House Repairs – Monday – Saturday

 

Monday – Saturday, 4/12/23-9/12/23

Before

After

Life here is still a bit in flux, but I am starting to figure out what my daily routine will become as I go forward. For instance, I now know that the chain grocery store (small) is a half mile from my house and mostly a bit downhill. Most of the time, I can walk there and get home with a backpack full of groceries in about an hour; using the Nordic walking sticks helps me with the uphill walk back. I also know that I can take the combi bus to the Walmart-ish large grocery stores in anywhere from ½ hour to an hour, depending on the time of day. Mornings are better, 12:30 – 4:30 is worse, with packed combis and some so full they can’t even stop, so it’s best to plan those trips for mornings.

I’ve had to schedule my time around the visits from the blacksmith who is making the stair rails, and a few deliveries that are still coming. The stair rails are almost complete now, with just the small section at the bottom left to do.

Also, this week my landladies fixed my water heater, which had been unreliable until now. It is a gas, on-demand type water heater that gets hot water to my kitchen sink fairly quickly, but takes between 5 an 10 minutes to get the hot water to the shower. They recommend leaving it on pilot when I am not using hot water, which seems unnecessary but it’s not a great hardship, since I really only need the hot water occasionally during the day, when cleaning the kitchen and taking a shower. The landladies (las caseras) have been very good about taking care of any problems I have, even to the point of taking my dirty clothes to the lavanderia, where they washed and folded them. The lavanderia was very liberal in using fabric softener, and they made my bedroom smell like a giant dryer sheet for a few days afterward.

I am still losing weight, to judge by the way my clothes fit me. I can’t say how much because I still don’t have a scale. Also, the micro-mesh on my electric razor is starting to disintegrate and I can’t find a replacement here, so I will have to buy a new one. I think that the same store will be able to sell me a razor and a scale, so I will go there to pick them up this week.

Now that my life has settled down a bit, I have been able to work more on my online Spanish lessons and drawing classes. My Spanish comprehension is improving, and my drawing is slowly getting better – very slowly.

I haven’t been walking as much this week because I had to stay close to home for the blacksmith, but that should change next week. It’s important that I do some extended hard walking for my cardio/vascular disease, so I am going to try to get my walking in first thing every morning. I’m still angina-free and haven’t used any nitro since I’ve been in Atlixco, and I will probably wean myself off of Imdur in the coming weeks.

As my life gets into more of a routine, these updates will probably be weekly, and maybe even bi-weekly in the future.

Hasta luego.