basket full of it that I could bear to part with. And SWMBO's S*T*U*F*F* is much nicer and more expensive than mine!

The fun part of SWMBO's new house project was looking at other houses. Some were good enough to keep the rain off of us when we slept, but no more than that. Others were twice and three times the size of where we were, with less storage space than what we already had. One memorable house had a floor plan so convoluted that I would have needed a map to find my way back from the bathroom. So when she dragged me off to yet another house I was ready with all the reasons why it wouldn't do. The real estate guy opened the garage door with its indifferently applied lumpy green paint and 12-foot tall spike-topped stone security wall... and my jaw dropped. I spent the next 45 minutes wandering around trying to get a feel for the floor plan, my mouth hanging open looking like an idiot, my camera totally forgotten.

It was more money than we had planned or could afford, completely depleting our liquid assets (you don't buy houses in Mexico with a mortgage, it's a cash business) and we made our offer $5,500 USD over the asking price to be sure we got the house as there were other offers in play from other people. Now we're looking for a wholesaler of tortillas and beans, because that's what we can now afford to eat.

Good times, yes?

tanstaafl.